DID WE INVESTIGATED 1965 WHY M.M. ALAM

[javedm]

A US drone flying over tribal area was targeted and hit by tribal residents. The ISPR spokesman stated that the matter will be “investigated”. What and why to investigate, if we really are a sovereign state? If thieves come and try to enter my home to kill us or snatch valuables will it be a crime needing investigation if we throw hot boiling water from the upper storey on these thieves to protect ourselves rather than keep waiting in vain police to arrive? Drones almost daily are coming and killing the tribal citizens majority of whom are true civilian Pakistanis. In case our President the real Head of our armed forces for some reason is hesitant to protect these citizens is it crime fetching “investigation” if these fearful civilians in order to protect themselves in defence kill the coming attacking thieves? Early this month we jubilantly celebrated 06th September whole day showing clips of our hero M.M. Alam destroying 5 Indian planes in two minute during 1965 war. Whole day we praised this act of M.M. Alam. When M.M. Alam destroyed these attacking planes, the then ISPR or the then President Ayub Khan who was also a constitutional Head of armed forces like Zardari did not order “investigation” as to why M.M. Alam destroyed this attacking planes.

 

[araz]

Javedm.
Only one answer to your long statement. Beggers cant be choosers. Till such time that we are financially and ideologically enslaved to the whiteman, we will never see the right and wrongs of this world and will always see the world through the colour which our master wants us to see.
Regards
Araz

 

[Muradk]

War was declared between both states after that you don't need justification to shoot down a fighter who's 100 miles inside your airspace, at that time you don't need to ask the president or even your Officer Commanding to engage.

 

[Awesome]

Javed, please make more coherent thread titles. I can't understand at all what that is supposed to mean.

 

[ngold]

A US drone flying over tribal area was targeted and hit by tribal residents. The ISPR spokesman stated that the matter will be “investigated”. What and why to investigate, if we really are a sovereign state? If thieves come and try to enter my home to kill us or snatch valuables will it be a crime needing investigation if we throw hot boiling water from the upper storey on these thieves to protect ourselves rather than keep waiting in vain police to arrive? Drones almost daily are coming and killing the tribal citizens majority of whom are true civilian Pakistanis. In case our President the real Head of our armed forces for some reason is hesitant to protect these citizens is it crime fetching “investigation” if these fearful civilians in order to protect themselves in defence kill the coming attacking thieves? Early this month we jubilantly celebrated 06th September whole day showing clips of our hero M.M. Alam destroying 5 Indian planes in two minute during 1965 war. Whole day we praised this act of M.M. Alam. When M.M. Alam destroyed these attacking planes, the then ISPR or the then President Ayub Khan who was also a constitutional Head of armed forces like Zardari did not order “investigation” as to why M.M. Alam destroyed this attacking planes.

Please don't make false claim... BTW who is that MM Alam.. Where was he in 1971? Please provide realistic facts..

 

[Spring Onion]

Please don't make false claim... BTW who is that MM Alam.. Where was he in 1971? Please provide realistic facts..

.
though hard for you to absorb but here it is something for you


"Mohammad Mahmood Alam was born in Behar, western Bengal, on July 6, 1935. He was in his early teens when he saw India achieve independence in 1946 only to be split as a result of violent religious and political differences between Muslims and Hindus. The result was the creation in August 1947 of the Islamic State of Pakistan, whose divided territories existed both to the northeast and northwest of India. Alam's own hometown fell within Indian territory, and his family was compelled to move.



Alam embraced the RAF tradition of professionalism with equal enthusiasm. His own gunnery scores - an average of 70 percent - were the highest in PAF, and by September 1965 he had accumulated 1,400 hours in the North American F-86F Sabre alone. To this he added experience in other aircraft, both at home and abroad, among them the Hawker Hunter, a type that became the mainstay of the IAF.

The first unit to which Alam was assigned, No. 11 Squadron, had the distinction of being the first PAF unit to use jet fighters, being equipped with the Supermarine Attackers in 1951. It was also the PAF only jet fighter squadron until 1955, when United States began selling F-86F to Pakistan. In 1956 No. 11 was re-equipped with the new Sabres, and by 1965 it was part of No. 33 Wing, based at Sargodha, in West Pakistan. In February 1964, Alam took command of No. 11 Squadron, while his predecessor, Wing Commander Muhammad Anwar Shamim, was promoted to command of No. 33 Wing.

Meanwhile, war clouds were gathering over Kashmir. Far to the south, in the Rann of Kutch on the coast of the Arabian Sea, intermittent armed clashes broke out between Indian and Pakistani forces in January 1965. In the months that followed Pakistan began recrutting and arming a "Free Kashmir" guerilla army, called the Mujahiddin. Indian troops responded by occupying the strategically important region of Kargil, on the Pakistani side of the cease-fire line, on August 15. Tensions escalated until finally, on September 6, open warfare broke out between India and Pakistan.

