ENCOUNTERS WITH VETERANS
Air Commodore P M Wilson, PVSM,VrC.
By K Sree Kumar
Like everyone here, I love listening to old aviators. Like most of us, I have been lucky enough to have met some, and have listened in absolute fascination when they can be persuaded to recount some details of their experiences. But it is only since BR started its veterans' experience documentation project that I had an excuse to pursue these stories, and a framework within which to write down what I heard. So, with thanks to the IAF Veterans Project for providing the platform as well as others who have done similar articles for examples and encouragement; and to all of you for providing the audience - and most of all, to the aviators concerned, for their stories (and for putting their hides on the line for the rest of us) - here's what I hope will be just one of a great many encounters with Veterans.
AIR COMMODORE PETER M WILSON, PVSM, VrC July 2002
Air Commodore Peter Maynard ("Pete") Wilson is one of those figures whom Air Force contemporaries seem to remember with unstinted affection and respect. Long after he left the service, whenever his name was mentioned among those he served alongside, eyes would light up and smiles broaden: "Oh yes, Pete Wilson, he taught me air-to-ground firing, he did ... "; "Oh yes, Pete Wilson, have you heard that story about his farewell from the squadron at Gorakhpur? ... "; "Oh yes, Pete Wilson, do you remember that fancy-dress party in Jamnagar ... ?" Beyond contemporaries, he is remembered in a small professional circle (and by a few serious amateurs) for substantive contributions, under fire and otherwise, in the Indian Air Force. During the 1965 war he led a Canberra strike on the radar unit at Badin that was so successful even Pakistani sources acknowledge it as "devastating". During the 1971 war he was Station Commander at Jamnagar, from which some of our most effective operations were launched. (And when safely out of official earshot, back while he was still in service, IAF contemporaries might have occasionally been heard to drop a brief reference to Pete Wilson's definingly low low-flying ... )
So when an opportunity arose to pay a call on Air Commodore Wilson, I grabbed it. Thanks to old service connections, and to some friends, who had previously been in e-mail contact with the Air Commodore's family, I followed directions one morning into the small, leafy village where he now lives. I turned a corner to see, as promised, the figure of a gentleman, now in his seventies but still tall and straight (though now without the Charminar cigarettes, that used to be one of his trademarks), outside the entrance to his home. And in a few minutes, I'd been settled into an armchair and armed with a drink, to listen while an IAF veteran reminisced.
Like many veterans he was dismissive of his own exploits; his first reaction, always, that others had done much more than he had. But he was persuaded to share some memories, and some selections from his logbooks and photo albums. Some of that material is attached. And here are some of the stories he told.
No 5 Squadron + Congo 1962.
Then a Flight Commander with No 5 Squadron, Squadron-Leader Peter Wilson was in the second IAF contingent to serve with ONUC, the UN force in the Congo. Some background, and the experiences of the first IAF contingent there, are set out in the article "Canberras in Congo" by Mr. Pushpindar Singh. Led by Wing Commander (later Air Commodore) AIK Suares, they served in the Congo from October 1961 till early 1962. During this period they carried out a highly effective air offensive against Katangan rebel airbases, took hostile fire, and earned a number of well-deserved decorations.
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Sqn Ldr PM Wilson in the Congo, with a Canberra unmistakably of the Tuskers. |
They were relieved in early 1962 by a contingent commanded by Wing Commander (later Air Marshal) Saroj Jena. This second contingent served in the Congo until October 1962. Wilson was modest as ever about his experiences there, saying that the first contingent had done all the operational work that needed to be done, by the time he got there. There may not have been much shooting in his time, but there were still some interesting stories ...
No 5 Squadron Detachment, IAF, was based at Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), the capital of the vast, sprawling equatorial country. Officers were billeted in spacious colonial villas. The Leopoldville airfield had a 5,100 yard runway; the longest in the world at that time. Training was carried out there; operations were staged through Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) or Kamina, over a thousand km east, and closer to the operational areas in the rebel province of Katanga.
It seems positively Dr Strangelove-esque now; but Kamina had actually been the designated alternative Belgian capital in case of nuclear war in Europe. Wilson remembers magnificent facilities, and a runway surface "like glass!" The base at Kamina was shared with other components of the multinational ONUC force, including detachments of Swedish Saab J-29s and Ethiopian F-86 Sabres. The base commander was Swedish, and the base was guarded by a Swedish security battalion.
Indian troops in the Congo received a UN allowance, reasonably generous but denominated in Congolese Francs. Swedish troops, in addition to their UN allowance, received a Swedish government supplement, of US$10 per day. As it happens, the Indians had no restrictions on purchasing liquor at the local PX. The Swedes were allowed to buy beer through the PX, but not hard liquor. The result, as Wilson describes it, was that "The Swedes had dollars and no whiskey; the Indians had whiskey and no dollars. The inevitable happened; there was supply and demand; market forces are too strong to resist." Some IAF airmen proceeded to sell liquor to some of the Swedish troops, sometimes charging twice the PX rate.
| Left to Right: Flt Lt SL
Dutta, Sqn Ldr PM Wilson, and Flt Lt Sachdeva, all of No 5 Sqn Detachment, in the Congo. |
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Inevitably, there was an incident one day of drunken and disorderly behaviour on the part of the Swedish troops, which they blamed to their superiors on liquor sold to them by Indian airmen. The Swedish base commander rang Sqn Ldr Wilson, and demanded a line-up of the Indian airmen, for the Swedes to identify those who had been selling them the liquor. Sqn Ldr Wilson acceded politely to the identification request in principle, but asked that the mechanism be changed to a line-up of the Swedish troops, at which the IAF airmen would pick out those who had bought the liquor from them. After some huffing and puffing, no more was heard of the demand.
