AFVOA Newsletter of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 01 / 2021 Page 58 of 123 last raid by two F-86 Sabres escorted by B-57s at about 16:15 hours on September 23, almost twelve hours after the declaration of the ceasefire. The bombs were dropped in Chheharta locality causing large number of civilian casualties. The radar remained safe. In all, PAF carried out twenty-nine missions against the radar during the war but thanks to the gallant Air Defence Gunners, the radar remained operational throughout. It was indeed a creditable performance by Air Defence Artillery, all the more as 19 Air Defence Regiment was yet to complete the conversion to the new guns and September 6 was the first time they had fired their guns – in fact, it was the first time the 40mm L/70 AA guns had been used in an operation anywhere in the world. Besides Havildar Jesudasan of 45 Air Defence Regiment who was awarded the Vir Chakra, 2nd Lieutenant Ajit Chavan, the Troop Commander of 19 Air Defence was awarded ‘Mention in Despatches’ while Subedar Rattan Khola, a Section Commander and Havildar Balbir Singh, a detachment commander were awarded the Sena Medal (Gallantry). About the Author Colonel Mandeep Singh, an Air Defence gunner, commanded his Regiment during Operation Parakaram and later along the LAC. He regularly writes on issues pertaining to aerospace and air defence and has authored two books on Air Defence Artillery.