The armies of the two countries were about equal in numbers, but India enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in the air, having 476 fighters and 60 bombers at the start of the war, against 104 fighters and 26 bombers of the PAF. From the outset, the Pakistani pilots knew that only their intensive training would enable them to successfully defend their airspace. At the time hostilities commenced, No. 33 Wing at Sargodha could field a total of 30 Sabres, of which 22 supplemented their six .50-caliber machine guns with wing-mounted AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. For Squadron Leader Alam, the war began in earnest at 5:30 a.m. on September 2, when he led seven Sabres against Indian troop concentrations reported to be at Jaurian. The Pakistanis saw nothing at first, then Ala, noticed Indian troops hidden in an orchard. He and his pilots strafed the enemy with gunfire and rockets, hitting five tanks and damaging a personnel carrier. Two days later, Alam was flying a low-level reconnaissance mission near the Indian airfield at Jammu when he came under groundfire and his cockpit canopy was shattered. Temporarily blinded by debris, Alam nevertheless maintained control of his F-86 and completed his mission. Spotting Indian artillery positions, he carried out two firing passes before his overheated guns jammed.

Alam led a section of three Sabres in a low-level raid on the Indian airbase at Adampur at dusk on September 6. As they neared their target, a quartet of Hawker Hunters suddnely crossed their Sabres' path at the slightly higher altitude of 500feet. Alam later described the encounter: "I remember thinking what very pretty aircraft werebrand-new Hunters were as I ordered my section to punch tanks. The Hunters also jettisoned their drop tanks, and we turned into each other for combat. The fight didn't last long. I got my sights on the No. 4 Hunter, and after a brief burst, he flicked and went into the ground in a great ball of flame, although I am not certain whether I hit him or not. We were now evenly matched, numerically, although I never fought at such low altitudes again, nor often at such low speeds."

As the twisting dogfight continued, Alam downed another Hunter. At that point, however, the Sabres were low on fuel, and Alam ordered them to disengage. He later learned that, unknown to him at the time, the PAF command had aborted the Adampur strike. As their wingmen made their way back to base, Alam ran into two more Hunters.

"I turned into them and took a shot at the last man at long range," said Alam. "He turned into me, then took off his bank. I think I registered hits - I only saw smoke coming out, but no flames. As a wise man, I thought I should not turn back after him as I was low on fuel. So I crossed the border and climbed up to contact our CGI [ground control intercept] and check my position. I was not sure what had happened to the rest of my flight, and I was relieved to hear that they were all in the vicinity of Sargodha, where I came back and landed. This was the first time we had encountered the Hunters, and any misgivings we had in our minds were resolved that day. In maneuverability, the Sabre was undoubtedly better then the Hunter."

Squadron Leader Alauddin "Butch" Ahmed and Flt. Lt. Syed Saad Akhtar Hatmi, who had accompanied Alam, claimed a Hunter as damaged. Postwar examinations of IAF records mention that Squadron Leader Ajit Kumar Rawley of No. 7 Squadron was killed when his Hunter flew into ground, but the record is vague as to whether or not that was during combat. Other Indian aircraft might have been damaged, but there are no specific records. Discrepancies between claims made in good faith and actual enemy losses date to World War I and apply to all war air combatants. The high-speed encounters of the jet age certainly put more strain on human perception, increasing the likelihood of such discrepancies.

The following day, Alam and some his comrades were of No. 11 sat strapped in the cockpits of their Sabres, waiting to scramble, when seven French-built Dassault Mystere IV-A fighter-bombers of No.1 Squadron, IAF, suddenly came towards them out of the rising sun at tree-top level. As the Pakistani airmen looked up in disbelief, the Mysteres pulled up to about 1,000feet and sprayed the tarmac with rockets - but they only hit the empty areas. They then fired at the same areas with their twin 30mm cannons and disappeared to the southwest, after one of their Mysteres, flown by Squadron Leader A. B. Devayya, was hit by 20mm cannon fire from a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter of No. 9 Squadron, PAF. Devayya was killed, but the victorious Pakistani pilot, Flt. Lt. Amjad Hussein Khan was forced to eject when his F-104 was struck by the debris from his victim's exploding aircraft. The attack had left the vulnerable airfield unharmed.

After the Mysteres departed, Alam and his wingman, Flying Officer Mohammed Masood Akhtar, took off. Within five minutes, they were directed by ground control to intercept another incoming Indian raid. They had only flown eastwards for 10 to 15 miles when they were ordered to return, as still more Indian fighters had appeared over Sargodha.

