Air Supremacy In The East During The Bangladesh Liberation War 1971

To achieve our national aim of resettling the East Pakistani refugees back into their homes, India had been helping the Mukti Bahini, without our forces overtly crossing the border.

When the Pakistan Air Force attacked IAF airfields and the Pak Army began their attack in the west, India declared war against Pakistan. We did that just after the brave Bengali pilots of Kilo Flight had fired the first salvo in the east.

Now that we were openly at war, there was no need for the IAF to hold back. So, later that night, IAF Canberra bombers attacked PAF bases at Tejgaon and Kurmitola.?

While Pakistani leadership believed that “The defence of the East lies in the West,” Indian leaders wanted “Quick results in the East, and a holding battle in the West.”

On the morning of 4th December, the ‘Counter-Air’ campaign continued, the aim being to neutralise the PAF.

Why? Because, as has been succinctly said, “He who controls the air, controls everything on the surface below.”

So, we had to destroy or ‘ground’ the PAF in the East, and achieve ‘Air Superiority’ so that our Navy could blockade the supplies coming by sea and the Army could move fast across East Pakistan to Dhaka, without having to worry about air attacks from the PAF.???

The IAF took extreme care not to harm any civilians in ‘collateral damage’ while attacking PAF bases.

We attacked the Pak airfields to search and destroy the PAF aircraft and the supporting infrastructure. But that’s not a simple task.?

The PAF, exactly like us, had camouflaged and dispersed their planes, so locating them was akin to - pardon the cliché - finding a needle in the haystack.?

Actually, even more difficult than that.

Imagine, you are flying over a well-defended enemy airfield, at low level, at around 900 kilometres per hour, which is 250 meters per second!?

At that speed, in the reduced visibility due to winter fog, you have to search for targets, looking left and right at the ground.?

In addition to that, you must scan the sky above to look for enemy fighter planes pouncing on you.?

All this, while many anti-aircraft guns are firing their 40-millimetre shells at you, at 120 rounds per minute, which is two per second!??

Naturally, although we did damage equipment and harass the PAF, our strikes were not completely successful, because the PAF fighters were still flying and shooting at us.

wikimedia

Then, the IAF decided to change the weapons, and the attack patterns using the MiG-21 aircraft.?

Remember, MiG-21 is primarily a high-speed Air Defence fighter, meant to intercept fast intruders.?

Our MiGs used to accompany the Hunter and Canberra aircraft to protect them against the PAF Sabres and sometimes carried rockets for ground attack.

This time, a four aircraft formation of the MiGs carried two 500kg bombs each to Tejgaon airfield.?

The Quint

The recommended method of bombing was to make a single, low-level, high-speed pass at an angle to the runway, to maximise own survivability against anti-aircraft guns.?

The other three aircraft in the formation would follow in quick succession from different directions, so that the defending guns had no time to realign their aim.

But this type of attack affords lesser accuracy and requires a larger attacking force and repeated missions over days or weeks.?

With a war on two fronts and the need for our army to gain ground quickly, the IAF chose to carry out steep attacks along the direction of the runway in a 60-degree dive.?

The steep dive would ensure better accuracy, greater bomb impact and more damage, but was far more dangerous for our attacking aircraft.?

That’s because they’re in a steady dive for a long time, coming one after another in a single line, becoming easy targets for the air defence artillery guns.

Painting by Group Captain Deb Gohain

Yet, the IAF chose this type of attack to save time and effort, even at the cost of increased risk to our pilots.

The four aircraft dropped their bombs with amazing accuracy, creating eight vast craters on the runway, rendering it unusable.?

As we discovered after the war, the accuracy of the bombing surprised even the Russians, who manufactured the MiG, as well as their rivals in cold war, the Americans, who were Pakistan’s staunch supporters then.?

But PAF authorities were obviously prepared for such a possibility, and carried out emergency repairs to the runway within a day and night.?

They repaired just enough length of the runway for their Sabres to take off. The Sabres would get airborne, and lie in wait to shoot down the next wave of IAF attackers who were sure to appear at daylight.?

They expected the IAF to arrive around sunrise, because attacks at night, with any accuracy, were impossible with the technology available then.

To their utter shock, the IAF MiGs arrived just before daylight and bombed the repaired part of the runway.??

IAF Archives

Seeing the accuracy and the depth of that damage, in a chillingly prophetic statement, a senior Pakistan Air Force officer reportedly said, “The PAF is now grounded and the fate of East Pakistan is sealed.”

The IAF followed up with more daylight attacks on all potential targets and achieved a rare feat in modern warfare - not mere ‘Air Superiority’, but ‘Air Supremacy’.?

And that hastened the fall of East Pakistan.

?Avinash Chikte

This is the fifth in a series covering the major air actions of the 1971 war on the occasion of its 50th Anniversary.?Watch this space.?