71 war- Chuck Yagers account of the thrashing of the Iaf

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fieldmarshal

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Picking up the pieces
By Gen (Retd) Chuck Yeager USAF, Yeager: Jul, '85

When we arrived in Pakistan in 1971, the political situation between the Pakistanis and the Indians was really tense over Bangladesh, or East Pakistan, as it was known in those days, and Russia was backing India with tremendous amounts of new airplanes and tanks. The US and China were backing the Pakistanis. My job was military advisor to the Pakistani air force, headed by Air Marshal Rahim Khan, who had been trained in Britain by the Royal Air Force, and was the first Pakistani pilot to exceed the speed of sound. He took me to their different fighter groups and I met their pilots, who knew me and were really pleased that I was there. They had about 500 airplanes, more then half of them Sabres and 104 Starfighters, a few B-57 bombers, and about a hundred Chinese Mig 19s. They were really good, aggressive dogfighters and proficient in gunnery and air combat tactics. I was damned impressed. Those guys just lived and breathed flying.
One of my first jobs there was to help them put US sidewinders on their Chinese Mig 19s, which were 1.6 Mach twin-engine airplanes that carried three thirty-millimeter cannons. Our government furnished them with the rails for the sidewinders. They bought the missiles and all the checkout equipment that went with them, and it was one helluva interesting experience watching their electricians wiring up American missiles on a Chinese Mig. I worked with their squadrons and helped them develop combat tactics. The Chinese Mig was one hundred percent Chinese-built and was made for only one hundred hours of flying before it had to be scrapped - a disposable fighter good for one hundred strikes. In fairness, it was an older plane in their inventory, and I guess they were just getting rid of them. They delivered spare parts, but it was a tough airplane to work on; the Pakistanis kept it flying for about 130 hours.

War broke out only a couple of months after we had arrived, in late November 1971, when India attacked East Pakistan. The battle lasted only three days before East Pakistan fell. India's intention to annex East Pakistan and claim it for themselves. But the Pakistanis counterattacked. Air Marshal Rahim Khan laid a strike on the four closest Indian air fields in the western part of India, and wiped out a lot of equipment. At that point, Indra Gandhi began moving her forces towards West Pakistan, and President Nixon sent her an ultimatum: An invasion of West Pakistan would bring the US into the conflict. Meanwhile, all the Muslim countries rallied around Pakistanis and began pouring in supplies and manpower. China moved in a lot of equipment while Russia backed the Indians all the way. So, it really became a kind of surrogate war - the Pakistanis, with US training and equipment, versus the Indians, mostly Russian trained, flying Soviet airplanes.

The Pakistanis whipped their asses in the sky, but it was the other way around in the ground war. The air war lasted about two weeks, and the Pakistanis scored a three-to-one ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing thirty-four airplanes of their own. I'm certain about the figures because I went out several times a day in a chopper and counted the wrecks below. I counted wrecks on Pakistani soil, documented them by serial numbers, identified the components such as engines and rocket pods, and new equipment on newer planes like the Soviet SU-7 fighter-bomber and the Mig 21J, their latest supersonic fighter. The Pakistani army would cart off these items for me, and when the war ended, it took two big American Air Force cargo lifters to carry all those parts back to the States for analysis by our intelligence division.

I didn't get involved in the actual combat because that would've been too touchy, but I did fly around and pick up shot down Indian pilots and take them back to prisoner-of-war camps for questioning. I interviewed them about the equipment they had been flying and the tactics their Soviet advisors taught them to use. I wore a uniform or flying suit all the time, and it was amusing when those Indians saw my name tag and asked, "Are you the Yeager who broke the sound barrier?" They couldn't believe I was in Pakistan or understand what I was doing there. I told them, "I'm the American Defense Rep here. That's what I'm doing."


 

fieldmarshal

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This is the account of a nuteral observer....who saw the war first hand.....for all who claim it to be a victory for india sure got a hiddin in the air..............n mod i cant find a link for it as i have head this article for a while now....n i think its taken from his book..the name i cant remember...but a must read as real men rise when the going get taught.......n PAF really rose even under great pressures.
 

fieldmarshal

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its from his book Yeager...............sorry very forgetfull of me :D: ........its there at the stat of the piece.
 

Soldier

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gf0012 said:
Hasn't this been posted before?? I think Myst posted it IIRC??
Oh yeah, It has been posted many times before. And the reply always had been the same by Indians including me. Chuck Yeager always had a soft heart for Pakistanis as they were US trained and were flying US hardware. Now if I start putting here some memories of 71 Air-war from neutral sources....the flaming will start immediately about the same topic which has been discussed time and time again.

Wonder what FieldMarshal is trying to prove by putting comments from Chuck Yeager, who has been criticized by neutral sources so many times for his tilted stories. Perhaps FieldMarshal shall try to come up with some neutral sources telling about PAF having air-superiority over IAF...
 

Soldier

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Here are some of the stories from other sources.

Indo-Pak War 1971: The events leading to the Indo-Pak War 1971 are too recent to need elaboration. When Pakistan launched her pre-emptive air strike at dusk on 3 December 1971, the orders to retaliate were received and No 5 Squadron got airborne at 2150 hours the same night displaying a remarkable short reaction time. Thus, the credit for being the first to strike back goes to this squadron.