"As we vectored back towards Sargodha," Alam recounted in a postwar interview, "Akhtar called, 'contact - four Hunters,' and I saw the IAF aircraft diving to attack our airfield. So I jettisoned my [drop tanks] to dive through our own ack-ack after them. In the meantime, I saw two more Hunters about 1,000feet to my rear, so I forgot the four in front and pulled up to go after the pair behind. The Hunters broke off their attempted attack on Sargodha, and the pair turned on me. I was flying much faster then they were at this stage - I must have been doing about 500 knots - so I pulled up to avoid overshooting them and then reversed to close in as they flew back towards India."

"I took the last man and dived behind him," Alam's report continued, "getting very low in the process. The Hunter can outrun the Sabre - it's only about 50 knots faster, but has much better acceleration, so it can pull away very rapidly. Since I was diving, I was going still faster, and as he was out of gun range, I fired the first of my two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles at him. In this case we were too low and I saw the missile hit the ground short of its target. This area east of Sargodha, however, has lots of high tension wires, some of them as high as 100-150 feet, and when I saw the two Hunters pull up to avoid one of these cables, I fired the second Sidewinder. The missile streaked in front of me, but I didn't see it strike. The next thing I remember was that I was overshooting one of the Hunters and when I looked behind, the cockpit canopy was missing and there was no pilot in the aircraft. He had obviously pulled up and ejected and then I saw him coming down by parachute."

Alam's alleged victim, Squadron Leader Onkar Nath Kacker, was the commander of No. 27 Squadron, IAF, based at Halwara. After being returned to India, he claimed that he had flown 150 kilometers east of Sargodha when his engine stopped due to a boaster pump failure. It is possible that anything from mechanical failure to fragment's from Alam's exploding Sidewinder might have been responsible for the loss of Kacker's plane, but certainly Alam's perception of his going down near Sargodha was erroneous.

At that point, Alam lost sight of the remaining five Hunters, but he had plenty of fuel left and was prepared to fly as far as 60 miles in an attempt to catch up with them. Alam and his wingman had just flown over the Chenab river when Akhtar called out, "Contact - Hunters 1 o'clock." Alam immediately spotted them - ans as he described it: "five Hunters in absolutely immaculate battle formation. They were flying at about 100-200 feet, at around 480 knots and when I was in gunfire range, they saw me. They all broke in one direction, climbing and turning steeply to the left, which put them in loose line astern. This of course was their big mistake…."

What happened next occurred very quickly. "We were all turning very tightly - in access of 5g or just about on the limits of the Sabre's very accurate A-4 radar ranging gunsight," Alam reported " And I think before we had completed more than about 270 degrees of the turn, at about 12 degrees per second, all four Hunters had been shot down. In each case, I got the piper of my sight around the canopy of the Hunter for virtually a full deflection shot. Almost all of our shooting throughout the war was at very high angles off - seldom less then 30 degrees. Unlike some of the Korean combat films I had seen, nobody in our war was shot down flying straight or level."
Alam knew that downing four enemy aircraft in less then one minute was a feat that took some explaining. "I developed a technique of firing very short bursts - around half a second or less," he said. "The first burst was almost a sighter, but with a fairly large bullet pattern from six machine guns, it almost invariably punctured the fuel tanks so that they streamed kerosene. During the battle of September 7, as we went around into a turn, I could just see, in light of the rising sun, the plumes of fuel gushing from the tanks after my hits. Another half-second burst was then sufficient to set fire to the fuel, and, as the Hunter became a ball of fire, I would quickly shift my aim forward to the next aircraft. The Sabre carried about 1,800 rounds of ammunition for its six 0.5 inch guns, which can therefore fire about 15 seconds. In air combat, this is lifetime. Every fourth or fifth round is an armor-piercing bullet, and the rest are HEI - high explosive incendiary.

"My fifth victim of this sortie started spewing smoke and then rolled on to his back at about 1,000 feet. I thought he was going to do a barrel role, which at low altitude is a very dangerous maneuver for the pursuer if the man in front knows what he is doing. I went almost on my back and then realized I might not be able to stay with him, so I took off bank and pushed the nose down. The next time I fired was at very close range - about 600 feet or so - and his aircraft virtually blew in front of me.

"Hunter pilots won't believe it," remarked Alam. "I have flown the Hunters myself in England, and they are very maneuverable aircraft , but I think the F-86 is better. Actually the Sabre has a fantastic turning performance. Although the normal stalling speed with flap is about 92 knots or less in a descending scissors maneuver, between 100 and 120 knots is quite normal speed range to rack the Sabre around in combat….

"In a turn the Hunter slows down more quickly then the F-86 for the same application of g. for one thing, it has a much higher aspect ratio - in other words, the lower the speed, the higher the induced drag. This means the Hunter losses speed faster then the Sabre in a turn because of its higher drag rise, which the extra thrust can not counter. So in the turn I steadily closed up on the Hunters, which quickly decelerated from about 450 knots to around 240 knots, and would have had to pull about 7g to get away from me. As it was they just slid back into my sight, one by one."

