Wg Cdr Joseph Thomas, VM was a young flying officer serving with No.43 Squadron in Ladakh during the 1962 war with China. His experiences during the outbreak of the war are narrated in this article.
Rare WW2 era footage of former POW Flying Officer K V Nair after his liberation from the Rangoon Jail.
The IAF Award's Database Section has been updated. More than 4800 Award entries, and 3400 Citations to be found in the DB
A Spitfire veteran reminisces - Air Marshal S Raghavendran , who retired as VCAS of the Indian Air Force remembers his favourite aircraft - The Supermarine Spitfire. He was motivated to join the IAF to fly this legendary fighter - and shares his memories of those early years. (Duration : 7 minutes)
Murkot Ramunny, had served in the Indian Air Force, flying Hurricanes in Burma during the War. He left the IAF shortly after Independence, to serve the Government in civil capacities. He does not bother to include his old IAF rank on his letterhead, which reads simply, “Murkot Ramunny, IAS (Retd)”. This is understandable, for his military rank is far eclipsed, in protocol terms, by the civil service ranks he rose to later; and to most people, his status as a former senior civil servant is what counts. But to IAF history enthusiasts like us, he will always be Wing Commander Murkot Ramunny. The article is now updated to reflect a Youtube video - a rare and most certainly the last time he was interviewed on video about his WW2 experiences
Pilot Officer Hukum Chand Mehta was one of the twenty four Indians sent to the United Kindom in1940. The Indians arrived on October 8, 1940, at the height of Battle of Britain, but by the time their training was completed, it would be April 1941. HC Mehta would be one of the six pilots who went to Fighter command. He joined 43 Squadron.
P.N. Sharma was a reporter for the well known weekly magazine the BLITZ being published from Bombay. He was one of the first war correspondents on scene in Kashmir during the 1947 airlift of troops to Kashmir. His 1957 book, Inside Occupied Kashmir is not well known, but is a rare insight of some of the first combined operations of the war. Sharma's adventure started with his being on a public relations joyride in one of the IAF's Harvards. This account tells what happened on that fateful day.
In war, much often hangs on a knife-edge. As this piece by Air Marshal Raghavendran shows, this was especially true of the famous PAF raid on Pathankot. It may have been down to the cautiousness of one man in a key position, that this single most successful raid ever mounted by the PAF against India did not run into a CAP flown by the top guns of the lead Gnat squadron of the time .
"Chakra" markings briefly adorned Indian Air Force aircraft in 1948 and after. The notifications and the history of these markings are described here.
The previous version of our Defiant article noted that "Perhaps some day more information or photos will come to light that goes on to prove beyond all doubt that the Defiant was truely one of the aircraft that was on the IAF's inventory.".That day is here - The Defiant was truely one of the aircraft in the IAF's inventory. Details of the units and information on some of the pilots who flew the aircraft during the war are updated here. Now updated with a third photo of the Defiant in IAF service!