The Class of ’65

There is a familiar ring to his concerns, a sense of déjà vu that takes you back 40 years: the run-up to the 1965 Indo-Pak war, and the war itself, were the IAF’s first hard lessons in the “dangers of neglecting offensive and support capabilities”. In what is one of the most graphic and honest accounts of the war, PVS Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra’s The India-Pakistan Air War of 1965 (Manohar Books, 2005) introduces you to an IAF, which, on the threshold of an uncertain long-term expansion plan, is suddenly told to go to war in old, equally uncertain machines.

The account by Mohan and Chopra, replete with interviews with pilots and veterans, squadron diaries and unpublished photographs, not only demolishes myths and counterclaims on both sides but makes one of the most critical points of all — that the 1965 operations inestimably helped prepare the IAF for a war which was to be upon it just six years later, and possibly put in perspective for the government, the immediate need for a progressive and structured modernization programme, one that would leave the ground in the late 1970s.

The account does both nations service by unmasking insightful official accounts of the war: “To bolster a nation’s morale, deliberate untruths are fed to the public, intending to keep both the public as well as the military in high spirits. Admissions of severe setbacks or of inaction against the enemy would invite public anger. Both India as well as Pakistan abide by this style. Thus, the Indian public never hears of the retreat to Jaurian or Khem Karan, while the Pakistani public never hears of the retreat from Wagah, or the battering its armour received at Assal Uttar.”

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