Later, the Pakistanis found the wreckage of two of Alam's victims a few miles from the Sangla Hill railroad station, along with the bodies of their pilots - identified as a Hindu and a Sikh but otherwise too badly burnt for individual identification. The IAF later reported the loss of Squadron Leader S. B. Bhagwat and Flying Officer J. S. Brar of No. 7 Squadron. Alam's two other claims were evidently more examples of overclaiming in the heat of combat. His remaining antagonists, Wing Commander Toric Zacharaiah (the commander of the No.7 Squadron) and Flt. Lts. Ajit S. Lamba and Manmoham S. Sinha, returned to their base safely. Lamba and Sinha later went on to become air marshals of the IAF.

Alam's third and last air-to-air clash with the IAF occurred on September 16, when he and Flying Officer Mohammed I. Shaukat entered enemy airspace and were detected by the Indians flying 10 miles from the airfields of Halwara and Adampur. Two Hunters scrambled to intercept them. Alam reported the situation to the GCI at Sakesar and was asked if he wanted to engage the Indians, since his wingman had no more than 80 hours flying time in the Sabre and 19 combat missions in his logbook. "Now we are here," Alam replied. "We've got to fight."

"They were flying very fast," Alam reported afterwards. "We were doing about Mach .8 but they must have been diving at around Mach .95 or more. They couldn't stay in our turn, so they zoomed up in a yo-yo maneuver. When I reversed back they both pulled through from there, and we dived behind them until at about 13-14,000 feet they separated in a vertical break."

Alam went after the climbing Hunter and engaged it at about 20,000 feet. His frst burst of gunfire missed, but second scored a hit. "At the third burst he became a ball of flame," Alam said, "so I turned back and looked for my wingman…. Then suddenly I lost all radio contact with him, although I could see him in the distance and I saw the Hunter break away from him."

"The Hunter saw me," Alam continued, "and although he was close to his base, he didn't accept combat. He turned away from me and accelerated rapidly in a dive, although I followed as closely as possible behind him. I knew we were approaching close to the airfield of Halwara and suspected a trap, but then he did a loose sort of a roll to clear his tail, so he had obviously lost me. I had a good 5-6,000 feet below him, at about Mach .94 - .95, and when I felt that he was slowing down, I fired a Sidewinder at him. There was something wrong with the missile, however, as it turned through 90 degrees soon after its release."

"I continued diving after him, however, and then released my second Sidewinder, which scored a hit on his right wing root. As it began to smoke, I saw that we were crossing the Halwara Canal and as I was well inside Indian territory and getting a bit short of fuel, I immediately half-rolled and dived down to tree top level. When I hit the River Ravi, which marks the border between India and Pakistan, I climbed up to conserve fuel, feeling very miserable at having lost my No.2."

Although Alam had not seen the second Hunter crash, the PAF credited him with both planes, for his eight and ninth victories of the war. As in the earlier cases, one of the Alam's victim survived to give his own description of the fight. When the PAF's F-86s were reported, Flying Officer Prakash S. Pingale and F. Dara Bunsha of No. 7 Squadron scrambled up from Halwara. Pingale reported that he got behind the first Sabre, which turned south, then spotted the second "at about 4 o'clock at a range of about 1,000 yardsand about to fire on us." He then told Bunsha to "go for Sabre No. 1," while he engaged the other.

"Sabre No.2 attempted to shake me off by pulling up into the sun," Pingale said. "He also jettisoned his external loads and pulled up steeply as a last ditch maneuver to make me overshoot him, perhaps by the use of leading edge slats…. I was able to open fire at about 350-400 yards. The aircraft literally exploded in front of me."

At that point, Pingale saw saw Bunsha engaging in scissors maneuver with Alam's F-86. He radioed a warning to Bunsha that the Sabre held the advantage in such a fight. But Bunsha was going down in flames by the time he intervened. "Seeing me coming towards him Sabre No.1 left my No. 2 and turned towards me," Pingale continued. "As we crossed head-on, he opened fire on me…. As I reversed to engage Sabre No. 1 in 1 vs. 1 combat, to my utter dismay I found that instead of fighting with me he had half-rolled and was speedily trying to get away in a vertical dive. I attempted to close in but lost contact with Sabre No. 1 because I blacked out due to excessive g (around 8-10 as recorded by my g-meter)." As he returned to Halwara, Pingale could not recall seeing his Pakistani opponent ever fire a missile at him, but he later admitted that his preceptions were somewhat impaired by the pain of a slight back injury he had sustained after being hit by ground fire and bailing out a few days earlier, aggravated by the effects of his high-g turn. Pingale was rewarded the Vir Chakra for his valor in September 16 dogfight and is currently the inspector general of the IAF.

