HV538, a fighter-reconnaissance Hurricane, served with No. 6 Squadron of the Indian Air Force (IAF) from 13 February 1944, under which date the first mention of the aircraft appears in the unit’s Operations Record Book.
The squadron flew the Hurricane for both visual and photographic reconnaissance. The tactics used in fighter-reconnaissance missions normally involved operating in pairs, with the leader concentrating on the reconnaissance task and the second pilot, the so-called weaver, providing fighter cover and taking the brunt of any potential fight against intervening enemy aircraft. Pilots were also able to attack targets identified on the ground using their on-board weaponry. But although the unit’s aircraft could carry cameras, only a small number of photographic reconnaissance missions were carried out. For example, HV538 performed only two such operations throughout its combat career: on 25 February and on 1 March 1944. On both occasions, it was piloted by Squadron Leader Mehar Singh, the unit’s commander. HV538’s existence ended abruptly on 6 March 1944, when F/O Neelakantan crashed on landing after his very first flight with No. 6 Squadron.
HV538’s brief and relatively uneventful period of service leaves room for presenting an outline of the history of aviation in India and, more specifically, of the formation of the Indian Air Force.
The beginnings of aviation in India
At the time when the first heavier-than-air machines began to take off in the USA and Europe, India was part of the British Empire, however progress arrived there quite early, as the first air shows – viewed as entertainment for the British and Indian elites – were held already in 1910.
In the same year, a young and very extravagant Maharaja from Punjab, Bhupinder Singh, known for his interest in technology, became India’s first private aircraft owner, having imported three such vehicles from Europe. He also built the first airfield, in his home state of Patiala.
Humber-Sommer aeroplane used in 1911 for the first airmail delivery in history of India. Fot. Wikimedia Commons
A year later, on the occasion of an industrial exhibition held in the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand), an aeroplane was used to carry mail for the first time in history. Flying a Humber-Sommer aircraft, the French pilot Henri Pequet transported a bag of mail from Allahabad to Naini, passing over the point where the River Yamuna flows into the Ganges.
In 1913, the first flight school – the Indian Central Flying School – was established in Sitapur, also located in Uttar Pradesh; following the outbreak of war in 1914, it was moved to Egypt.
The Great War
During the years of the Great War, there was no air force as such on the Indian subcontinent, but five Indian volunteers enlisted in the British aerial forces. The first of them, Jeejeebhoy Piroshaw Bomanjee Jeejeebhoy, who held an American civilian pilot’s licence, joined the RFC (Royal Flying Corps) already in November 1916. Due to his ill health, however, he failed to complete combat training and was therefore not sent to a line unit.
The most successful of the group, Lieutenant Indra Lal Roy, who flew with No. 40 Squadron RFC, achieved eight individual and two shared kills in less than two weeks in July 1918. Roy’s brilliant career was interrupted by his death in combat on 22 July 1918. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Significantly, he was the only Indian airman to receive this decoration during the Great War.
Lieutenant Hardit Singh Malik was another pilot who served in the RFC, flying with No. 28 Squadron from September 1917 under none other than William Baker and scoring two victories. Being a Sikh, he flew in a turban with a custom-made flying cap, which earned him the nickname of ‘Flying Hobgoblin’. He survived the war, and, although he wished to remain in British aviation, because of his nationality and the RAF’s significant downsizing in the post-war years he faced considerable career difficulties and had little chance of promotion. Thus, he returned to professional cricket, worked in the state administration – from 1944 serving as the Prime Minister of the district of Patiala (which had some autonomy within the British Empire) – and in independent India was appointed the country’s ambassador to France. At the conclusion of his diplomatic mission in 1956, he was awarded the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.
Two other pilots hailing from India, Eroll Chunder Sen and Shrikrishna Chandra Welinkar, did not survive long at the front. The first was shot down and taken prisoner in September 1917, after only a few weeks of service with No. 70 Squadron RFC. The second flew with No. 84 Squadron RAF and was also shot down, on 27 June 1918, but was less fortunate and died in a German hospital as a result of his wounds.
