Indians can post all the pictures they want to their heart's content and make unrealistic claims, the stark reality is how the neutral observers and world media saw and reported this war. Here are some extracts from that period's reporting.
SUNDAY TIMES, London, September 19, 1965.
"Pakistan has been able to gain complete command of the air by literally knocking the Indian planes out of the skies if they had not already run away.
Indian pilots are inferior to Pakistan's pilots and Indian officer's leadership has been generally deplorable. India is being soundly beaten by a nation which is outnumbered by a four and half to one in population and three to one in size of armed forces".
Peter Preston, The Guardian, London.
September 24, 1965.
"One thing I am convinced of is that Pakistan morally and even physically won the air battle against immense odds.
Although the Air Force gladly gives most credit to the Army, this is perhaps over-generous. India with roughly five times greater air power, expected an easy air superiority. Her total failure to attain it may be seen retrospectively as a vital, possibly the most vital, factor of the whole conflict.
Nur Khan is an alert, incisive man of 41, who seems even less. For six years until July he was on secondment and responsible for running Pakistan civil airline, which in a country, where now means sometime and sometime means never, is a model of efficiency. He talks without the jargon of a press relations officer. He does not quibble about figures, immediately one has confidence in what he says. His estimates proffered diffidently, but with as much photographic evidence as possible, speak for themselves. Indian and Pakistani losses, he thinks are in something like the ratio of ten to one.
"The Indians had no sense of purpose, the Pakistanis were defending their country and willingly taking greater risks. The average bomber crew flew 15 to 20 sorties. My difficulty was restraining them, not pushing them on".
" This is more than nationalistic pride. Talk to the pilots themselves, and you get the same intense story".
Patrick Seale, The Observer, London.
September 12, 1965.
"Pakistan's success in the air means that she had been able to deploy her relatively small army___ professionally among the best in Asia___ with impunity, plugging gaps in the long front in the face of each Indian thrust.
By all accounts the courage displayed by the PAF pilots is reminiscent of the bravery of the few young and dedicated pilots who saved this country from Nazi invaders in the critical Battle of Britain during the last war".
Roy Meloni, Correspondent of ABC,
September 15, 1965.
"I have been a journalist now for 20 years and want to go on record that i have never seen a more confident and victorious groups of soldiers than those fighting for Pakistan right now.
"India is claiming all out victory, i have not been able to find any trace of it. All i can see are troops, tanks and other war material rolling in a steady stream towards the front.
If the Indian Air Force is so victorious, why has it not tried to halt this flow?
The answer is that it has been knocked from the skies by Pakistani planes. These Muslims of Pakistan are natural fighters and they ask for no quarter and they give none.
In any war, such as the one going on between India and Pakistan right now, the propaganda claims on either side are likely to be startling, but if i have to take bet today, my money would be on Pakistan side.
Pakistan claims to have destroyed something like one third of the Indian Air Force, and foreign observers, who are in a position to know say that the actual kills may be even higher, but the PAF authorities are being scrupulously honest in evaluating these claims. They are crediting PAF only those killing that can be checked and verified from other sources.
INDONESIAN HERALD,
September 11 1965.
"The chief of Indian Air Force could no longer ensure the safety of Indian air space. A well known Indian journalist, Frank Moraes, in a talk from All-India Radio also admitted that Indian Air Force had suffered severe losses and it was no use hiding the fact and India should be prepared for more losses.........".