 

[Muradk]

Please don't make false claim... BTW who is that MM Alam.. Where was he in 1971? Please provide realistic facts..

Challo another poster who just wants to make waves in this forum. If you dont know who MM is than I think you have no business over here .
in 71 He flew with me 3 missions from Sargodha but he was called back to AHQ as dpt Dir OPS. The notions that no bangali will fly was wrong plus MM was Bahari.
With such credentials you keep your assets safe from the enemy. People who know me personally on this forum can say without doubt that my word can be taken as Facts not fiction. I can stand on any platform and say that IAF didn't have a pilot who could match his caliber.

 

[Spring Onion]

Challo another poster who just wants to make waves in this forum. If you dont know who MM is than I think you have no business over here .
in 71 He flew with me 3 missions from Sargodha but he was called back to AHQ as dpt Dir OPS. The notions that no bangali will fly was wrong plus MM was Bahari.
With such credentials you keep your assets safe from the enemy. People who know me personally on this forum can say without doubt that my word can be taken as Facts not fiction. I can stand on any platform and say that IAF didn't have a pilot who could match his caliber.

Yes Sir no doubt about it.

Plus i had posted all the details of his missions and even version of Indian piolts in the post above your post so Sir i guess you will also agree with that.

 

[ngold]

.
though hard for you to absorb but here it is something for you


"Mohammad Mahmood Alam was born in Behar, western Bengal, on July 6, 1935. He was in his early teens when he saw India achieve independence in 1946 only to be split as a result of violent religious and political differences between Muslims and Hindus. The result was the creation in August 1947 of the Islamic State of Pakistan, whose divided territories existed both to the northeast and northwest of India. Alam's own hometown fell within Indian territory, and his family was compelled to move.



Alam embraced the RAF tradition of professionalism with equal enthusiasm. His own gunnery scores - an average of 70 percent - were the highest in PAF, and by September 1965 he had accumulated 1,400 hours in the North American F-86F Sabre alone. To this he added experience in other aircraft, both at home and abroad, among them the Hawker Hunter, a type that became the mainstay of the IAF.

The first unit to which Alam was assigned, No. 11 Squadron, had the distinction of being the first PAF unit to use jet fighters, being equipped with the Supermarine Attackers in 1951. It was also the PAF only jet fighter squadron until 1955, when United States began selling F-86F to Pakistan. In 1956 No. 11 was re-equipped with the new Sabres, and by 1965 it was part of No. 33 Wing, based at Sargodha, in West Pakistan. In February 1964, Alam took command of No. 11 Squadron, while his predecessor, Wing Commander Muhammad Anwar Shamim, was promoted to command of No. 33 Wing.

Meanwhile, war clouds were gathering over Kashmir. Far to the south, in the Rann of Kutch on the coast of the Arabian Sea, intermittent armed clashes broke out between Indian and Pakistani forces in January 1965. In the months that followed Pakistan began recrutting and arming a "Free Kashmir" guerilla army, called the Mujahiddin. Indian troops responded by occupying the strategically important region of Kargil, on the Pakistani side of the cease-fire line, on August 15. Tensions escalated until finally, on September 6, open warfare broke out between India and Pakistan.

The armies of the two countries were about equal in numbers, but India enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in the air, having 476 fighters and 60 bombers at the start of the war, against 104 fighters and 26 bombers of the PAF. From the outset, the Pakistani pilots knew that only their intensive training would enable them to successfully defend their airspace. At the time hostilities commenced, No. 33 Wing at Sargodha could field a total of 30 Sabres, of which 22 supplemented their six .50-caliber machine guns with wing-mounted AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. For Squadron Leader Alam, the war began in earnest at 5:30 a.m. on September 2, when he led seven Sabres against Indian troop concentrations reported to be at Jaurian. The Pakistanis saw nothing at first, then Ala, noticed Indian troops hidden in an orchard. He and his pilots strafed the enemy with gunfire and rockets, hitting five tanks and damaging a personnel carrier. Two days later, Alam was flying a low-level reconnaissance mission near the Indian airfield at Jammu when he came under groundfire and his cockpit canopy was shattered. Temporarily blinded by debris, Alam nevertheless maintained control of his F-86 and completed his mission. Spotting Indian artillery positions, he carried out two firing passes before his overheated guns jammed.

Alam led a section of three Sabres in a low-level raid on the Indian airbase at Adampur at dusk on September 6. As they neared their target, a quartet of Hawker Hunters suddnely crossed their Sabres' path at the slightly higher altitude of 500feet. Alam later described the encounter: "I remember thinking what very pretty aircraft werebrand-new Hunters were as I ordered my section to punch tanks. The Hunters also jettisoned their drop tanks, and we turned into each other for combat. The fight didn't last long. I got my sights on the No. 4 Hunter, and after a brief burst, he flicked and went into the ground in a great ball of flame, although I am not certain whether I hit him or not. We were now evenly matched, numerically, although I never fought at such low altitudes again, nor often at such low speeds."