Interwar period
In India, and particularly in Waziristan, the north-western region (in present-day Pakistan) bordering Afghanistan, the 1920s were a period of constant unrest and rebellion, caused mainly by the resistance of the local population to British expansion. The British quickly found a use for aviation in suppressing rebellious tribes. In 1925, the first purely airborne military operation in history took place, with the enemy’s resistance being successfully eliminated without the cooperation of ground forces. The RAF’s No. 2 Wing, consisting of two squadrons equipped with the DH.9A and one with the Bristol F.2B, carried out continuous attacks from March to the end of April against rebels hiding in the mountains. Their losses must have been painful, as eventually the tribal chiefs themselves decided to sue for peace. The British lost just one aircraft and crew. The operation was later dubbed “Pink’s War”, from the surname of No. 2 Wing’s commanding officer, Richard Pink.
Until 1933, none of the airmen operating in such campaigns came from the local population. It was only later, during the wave of “Indianization” of the armed forces, that native India soldiers were allowed to train in Great Britain and receive officers’ ranks. In April 1927, a recommendation was made for the formation of an Indian Air Force, but the matter of flight training for Indians met with considerable resistance from the British military administration, whose attitude to such plans was summed up in the words of the then Air Officer Commanding RAF India, Sir John Miles Steel, who stated that “Indians will not be able to fly or maintain military aeroplanes. That’s a man’s job”. This can be explained twofold: that the British rulers of India did not consider their Indian subordinates as men, or doubted their humanity.
Despite these adversities, in 1930 the first group of six cadets travelled to the Royal Air Force College in Cranwell, England, and commenced training. Their names are worth recalling, even though they probably familiar to Indian aviation enthusiasts: Subroto Mukerjee (a nephew of Indra Lal Roy), Bhupindra Singh and Amarjit Singh (both perished in a plane crash in September 1933), Harish Chander Sirkar, Jagat Narain Tandon, and Aizad Baksh Awan (the latter, a Muslim, is today considered as the first Pakistani military pilot). Five of them completed their training as pilots, while Tandon became a technical officer. His height – barely 147 cm – proved to be a hindrance to getting behind the controls, as he could not reach the rudder bar with both feet.
Creation of the IAF
While the Indian cadets were busy training, the process of creating an Indian Air Force gradually passed through the successive legislative stages, until finally, on 8 October 1932, a law was passed authorizing its official establishment (the day is now celebrated in India as military aviation day), while on 1 April the following year, No. 1 Squadron IAF, based at Drigh Road Airfield in Karachi, was declared operational. At the time, however, the first Indian pilots had not yet returned from Cranwell, and so the squadron’s début flight was performed by Flight Lieutenant Cecil Bouchier (the later Air Vice Marshal).
Westland Wapiti K1260 from No. 1 Squadron IAF flying over Viceroy Residence at New Delhi. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Initially, No. 1 Squadron IAF was no more than a flight comprising four Westland Wapitis, and its development progressed very slowly right until the outbreak of the Second World War. Only small groups of airmen were sent to Cranwell, and in total only seventeen pilots were successfully trained from 1930 to the end of 1939. Two of them died in a plane crash, and one retired from service. In December 1939, the IAF’s No. 1 Squadron was still operating the obsolete Wapiti, and the IAF’s entire flying personnel numbered just fourteen pilots. Thus, when war broke out, the IAF was still in its infancy.
In combat over Britain
When the Battle of Britain flared up in the summer of 1940, almost a hundred Indian pilots with basic training received on light aircraft at aero clubs volunteered to defend the metropolis in the ranks of the RAF. Twenty-four of them were selected and sent by sea to England. They arrived too late to take part in the fighting, and it was not until the spring of 1941, after undergoing all their training, that seven were sent to British fighter squadrons. Among the most prominent of this group was Mahindra Singh Pujji, who flew Hurricanes with Nos 43 and 258 Squadrons RAF, and later, following his return to India in 1942, also with No. 6 Squadron IAF. During his service with the RAF, he shot down two Bf 109s and damaged three other Luftwaffe fighters.
