Page 26 - seniors today november 2020

in the enemy position at Singhajhuli. This
The men of 14 Punjab were undaunted even when a
charging Chaffee closed in at 25 yards
steadfastly stuck to their defences giving a
determined fight.
By this time, Pakistani 6 Punjab, which
had been moving south, closed in through
the woods on Garibpur and attacked the
Battalion Headquarters area from the West.
Under Capt (later Brig) MPS Bajwa, the
Adjutant, the Battalion Headquarters and
Signal Platoon personnel in depth, engaged
the enemy effectively. This assault was
broken up by the use of very close artillery
support DF (SOS).
By about 8.30am the enemy momentum
of assault petered out and it was clear
that Nabha Akal with its affiliated units
had carried the day. The winter sun, now
up through the rising fog, revealed large
number of enemy casualties, which included
10 of enemy’s tanks destroyed and three
abandoned in good condition.
The Air Battle
Around 9.25am on November 22, 1971, four
enemy Sabre aircraft suddenly appeared
and started strafing the battalion defences.
One of our PT-76 tanks tried to engage the
enemy aircraft flying low with its machine
gun. This tank was rocketed by all the
aircraft and destroyed, while the crew was
seriously injured along with some troops
on the ground. The second time, at about
2pm the same day, enemy’s three aircraft
roared in freely when Maj Kailash Nath, the
Battery Commander, got a smoke shot fired
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deception paid good dividends as all the
enemy aircraft diverted their attack on their
troops at Singhajhuli.
Again at about 2.45pm the same day, three
more Pakistani aircraft roared in and were
having a free run, when suddenly, four
Indian Gnat aircrafts from No 22 Squadron
based in Kalaikunda appeared in the sky. In
the first aerial combat between the two sides
since the 1965 War, all three enemy aircraft
were shot down in the ensuing dog-fight.
Two of the Pakistani pilots, Flying Officers
Khalil Ahmed and Parvez Mehdi Qureshi,
ejected safely but were captured. The troops
on the ground had an uninterrupted view
of this air battle, which gave the Battalion a
tremendous fillip. Once more the diminutive
Indian Gnats flown by the IAF pilots had
established mastery over the Sabre jets. The
result was that since the interception of the
three Sabres over Garibpur, the PAF stopped
sending fighter-bombers to support own
troops.
Chivalry and Honour of Both Sides
Interestingly, Khalil Ahmed’s elder brother
Aziz Ahmed was later one of Pakistan’s
most popular High Commissioners to India.
Parvez Qureshi, a Sword of Honour at the
PAF Air Force Academy, later on became the
Chief of Air Staff of the Pakistan Air Force
in 1997. Don Lazarus (then a Flying Officer),
who had shot him down in 1971, sent him
a congratulatory letter to which Qureshi
kindly replied and complimented Lazarus
for the ‘fight’ shown by IAF pilots that day.
Gp Capt Lazarus, who later happened to be
our Instructor in the prestigious Defence
Services Staff College at Wellington, still
preserves this letter. It speaks volumes of
soldiering, chivalry and honour on both
sides!