As the twisting dogfight continued, Alam downed another Hunter. At that point, however, the Sabres were low on fuel, and Alam ordered them to disengage. He later learned that, unknown to him at the time, the PAF command had aborted the Adampur strike. As their wingmen made their way back to base, Alam ran into two more Hunters.

"I turned into them and took a shot at the last man at long range," said Alam. "He turned into me, then took off his bank. I think I registered hits - I only saw smoke coming out, but no flames. As a wise man, I thought I should not turn back after him as I was low on fuel. So I crossed the border and climbed up to contact our CGI [ground control intercept] and check my position. I was not sure what had happened to the rest of my flight, and I was relieved to hear that they were all in the vicinity of Sargodha, where I came back and landed. This was the first time we had encountered the Hunters, and any misgivings we had in our minds were resolved that day. In maneuverability, the Sabre was undoubtedly better then the Hunter."

Squadron Leader Alauddin "Butch" Ahmed and Flt. Lt. Syed Saad Akhtar Hatmi, who had accompanied Alam, claimed a Hunter as damaged. Postwar examinations of IAF records mention that Squadron Leader Ajit Kumar Rawley of No. 7 Squadron was killed when his Hunter flew into ground, but the record is vague as to whether or not that was during combat. Other Indian aircraft might have been damaged, but there are no specific records. Discrepancies between claims made in good faith and actual enemy losses date to World War I and apply to all war air combatants. The high-speed encounters of the jet age certainly put more strain on human perception, increasing the likelihood of such discrepancies.

The following day, Alam and some his comrades were of No. 11 sat strapped in the cockpits of their Sabres, waiting to scramble, when seven French-built Dassault Mystere IV-A fighter-bombers of No.1 Squadron, IAF, suddenly came towards them out of the rising sun at tree-top level. As the Pakistani airmen looked up in disbelief, the Mysteres pulled up to about 1,000feet and sprayed the tarmac with rockets - but they only hit the empty areas. They then fired at the same areas with their twin 30mm cannons and disappeared to the southwest, after one of their Mysteres, flown by Squadron Leader A. B. Devayya, was hit by 20mm cannon fire from a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter of No. 9 Squadron, PAF. Devayya was killed, but the victorious Pakistani pilot, Flt. Lt. Amjad Hussein Khan was forced to eject when his F-104 was struck by the debris from his victim's exploding aircraft. The attack had left the vulnerable airfield unharmed.

After the Mysteres departed, Alam and his wingman, Flying Officer Mohammed Masood Akhtar, took off. Within five minutes, they were directed by ground control to intercept another incoming Indian raid. They had only flown eastwards for 10 to 15 miles when they were ordered to return, as still more Indian fighters had appeared over Sargodha.

"As we vectored back towards Sargodha," Alam recounted in a postwar interview, "Akhtar called, 'contact - four Hunters,' and I saw the IAF aircraft diving to attack our airfield. So I jettisoned my [drop tanks] to dive through our own ack-ack after them. In the meantime, I saw two more Hunters about 1,000feet to my rear, so I forgot the four in front and pulled up to go after the pair behind. The Hunters broke off their attempted attack on Sargodha, and the pair turned on me. I was flying much faster then they were at this stage - I must have been doing about 500 knots - so I pulled up to avoid overshooting them and then reversed to close in as they flew back towards India."

"I took the last man and dived behind him," Alam's report continued, "getting very low in the process. The Hunter can outrun the Sabre - it's only about 50 knots faster, but has much better acceleration, so it can pull away very rapidly. Since I was diving, I was going still faster, and as he was out of gun range, I fired the first of my two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles at him. In this case we were too low and I saw the missile hit the ground short of its target. This area east of Sargodha, however, has lots of high tension wires, some of them as high as 100-150 feet, and when I saw the two Hunters pull up to avoid one of these cables, I fired the second Sidewinder. The missile streaked in front of me, but I didn't see it strike. The next thing I remember was that I was overshooting one of the Hunters and when I looked behind, the cockpit canopy was missing and there was no pilot in the aircraft. He had obviously pulled up and ejected and then I saw him coming down by parachute."

Alam's alleged victim, Squadron Leader Onkar Nath Kacker, was the commander of No. 27 Squadron, IAF, based at Halwara. After being returned to India, he claimed that he had flown 150 kilometers east of Sargodha when his engine stopped due to a boaster pump failure. It is possible that anything from mechanical failure to fragment's from Alam's exploding Sidewinder might have been responsible for the loss of Kacker's plane, but certainly Alam's perception of his going down near Sargodha was erroneous.

