Flight Lieutenant Hari Mohan Tandon has been serving with an operational transport squadron since September 1961. During the operations against the Chinese in 1962, sometimes he used to fly as many as 8 hours a day on sorties to forward areas and flew a total of 91 hours. He has carried out a total of 3870 flying hours of which 1750 hours have been in operational areas. In October 1962, during an ammunition dropping mission to our troops, when one of the ejection crew suffered from lack of oxygen and the gunner, who went to his aid, also suffered the effects of anoxia. Flight Lieutenant Tandon went to the cargo compartment, pulled the unconscious men into the pressurised cabin and administered oxygen to them. He helped the other member of ejection crew to release the lashings of the cargo and then completed the supply drop accurately on the dropping zones by using the emergency operating switch.

Throughout, Flight Lieutenant Hari Mohan Tandon displayed courage, professional skill and devotion to duty.