The new squadrons
The outbreak of war stimulated the rapid development of the IAF. A large-scale aviation training system was instituted, capable of educating hundreds of pilots and other professionals each year. New squadrons were created one after the other. No. 2 Squadron IAF was formed on 1 April 1941, and No. 3 Squadron six months later. Both were intended to cooperate with ground forces, and, after being rearmed with Hurricanes, entered combat as fighter-bomber units. In 1942, four more squadrons – Nos 4, 6, 7 and 8 – were established.
Hurricane FR Mk IIc Trop, LB835/L, No. 4 Squadron IAF (Indian Air Force), pilot: F/L Mahindra Singh Pujji, Cox’s Bazar airfield, October 1944
Some two years later, in early 1944, two further squadrons, Nos 9 and 10, were set up, followed in December 1945 by No. 12 Squadron, which operated the C-47.
Hurricane Mk IIc “K for Kangaroo” and No. 10 Squadron IAF. 4 Augist 1945, Arakan Front. Australian pilots also served in the unit. Photo: Australian War Memorial
No. 1 Squadron IAF. Photo: Imperial War Museum/Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Hurricanes from the ‘Sixth’
During the war, the Hurricane equipped almost all of these units, being used mainly as a close support and reconnaissance aircraft. IAF pilots fought only two air battles during their period of front line service, and their opponents were probably the Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars of 204th Sentai. On 8 February 1944, four pilots of No. 6 Squadron were attacked by a group of Japanese fighters, and F/O Dodla Ranga Reddy quickly began firing at an Oscar that had got onto the tail of his colleague, F/O Murkota Ramunny, most likely saving his life. Moments later, he himself fell victim to an accurate burst from another Japanese fighter; his aircraft immediately began to smoke and plummeted towards the jungle. The fight was brief, at low altitude, and moments later a third pilot from the group, F/O Joseph C. de Lima, was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery. The wreckages of the two downed Hurricanes were never found, and so Reddy’s gun camera footage could not be reviewed. These circumstances meant that the victory was not confirmed, although the following day pilots carrying out a reconnaissance of the area saw the remains of a Japanese aeroplane on the ground. Ramunny lived until 2009 and was always convinced that his fallen comrade, Reddy, had not only saved his life, but also scored the IAF’s first aerial victory.
Photos from the No. 6 Squadron IAF Album. Via Franciszek Grabowski
On 15 February 1944, No. 6 Squadron took part in another dogfight; during its course, an Indian airman, P/O Indar Battacharji, was shot down and seriously wounded. F/O Jagdish Chandra Varma, who was flying with him in a pair, fought the Japanese fighters for the next dozen or so minutes, hitting one in the fuselage and wing from a distance of twenty yards. Debris fell off the Japanese aeroplane, and it immediately disappeared from Varma’s field of view – busy as he was fending off the attack of another enemy aircraft. After luckily returning to base, he reported only having damage one Oscar. Confirmation of the destruction of the Japanese fighter came the following day from observers on the ground. This was the IAF’s first officially confirmed “kill”, an achievement for which F/O Varma received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Hurricane Mk IIc from No. 28 Squadron RAF in reconnaissance flight over Irrawaddy river in Burma, March 1945. Photo: Imperial War Museum/Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
But while Indian pilots did not have many opportunities for aerial combat, their work for the ground troops was highly appreciated, and more than twenty other pilots received DFCs. In addition to individual commendations for outstanding aviators, the Indian Air Force was especially distinguished by changing its name to the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) in March 1945; this continued in use until 1950, when India was established as a republic and the prefix “Royal” was dropped.
After the war – a new era
The history of the RIAF in its original form ends simultaneously with the break-up of the British Empire and the creation of two separate and hostile air forces. On 15 August 1947, parts of the RIAF served as the basis for creating the Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF) – a process in which Polish airmen from the Polish Air Force units, recently disbanded in Great Britain, played an important part. The traditions of the RIAF’s Nos 6 and 9 Squadrons were assumed by Pakistani pilots, although units carrying the same numbers and referencing the earlier, shared tradition were soon re-established in India. This, however, is a completely different story – one that will be told when Arma Hobby releases a model of, say, the Tempest or Sea Fury. For the Hawker Hurricane was not a participant of these events.