At that point, Alam lost sight of the remaining five Hunters, but he had plenty of fuel left and was prepared to fly as far as 60 miles in an attempt to catch up with them. Alam and his wingman had just flown over the Chenab river when Akhtar called out, "Contact - Hunters 1 o'clock." Alam immediately spotted them - ans as he described it: "five Hunters in absolutely immaculate battle formation. They were flying at about 100-200 feet, at around 480 knots and when I was in gunfire range, they saw me. They all broke in one direction, climbing and turning steeply to the left, which put them in loose line astern. This of course was their big mistake…."

What happened next occurred very quickly. "We were all turning very tightly - in access of 5g or just about on the limits of the Sabre's very accurate A-4 radar ranging gunsight," Alam reported " And I think before we had completed more than about 270 degrees of the turn, at about 12 degrees per second, all four Hunters had been shot down. In each case, I got the piper of my sight around the canopy of the Hunter for virtually a full deflection shot. Almost all of our shooting throughout the war was at very high angles off - seldom less then 30 degrees. Unlike some of the Korean combat films I had seen, nobody in our war was shot down flying straight or level."
Alam knew that downing four enemy aircraft in less then one minute was a feat that took some explaining. "I developed a technique of firing very short bursts - around half a second or less," he said. "The first burst was almost a sighter, but with a fairly large bullet pattern from six machine guns, it almost invariably punctured the fuel tanks so that they streamed kerosene. During the battle of September 7, as we went around into a turn, I could just see, in light of the rising sun, the plumes of fuel gushing from the tanks after my hits. Another half-second burst was then sufficient to set fire to the fuel, and, as the Hunter became a ball of fire, I would quickly shift my aim forward to the next aircraft. The Sabre carried about 1,800 rounds of ammunition for its six 0.5 inch guns, which can therefore fire about 15 seconds. In air combat, this is lifetime. Every fourth or fifth round is an armor-piercing bullet, and the rest are HEI - high explosive incendiary.

"My fifth victim of this sortie started spewing smoke and then rolled on to his back at about 1,000 feet. I thought he was going to do a barrel role, which at low altitude is a very dangerous maneuver for the pursuer if the man in front knows what he is doing. I went almost on my back and then realized I might not be able to stay with him, so I took off bank and pushed the nose down. The next time I fired was at very close range - about 600 feet or so - and his aircraft virtually blew in front of me.

"Hunter pilots won't believe it," remarked Alam. "I have flown the Hunters myself in England, and they are very maneuverable aircraft , but I think the F-86 is better. Actually the Sabre has a fantastic turning performance. Although the normal stalling speed with flap is about 92 knots or less in a descending scissors maneuver, between 100 and 120 knots is quite normal speed range to rack the Sabre around in combat….

"In a turn the Hunter slows down more quickly then the F-86 for the same application of g. for one thing, it has a much higher aspect ratio - in other words, the lower the speed, the higher the induced drag. This means the Hunter losses speed faster then the Sabre in a turn because of its higher drag rise, which the extra thrust can not counter. So in the turn I steadily closed up on the Hunters, which quickly decelerated from about 450 knots to around 240 knots, and would have had to pull about 7g to get away from me. As it was they just slid back into my sight, one by one."

Later, the Pakistanis found the wreckage of two of Alam's victims a few miles from the Sangla Hill railroad station, along with the bodies of their pilots - identified as a Hindu and a Sikh but otherwise too badly burnt for individual identification. The IAF later reported the loss of Squadron Leader S. B. Bhagwat and Flying Officer J. S. Brar of No. 7 Squadron. Alam's two other claims were evidently more examples of overclaiming in the heat of combat. His remaining antagonists, Wing Commander Toric Zacharaiah (the commander of the No.7 Squadron) and Flt. Lts. Ajit S. Lamba and Manmoham S. Sinha, returned to their base safely. Lamba and Sinha later went on to become air marshals of the IAF.

Alam's third and last air-to-air clash with the IAF occurred on September 16, when he and Flying Officer Mohammed I. Shaukat entered enemy airspace and were detected by the Indians flying 10 miles from the airfields of Halwara and Adampur. Two Hunters scrambled to intercept them. Alam reported the situation to the GCI at Sakesar and was asked if he wanted to engage the Indians, since his wingman had no more than 80 hours flying time in the Sabre and 19 combat missions in his logbook. "Now we are here," Alam replied. "We've got to fight."

"They were flying very fast," Alam reported afterwards. "We were doing about Mach .8 but they must have been diving at around Mach .95 or more. They couldn't stay in our turn, so they zoomed up in a yo-yo maneuver. When I reversed back they both pulled through from there, and we dived behind them until at about 13-14,000 feet they separated in a vertical break."

