AFVOA Newsletter of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 01 / 2021 Page 56 of 123 aircraft fire found its mark, hitting the RB-57B and damaging one of its engines. The stricken ELINT aircraft was forced to turn back though its pilot, Squadron Leader Iqbal, managed to nurse back his aircraft to Peshawar. The Sabres were forced to abort the mission as they were unable to locate the radar in face of the intense anti-aircraft fire. Thus ended the first PAF raid to neutralise the radar – an abject failure and though the RB-57B had managed to get back to its base, it was so badly damaged that it was not available for the rest of the duration of the war. Frustrated by their failure to locate the radar much less hit it, PAF now decided to use its RT-33 Shooting Star aircraft to try and locate the radar. Squadron leader Mubraiz-ud- Din of No 20 Squadron, PAF carried out an early morning Photo Reconnaissance (PR) sortie on the 7th September and based on its results, PAF was now confident that it had ‘workable intelligence’ to plan the next raid. It came soon enough, as PAF F-104 Starfighter and F-86 Sabres attacked the radar at 09:10 hours on September 7 itself. But the end result was the same as the Air Defence gunners once again rose to the challenge as the effective anti-aircraft fire prevented the Sabres from locating the radar. Frustrated, the Sabres, turned their attention towards the anti-aircraft guns and directly attacked them to try and silence them. Havildar Athanikal Basil Jesudasan, the detachment commander of the gun being attacked by the Sabres, skilfully controlled the fire, hitting and damaging one Sabre. Faced with the wall of anti-aircraft fire, the PAF again turned tail and went back, unsuccessful in their attempt to neutralise the radar. PAF made two more attempts on September 8 but without any success. Changing tracks, it tried using napalm bombs on September 9 to neutralise the radar. The Sabres came in very low, between 100 and 200 feet above ground level, flying straight towards one of the L/70 guns. Failing to deliver the payload in the first run, the Sabre turned, and made a second run at the same gun. As it circled back, the detachment commander of the adjoining No 2 gun noticed the napalm bomb suspended below the Sabre. As the Sabre was approaching the No 1 gun position, the adjoining gun fired off five to six rounds in the path of the attacking Sabre. The shells forced the Sabre to veer sharply to the left, just as it was releasing the napalm. This made the napalm fall away from the intended point – and the only damage it caused was a burnt 40 pounder tent! The next day, i.e. September 10, PAF followed up with two more missions against Amritsar radar by a total of 12 F-86s from Sargodha, escorted by 2 F-104s as top cover. Having failed to cause any damage to the radar in their earlier attempts, PAF had now decided to use 2.75 inch rockets. The first attack went in and the Sabres managed to hit