The Tuskers raided Shorkot, Sargodha, Lyallpur and Mianwali airfields during the first three nights repeatedly and devastatingly. Dhaka the airfield in earstwhile East Pakistan was also bombed. Interdiction missions against Raiwind, Jassar and other railway yards were carried out. Enemy installations at Sulemanki and Zaffarwal were neutralised. Air support mission in Chhamb sector and against enemy armour concetrations bore fruit. The Army confirmed the enemy's complete loss of morale and will to fight caused by the destruction rained upon them by the Canberras.

With the unconditional surrender in the East and the unilateral Indian declaration of cease-fire in the West, the 14 days war ended. No 5 Squadron had flown over 300 hrs, nearly all by night and delivered hundreds of thousand of pounds of high explosive bombs. The "Tuskers" earned one MVC and three Vr Cs.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/sqn-5.htm



Uncle Sam gets the "Finger"

Picture Indian Air Force fighters attacking and destroying an Aircraft belonging to the United States Air Force. Imagine what kind of international repercussions it will raise, unless of course the aircraft was already in the war zone. Brig Gen Chuck Yeager who was an advisor to the PAF during the 1971 war, recalls in his autobiography, about how the" Indians gave Uncle Sam the Finger". his Beech queen Air aircraft was parked at Rawalpindi, and it was the second day of the war. Yeager was thinking about to moving his plane outside the range of Indian Fighters, when the air raid alarms sounded. Two Indian fighter bombers(probably Hunters) had attacked the airfield and totaled yeagers Aircraft, which was reduced to ashes. Yeager flew for the rest of his tenure using PAF aircraft.
http://members.tripod.com/JaganPVS/trivia01.htm


Pakistan's 24 28 Mirage III's

At the End of the 1971 Bangladesh War, When it was time to sit back and assess scores, The Indian Air Force after evaluating the results throughout the war claimed among the PAF aircraft destroyed, Five of the PAF's Prize Mirage III Jets. Pakistan was quick to rebuff the claim and in a major PR exercise, arranged for a display of its Mirage III Fleet. It had received 24 Mirage III Interceptors from France. and it invited foreign journalists to one of its airbases where 23 of the Mirage III aircraft were displayed. the 24th aircraft supposedly lost on a training flight prior to the War. The Indian Claim of Five Mirage III's seemed ludicrous.

Then France let the cat out of the bag. It said it had delivered 28 Mirages not 24 as Pakistan claimed. so the Indian claim was not far off the mark.


So much for propaganda!! :D:
 

fieldmarshal

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the Pakistanis scored a three-to-one ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing thirty-four airplanes of their own......................u Indians got ur ass wooped big time.........admit it n get over it :smokingc:
 

fieldmarshal

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We Pakistani got n problems with bangladash n its creation...........so get over that as well............infat id say Indias got more problems with bangladesh than Pakistan.....we r cool bout it..so no worries
 

srirangan

Banned Member
It was an American source, Amrican's had issues with soviet Russia then. We won the war, get over it. Oh and I can increase th font size too. Yippee!
 

webmaster

Troll Hunter
Staff member
Why are Indians getting all worked up? Pak did bad in Bangla side, they did good on the western side and that too with PAFs help. You lose some you win some, whats the point of mocking a thread when sources are the same that Indian friends use to quote information as well(i.e. global security?)???

This thread stays, if you have anything that refutes post it otherwise stop whinning.
 

mysterious

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People only hafta read the excerpt posted by 'fieldmarshal' thoroughly to determine that Yeager's account is fairly unbiased. :smokingc:
 

srirangan

Banned Member
WebMaster,

The only purpose of this thread is to bash India. Which is why terms like "kicked ass" "trashed" were purposely used just to do some more bashing. If I wished I could quote hundreds of sources to bash Pakistan, but I ain't that immature.

Webmaster,

If you don't consider this a flame bait then nothing is. I assume you are supporting your own country than being neutral here. Anyway it's your site and you can run it anyway you like/

Ohh and if this thread stay, can you promise me that my thread which tells about the "Ass whipping" and "Getting down on knees" of Pakistan during the wars quoted from a reliable source, should that stay?

Neutrality is the word.
 

webmaster

Troll Hunter
Staff member
Supporting?

I am not supporting anyone. Newspapers, media outlets, TV stations, Indian news medias USE WORD THRASH ALL THE TIME. NO body gets offended then, why over this?

Its true india beat Pakistan on Bangla front, its also true that PAF beat IAF on western front. Is that so hard to acknowledge?

Any Pakistani member here would admit that fact that Pakistan LOST to INDIA on Bangla front, can you also admit that India lost to Pakistan on the western front just to keep things fair enough?

I am acknowledging both sides of the story here, whatever happened in east and whatever happened in west. I think you should also do that with an open mind. You win some, you lose some. Thinking so high of your self and not giving credit where its due is not good my friend.

ALSO, DO READ THE RULES: If you think, something is OUT OF ORDER or not right or flame bait, send ADMIN OR MOD a PM to settle it not confront members and ruin the thread (i wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the motive to begin with). I have asked time and time again, if you want something done, send a PM don't act like you can force people into submission with your protests in the threads. :roll
 

mysterious

New Member
Yeah srirangan, Webs is right! I'm a Pakistani and I admit Pakistan lost on the Bangla (East-Pak) front but do you have the guts to admit your loss on the western front and in 1965 and other scenarios? :cop
 

srirangan

Banned Member
>
> Its true india beat Pakistan on Bangla front, its also true that
> PAF beat IAF on western front. Is that so hard to acknowledge?
>

It's not the question of acknowledging. I have not posted "India kicked Pak's ass in 71" thread. The purpose of this thread is not discussion but to bash India. Which is why it would be deleted in a neutral world.

Get my point?
 
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