Alam went after the climbing Hunter and engaged it at about 20,000 feet. His frst burst of gunfire missed, but second scored a hit. "At the third burst he became a ball of flame," Alam said, "so I turned back and looked for my wingman…. Then suddenly I lost all radio contact with him, although I could see him in the distance and I saw the Hunter break away from him."

"The Hunter saw me," Alam continued, "and although he was close to his base, he didn't accept combat. He turned away from me and accelerated rapidly in a dive, although I followed as closely as possible behind him. I knew we were approaching close to the airfield of Halwara and suspected a trap, but then he did a loose sort of a roll to clear his tail, so he had obviously lost me. I had a good 5-6,000 feet below him, at about Mach .94 - .95, and when I felt that he was slowing down, I fired a Sidewinder at him. There was something wrong with the missile, however, as it turned through 90 degrees soon after its release."

"I continued diving after him, however, and then released my second Sidewinder, which scored a hit on his right wing root. As it began to smoke, I saw that we were crossing the Halwara Canal and as I was well inside Indian territory and getting a bit short of fuel, I immediately half-rolled and dived down to tree top level. When I hit the River Ravi, which marks the border between India and Pakistan, I climbed up to conserve fuel, feeling very miserable at having lost my No.2."

Although Alam had not seen the second Hunter crash, the PAF credited him with both planes, for his eight and ninth victories of the war. As in the earlier cases, one of the Alam's victim survived to give his own description of the fight. When the PAF's F-86s were reported, Flying Officer Prakash S. Pingale and F. Dara Bunsha of No. 7 Squadron scrambled up from Halwara. Pingale reported that he got behind the first Sabre, which turned south, then spotted the second "at about 4 o'clock at a range of about 1,000 yardsand about to fire on us." He then told Bunsha to "go for Sabre No. 1," while he engaged the other.

"Sabre No.2 attempted to shake me off by pulling up into the sun," Pingale said. "He also jettisoned his external loads and pulled up steeply as a last ditch maneuver to make me overshoot him, perhaps by the use of leading edge slats…. I was able to open fire at about 350-400 yards. The aircraft literally exploded in front of me."

At that point, Pingale saw saw Bunsha engaging in scissors maneuver with Alam's F-86. He radioed a warning to Bunsha that the Sabre held the advantage in such a fight. But Bunsha was going down in flames by the time he intervened. "Seeing me coming towards him Sabre No.1 left my No. 2 and turned towards me," Pingale continued. "As we crossed head-on, he opened fire on me…. As I reversed to engage Sabre No. 1 in 1 vs. 1 combat, to my utter dismay I found that instead of fighting with me he had half-rolled and was speedily trying to get away in a vertical dive. I attempted to close in but lost contact with Sabre No. 1 because I blacked out due to excessive g (around 8-10 as recorded by my g-meter)." As he returned to Halwara, Pingale could not recall seeing his Pakistani opponent ever fire a missile at him, but he later admitted that his preceptions were somewhat impaired by the pain of a slight back injury he had sustained after being hit by ground fire and bailing out a few days earlier, aggravated by the effects of his high-g turn. Pingale was rewarded the Vir Chakra for his valor in September 16 dogfight and is currently the inspector general of the IAF.

please provide the neutral link....

 

[Spring Onion]

please provide the neutral link....

Pleas have a neutral brain or one at all if you can

 

[ngold]

Challo another poster who just wants to make waves in this forum. If you dont know who MM is than I think you have no business over here .
in 71 He flew with me 3 missions from Sargodha but he was called back to AHQ as dpt Dir OPS. The notions that no bangali will fly was wrong plus MM was Bahari.
With such credentials you keep your assets safe from the enemy. People who know me personally on this forum can say without doubt that my word can be taken as Facts not fiction. I can stand on any platform and say that IAF didn't have a pilot who could match his caliber.

Sorry but please prove ur claims.....

 

[ngold]

Pleas have a neutral brain or one at all if you can

Please if you have any neutral link then paste it otherwise please don't paste PAF history books chapters.....

 

[Spring Onion]

Please if you have any neutral link then paste it otherwise please don't paste PAF history books chapters.....

well i dont consider a person (who dosnt know about MM Alam) evern worth posting a line for.

Well Sir MuradK dosnt need to post a link for a thing like you dear.

He was in PAF he had missions with MM Alam so you better do not burdened your khopri at all.

 

[ngold]

well i dont consider a person (who dosnt know about MM Alam) evern worth posting a line for.

Well Sir MuradK dosnt need to post a link for a thing like you dear.

He was in PAF he had missions with MM Alam so you better do not burdened your khopri at all.

Jana u always keep asking for neutral sources and paste everyday anti-india/hindu post but today if u have nothing to support ur proof u started playing saint...

 

[Goodperson]

He was born in Kolkatta, West Bengal which was part of undivided Bengal in 1935. Not Behar , West Bengal.