AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 69 of 332 positioned ourselves at Daudkandi at 0730 on 14 Dec to take 23 Div troops and their load to Baidya Bazar. However, due to marshy terrain and exhaustion, the first lot of troops arrived at only around 1030 hrs. We had made three groups of 4 helicopters each. The first group was called Black, second one was called Red and third one was called Green – no idea why we did that. Must have sounded like a good idea at the time. Between 1100 and 1630 we did a total of 79 sorties crossing the Meghna river at its widest part, and carried 810 troops and 22,650 kgs of load from Daudkandi and Baidyabazar, a distance of about 25 km. Daudkandi is 66 km, south west of Agartala. Baidya Bazar is north of Narayanganj, southern outskirt of Dacca. A large part of 23 Div personnel crossed by b by boats. We carried the rest with their stores and guns which had been left behind. On 15 Dec 71, early morning, before a cease fire came into effect, we used 7 helicopters and continued our airlift of the stragglers of 23 Div from Daudkandi to Baidya Bazar. We did 43 sorties and carried 402 troops and 16,650 kgs of load. Between 14 & 15 Dec, we had ferried a total of 1212 troops and 89,300 kgs load of 23 Div from Daudkandy to Baidya Bazar in 122 sorties flying total of 62.20 hours.