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Review: Wings of Valour bySwapnil Pandey
A compendium of true sagas of the Indian Air Force’s daring operations including its many humanitarian and disaster relief missions
Swapnil Pandey’s Wings of Valour is an absorbing and informative compendium of true sagas of the Indian Air Force (IAF)’s daring operations. It includes an account of Operation Sindoor as well. Apart from covering the IAF’s many humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) missions such as Operation Rahat (Yemen, 2015), Operation Kaveri (Sudan, 2023), the Deoghar cable car rescue operation (Jharkhand, 2022), Operation Safed Sagar (Kargil War, 1999) and Operation Pawan (IPKF, Sri Lanka, 1989), the book also presents inspiring accounts of the ultimate sacrifices made by the Garud Commando Force, the IAF’s elite special forces unit.
The book opens with a brief history of the Indian Air Force, tracing its trajectory from its humble origins in 1932 to its current status as the third-ranking force in terms of capabilities in the world today. Despite its modest size at inception, it soon proved its mettle during World War II, earning recognition for exploits in the European, South Asian and Burmese theatres. For a short while, between 1945 and until India became a Republic in 1950 and dropped colonial vestiges, it had the “Royal” prefix to its name. The early Westland Wapiti IIA biplanes gave way to Tempests, Spitfires, Dakotas and Harvards, which did well immediately after Independence in dropping vital supplies, mauling Pakistani raiders in Kashmir and, alongside the Indian Army, thwarting their advance.
There is a reference to the “Father of the IAF”, Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, the first Indian Chief of Air Staff, who, unfortunately, choked on a morsel at dinner and died during an official visit to Tokyo in 1960.
Wings of Valour is the result of the author’s meticulous research over two years, supported by visits to operational commands and air bases as well as conversations with serving officers, veterans, colleagues and family members of IAF heroes who carried out daring missions and even sacrificed their lives.
The chapter on Operation Kaveri is a gripping account of an audacious rescue in Wadi Seidna, Sudan, in April 2023. The IAF launched a risky mission in which it used a C-130J Super Hercules to safely extract 118 Indian nationals and three Sudanese citizens amidst internal chaos and fighting in that country. Almost flying blind, the pilots skilfully landed at the remote airbase in pitch dark. The Garud Special Forces contingent, commanded by Squadron Leader Pritam Singh Jaitawat rounded up Indians from the milling crowds and took off before disaster could strike. A Turkish C-130 J aircraft engaged in a similar task was not so lucky. It was fired upon, thus highlighting the danger of the mission and the skill of the IAF team.
The next story is an account of the dangerous rescue operation mounted at Trikut Hill in Deoghar, Jharkhand. The Trikut ropeway had snapped, leaving 12 cable cars with a large number of helpless passengers dangling precariously high up in the air along a 766-metre stretch of the cableway. Civilian authorities did their best on the ground, but it was the IAF’s pilots who plucked out the stranded passengers in nearly impossible conditions. The account of the rescue operations gives the reader goosebumps. 27-year-old Garud Flight Lieutenant Tejpal Yadav and his teammates were lowered with a winch from a hovering Mi-17V-5 onto the greasy and unsteady metal roofs of swaying cable cars to offer food and water to the stranded occupants. Amid the strong downwash of air from swirling rotor blades, they eventually rescued the passengers with harnesses, one by one. All, but one, were saved thus averting a much bigger tragedy.
The Garud, as IAF’s Special Forces, have created quite a reputation for themselves since the force was established in 2004. They have the longest training course among all the Special Forces in India and have trained with elite units around the world such as the USAF STS, British SAS and the Israeli Sayeret Matkal.
