By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, May 12 -The Nur Khan airbase near Rawalpindi in Pakistan shot into fame in the recent India-Pakistan war after it was hit by Indian missiles on May 9. This raid forced the Americans to bring an end to the India-Pakistan war as the Nur Khan air base was near Pakistan’s nuclear strategic command centre.
The Nur Khan airbase (formerly Chaklala airbase) is home to Pakistan’s main transport squadrons and is used for logistical and strategic airlift operations. Transport aircraft like C-130 Hercules and Saab 2000, and IL-78 mid-air refuellers along with aircraft to ferry VIPs. The base also houses a pilot training school and an aircraft maintenance facility. It is responsible for securing Pakistan’s skies around Islamabad and the northern regions. This air base is essential for rapid deployment and mobility. More crucially, the airbase lies near the headquarters of Pakistan’s “Strategic Plans Division”, which oversees and protects the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Concern over explosions hitting the Nur Khan airbase on May 9 was what drove US Vice President J.D.Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio into action to stop the war, The New York Times reported.
Air Marshal Nur Khan Should be of Interest to Indians
Be that as it may, Indians should have a special interest in the man after whom the air base is named, Air Marshal Nur Khan (1923-2011). He had had a long and distinguished association with India as an ace pilot in the pre-independence Royal Indian Air Force before opting for Pakistan in 1947. He had been a colleague of several IAF pilots who rose to be Indian Air Chiefs.
According to the Indian defence magazine, Bharat Rakshak, Nur Khan was a highly respected and regarded officer in the Royal IAF before India’s partition in 1947. A product of the Royal Indian Military College (now Rashtriya Indian Military College), he was commissioned into the Indian Air Force as a Pilot Officer on 6 Jan 1941. Those were still the days when entrants were given commission on the date they reported to the IAF. He belonged to the 6th Pilots Course (PC).
6PC was unique in that it had other Muslim officers who later formed the backbone of the new PAF. There was Pilot Officer Asghar Khan, who due to his Army service had seniority, and there was M Akhtar and M M A Cheema , all of who would rise to senior positions in the PAF.
After training at the Initial Training Wing at Lahore till May 1941, Nur Khan reported for flying training at the Flying Training School in Ambala, completing his flying syllabus by late November 1941. During this time he was flying types like the Westland Wapiti, Hawker Hart and Hawker Audax biplane aircraft.
His first posting after training was to No.3 Squadron at Kohat, now in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in December 1941. It was then equipped with Hawker Audaxes. Over the following year, he would fly sorties in the Miranshah area in North Waziristan Agency, dropping leaflets, occasionally undertaking punitive bombing against tribal villages.
Nur Khan stayed with 3 Squadron till mid 1943 at which point he may have been posted for Vengeance Conversion at the Operational Training Unit in Peshawar. On 8th May 1944, he reported to No.7 Squadron which was at that time operating the Vultee Vengeance Dive bomber under Sqn Ldr Hem Chaudhary who later rose to a high position in the IAF. Hem Chaudhury assumed command of the squadron n 1942. On 1st December, 1942, Chaudhury took over as Commanding Officer of the newly raised No. 7 Squadron at Vizagapatnam.
Nur Khan was put in ‘B’ Flight then under the command of Flt Lt Erlic Wilmot Pinto (1921-1963), who subsequently rose to be an Air Vice Marshal in the IAF with a Param Vishsht Sewa Medal. The other flight commander in the Squadron was P C Lal, who would go on to command the IAF in 1971.
Nur Khan flew dive bombing sorties. By 12th June 1944, his Squadron found itself relocated to Charra. In November 1944, the Squadron converted to the Hurricane fighter bomber. Towards the end of January 1945, Nur Khan was posted to No.9 Squadron, which was then on Hurricanes on the Burma Front.