In conclusion, I would recommend that everyone interested in learning more about the history of the IAF visit the website https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/iaf/category/history/, which inspired the present article.
Commander of No. 6 Squadron IAF and pilot of Hurricane HV538
Mehar Singh was one of the pioneers who received training at Cranwell. He graduated in 1936 and joined the ranks of the IAF’s first and only squadron at the time, flying the Wapiti in police missions against outlawed armed tribes on the border with Afghanistan. In April 1942, he took command of No. 3 Squadron IAF, becoming the first Squadron Leader of Indian origin. At the time, the unit operated the Hawker Audax, and between May and August 1942 conducted operations against the Hur Rebellion in the province of Sind. In December 1942, he became commander of No. 6 Squadron, which received the Hurricane Mk IIb fighter-reconnaissance aircraft.
Over the two years during which he led the unit, Mehar Singh turned it into the IAF’s best squadron, and in March 1944 was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) – the only Indian airman to be thus recognized.
Hurricane FR Mk IIb trop, HV538/B, No. 6 Squadron IAF (Indian Air Force), pilot S/Ldr Mehar Singh, Ratnap airfield, East Bengal, February-March 1944
He was also undoubtedly an eccentric, as for some reason he liked to fly his plane with bare feet, and although he was a soldier without fear or blemish, and absolutely capable of motivating and inspiring his subordinates, he was clearly terrified of women, which was sometimes the subject of jokes from his friends. What is more, he adhered to training methods that would have got him court-martialled in the present day. A pilot who, for example, crashed a plane because of his own error would be taken to a secluded place and have corporal punishment administered by the commander himself. I am practically certain that F/O Neelakantan, who wrecked HV538, was punished for his inattention on the very same day.
Sqn Ldr Mehar Singh, second from left, together with F/L Asghar Khan, discuss with British officers their next sortie over Burma. January 1945. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Mehar Singh’s career continued to flourish post-1945, as he rose to the rank of Air Commodore and performed outstanding feats during the First Kashmir War – among others landing a C-47 on an airstrip in Leh, considered at the time to be located at the highest altitude in the world. Suddenly, however, following misunderstandings with the high command, he resigned from his military service and became an advisor to and the private pilot of the Maharajah of Patiala, Yadavindra Singh. In 1950, in recognition of his achievements in the war for Kashmir, he was awarded one of India’s highest military decorations, the Maha Vir Chakra. He perished on 11 March 1952 in a crash, piloting a C-47 at night in very difficult weather conditions.
Eariler history of the Hurricane HV538
Before HV538 ended up in the Indian Air Force, it served with No. 607 Squadron RAF (County of Durham), which had been operating in India and Burma since May 1942. Initially, the unit was equipped with the Hurricane Mk IIc, but in January 1943 it switched back to the Mk IIb, which was considered better for purely fighter tasks. For combat against the Ki-43, the most commonly encountered opponent, it was standard practice to lighten the Hurricane by the removal of its four external machine guns. The battery of eight machine guns seemed sufficient to defeat the fragile Japanese fighters. March 1943, when HV538 was serving with No. 607 Squadron, then stationed at Chittagong, was a period of intense fighting, however our protagonist had no opportunity to clash with the enemy. The very next month, the unit was withdrawn from the front line to Alipore, where HV538 obviously had no possibility of encountering the Japanese. It was used for training flights until the end of September 1943, when No. 607 Squadron – as one of the first in the theatre of operations – began rearming with the Spitfire Mk Vb.
See also:
- Buy Hurricane kits and Armahobby.com webstore!
Model maker for 45 years, now rather a theoretician, collector and conceptual modeller. Brought up on Matchbox kits and reading "303 Squadron" book. An admirer of the works of Roy Huxley and Sydney Camm.
Franciszek Grabowski
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