It is to this stock of warriors that Corporal Gursevak Singh belonged. A recipient (posthumous) of the Shaurya Chakra, the equivalent of the Vir Chakra for outstanding valour in peacetime military operations, Gursevak’s saga unfolds in the context of the attack by Pakistani terrorists on the Pathankot Air Force Base in January 2016. He was part of the Garud team that set out to interdict the terrorists who had infiltrated the perimeter of the base. Despite the tall grass and poor visibility, the Garuds were onto them with the help of RPAs (Remotely Piloted Aircraft). In the ensuing fire fight, Gursevak was hit multiple times. But he refused to retreat and let his TAVOR CTAR assault rifle speak for him until life ebbed away. His bravery was matched by the extraordinary courage of Sepoy Jagdish Chand, Kirti Chakra (posthumous), of the Defence Security Corps (DSC). The veteran grappled with terrorists with his bare hands, managed to snatch a weapon from one, and shot him dead, before falling to gunfire from behind. He was one of five DSC personnel who made the supreme sacrifice that day.
Similar are the accounts of valour of Garud Corporal Nilesh Kumar Nayan, Shaurya Chakra (posthumous) and Sergeant Milind Kishore Khairnar, Shaurya Chakra (posthumous), though the setting for their deeds was Kashmir in October 2017. Both were deployed in the village of Rakh Hajin in terrorist-infested Bandipora district as part of a perimeter cordon during an operation aimed at flushing out and eliminating a group of terrorists. The Garud buddy pair eliminated some who rushed out firing indiscriminately in an attempt to break the cordon. About a month later, Corporal Jyoti Prakash Nirala, Ashok Chakra (posthumous), fell in the same area but only after his Negev Light Machine Gun (LMG) had decimated the LeT terrorist group responsible for the earlier causalities.
Swapnil Pandey also takes readers back to the IAF’s Operation Safed Sagar during the Kargil war when India evicted intruders but desisted from crossing the Line of Control (LOC). The IAF took a few hits and causalities on the opening day of the conflict in May 1999 with the loss of one Mi-17 helicopter and its crew of four, Squadron leader Ajay Ahuja’s MiG-21M as well as Flight Lieutenant K Nachiketa’s MIG-27. Squadron Leader Ahuja was tortured and killed by the Pakistanis, after he had bailed out, whereas Flight Lieutenant Nachiketa was captured and eventually released. Pakistan’s disregard for the Shimla Accord, its transgressions across the LOC, and its utter violation of the soldier’s code in warfare are brought to light. But the IAF had the last laugh. It learned to stay out of reach of Stinger missiles and pulverized the Pakistani posts, particularly the logistics and ammunition depot at Muntho Dhalo, with precision-guided munitions (PGM) delivered by Mirage 2000 aircraft. The use of air power during the Kargil War proved to be the game changer even as the Indian Army exhibited the highest standards of bravery on the treacherous heights of forlorn mountain ranges.
The section on Operation Pawan offers a sobering lesson on the importance of intelligence, communication and coordination. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka was fighting the LTTE with one hand tied behind its back. The author presents the heart-wrenching tale of the IAF’s helicopter units and the troops of the 13 Sikh Light Infantry (LI), who were inserted alongside Para Commandos in a first-of-its-kind SHBO (Special Heli Borne Operation) over Jaffna University. The mission was conducted in an environment of great uncertainty. The fog of war compounded problems as eventually only 30 infantrymen could be para dropped instead of the originally-planned 360. The operation was a disaster; the LTTE mowed them down with heavy machine guns. Only one soldier survived.
The heroic stand of the 13 Sikh LI in Jaffna University in 1987 reminds one of the valour of other brave battalions of the Indian Army whose names were also prefixed with the number “13”: 13 JAK RIF was awarded 37 gallantry awards, including 2 Param Vir Chakras, during the Kargil war; and 13 KUMAON’s Charlie Company, led by Major Shaitan Singh, PVC (posthumous). Of the latter’s 120 men, 114 lost their lives in the heroic “last man last round” stand against overwhelmingly odds in the battle at Rezang-La during the 1962 war with China.
Swapnil Pandey’s must-read book ends with an informative chapter on some of the key platforms operated by the IAF, including frontline US-made transport aircraft and helicopters as well as the indigenous TEJAS LCA. All of it brings the reader up to speed with the IAF’s formidable capabilities today.
Sujan Chinoy is the Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.