IAF chief Idris Latif’s High Praise
It was in Charra that Nur Khan honed his flying skills and soon made himself quite famous, sometimes bordering on being a reckless showoff! Indian Air Chief Marshal Idris Latif, who served in the 9 Squadron, remembered that Khan would show off landing in a Hurricane – while inverted! This involved approaching the runway for landing in an inverted position, then at the right moment lower the undercarriage (which in this case would open upwards) and then do a last minute roll before flare out and touch down. Handling a Hurricane in such a regime required utmost confidence and handling skills, Latif said.
One can easily deduce that Nur Khan was a flying “hog”, never losing an opportunity to fly a new type of aircraft. Even in his last years in the PAF, he ensured that he was up to speed on all new aircraft being inducted, flying such types as the F-6 and the Mirage III.
After less than six months with 9 Squadron, Nur Khan earned his promotion to Flt Lt Rank and was posted to No 4 Squadron RIAF in June 1945. No.4 Squadron was at Yelahanka in Bengaluru flying the Spitfire VIII under the command of Sqn Ldr Boyd-Berry of the RAF.
No.4 soon moved to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in early 1946. In one of the first display flights over Japan, Nur Khan led a formation of Ten Spitfires in the shape of a “4”.
His stint as a Flight Commander lasted about 18 months and in November 1946, Nur Khan transferred to the HQ BCAIR (The Air component of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force) as a Staff Officer in the rank of Squadron Leader.
When the Indian component of BCOF wound up in Japan, the independence of India was around the corner. The Indian Armed Forces were being partitioned and officers being given options to join one or the other country. As he hailed from an area of Punjab that is now part of Pakistan, and also for the fact that many of his colleagues that he served with in 3 Sqn and 9 Sqn were going to Pakistan (Asghar, Cheema etc), it was a natural decision for Nur Khan to opt for the Pakistan Air Force.
Stellar Role in 1965 Indo-Pak War
The rest of his career with the PAF was well chronicled, as indeed his his role as PAF chief during the 1965 war with India. When Nur Khan took over command of the PAF in July 1965, he had but two weeks’ notice about the launch of the secretive “Operation Gibraltar” to capture Kashmir from India.
Nur Khan would say later that his staff reacted with disbelief and he was himself was perturbed and shocked hearing about the infiltration plan from the Army Chief. But he went about “doing as he was told”, according to Bharat Rakshak.
He got himself immersed in the business of fighting the war. According to Bharat Rakshak, the PAF actually saved the Pakistani Army from disaster many times. Pakistan was ill-equipped to fight a long war, and Ayub Khan very wisely accepted the ceasefire when it was offered by the UN.
Nur Khan himself would lament later that an opportunity was lost by not conducting an impartial study about the 1965 debacle. He opined that many things that went wrong later on would have been avoided if there had been a serious study conducted by the Pakistanis. According to Bharat Rakshak, he was a strong proponent of the theory that it was Pakistan which instigated the 1965 war and India was merely defended itself.
When prodded by an interviewer to say if the conflict of 1965 was a “decisive clash of arms between Hinduism and Islam”, Nur Khan shot down the idea with a curt “I do not believe there were any ideological compulsions behind the war”. His interviews to Dawn TV re-iterated these view points.
Nur Khan remained PAF chief well into 1968, and would have served more if not for the transfer of power to General Yahya Khan of the Pakistan Army. Yahya imposed Martial Law and offered Nur Khan the Governorship of West Pakistan. Nur Khan bought into the theory that military rule and martial law was good for the country and took up the offer as the Deputy Martial Law Administrator. Since he could not hold two offices at the same time, he resigned his post as the Chief of the PAF and went on to serve six months as the Governor of West Pakistan before resigning in early 1970.
In a tribute penned in 2011 after Nur Khan’s death, Air Marshal S Raghavendran, who retired as IAF Vice Chief wrote that Nur Khan was “one of two of the greatest pilots & commanders of the undivided Indian Air Force.” The other being Asghar Khan who was also well regarded by the veterans of that time. Such respect from officers of the opposing air force does not come easy.
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