At Kamina, besides Swedish, Indian and Ethiopian aircrew, there was a solitary Norwegian helicopter pilot who seems to have been quite a character. He served two tours in the Congo, and received one of Norway's highest gallantry decorations for his services there1. In a practice reminiscent of that of Lieutenant (later Colonel) Gail Halvorsen, the USAF C-54 Berlin Airlift pilot variously known as the Candy Bomber and der Schokoladen Flieger, this Norwegian pilot often dropped packages of sweets to the Congolese villages he flew over. He referred to this as "My life insurance". He was not particularly respectful of authority; when asked what his predominant memory of Africa was, his response was "Elephant arses"; a reference to the wildlife-viewing flights he was often asked to undertake, for visiting VIPs.
Operations.
IAF operations during Sqn Ldr Wilson's tenure in the Congo consisted largely of road and airfield recce, and occasional photo recce over the rebel base at Kolwezi. This was not easy work. Outside towns and cities, the roads were poor, often barely track. Weather was unpredictable, and potentially lethal, with towering clouds and violent electric storms. In addition, there were no maps suitable for navigation. The Belgians only had road maps. The US had survey charts, which were accurate as far as they went, but were useless for map-reading.
When the IAF detachment went out to the Congo, there was "a universal assumption that we would be shot at", Wilson says matter-of-factly. The official Congolese forces were themselves barely under control, quite apart from the Katangan rebels. As it turned out, the second IAF detachment never took rebel fire. But the Swedes did.
The Swedes employed Curtiss C-46 Commandos (some sub-contracted), as troop-carriers or freighters, to do regular runs between Kamina and Leopoldville, and back to Sweden, taking back personnel on rotation or leave, and bringing out fuel, "goodies" and occasional sight-seeing VIPs. One of these Commandos was shot down by rebels in the bush. The aircraft burned out, but there were several survivors. One party of survivors, led by a former Swedish Olympic athlete, set out from the site of the crash on foot, to try and find help. They were never seen again.
The site of the crash was found, and a UN helicopter operation was mounted to rescue survivors who had chosen to stay by the wreckage, rather than set out on foot. Sqn Ldr Wilson was tasked to provide cover for this operation. He went in first, before the helicopter, and reconnoitered the location. There were no rebel forces visible, so he called in the chopper. As it approached to land, "about 50 or 60 people" broke from cover and ran towards it. In front were the Swedes, visibly European even from Wilson's altitude; but they were being either followed, or chased, by a number of identifiable Africans. Wilson did not want to fire, as it was not clear if the Africans were hostile, and they were anyway too close to the Swedes; but to warn them off he made several low passes over them; low enough so that they threw themselves to the ground as he passed over. The helicopter pilot called Wilson on the R/T, "IAF Canberra please stop, you are frightening these people!" The Africans turned out to be friendly local Congolese, who had helped and looked after the Swedish survivors, rather than hostile Katangan rebels.
Departure.
On the IAF detachment's departure from the Congo, four crews, including Sqn Ldr Wilson, were detailed to ferry the remaining IAF Canberras back. The other aircrew, and the groundcrew, were to return by regular scheduled airline flights. They were restricted to the airlines' usual 20 kg luggage allowance. Sqn Ldr Wilson gave instructions that all members of the detachment were free to give any extra luggage they wanted taken back to India, to the ferry crews, who would bring them back as cargo packed into the Canberras' bomb-bays.
| Sqn Ldr PM Wilson in the cockpit of a Canberra homeward bound. |  |
On their departure from Leopoldville, the Canberras were distinctly overloaded. However as the runway was so long, they managed to get into the air. They staged through Nairobi, where they were refuelled and serviced by an RAF detachment. One of the RAF fitters opened a hatch he shouldn't have, and is said to have been awestruck: "Look at this loot!" On leaving Nairobi, which had a shorter runway and is at a higher altitude (over 4,000 ft) than Leopoldville, the Canberras are said to have taken a rather long run to get airborne.
Republic Day Fly-Pasts.
While with No 5 Squadron, Wilson participated in Republic Day fly-pasts. He describes them as a "hair-raising experience" - revealingly, showing more intense feeling about them than about his experiences of combat. The reason was simple, and may still strike a chord with the IAF today. Lining-up and running-in to Raj Path, "all you can see is these lakhs and lakhs of people, every one of whom has brought their parathas and other khana with them" - and attracted by the food, hundreds of birds, "every single one of which is capable of bringing down an aircraft", wheeling about in exactly the part of the sky through which they were required to fly. Day-time losses to bird-strikes, even those days, were "horrendous". (The more things change ... )
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Sqn Ldr PM Wilson, Flight Commander, No 5 Squadron, with the aircrew and groundcrew of his Flight. Flt Lt P Gautam can be seen standing two places to Wilson's right |
No 16 Squadron + 1965 Ops.
By then a Wing Commander, Wilson took command of No 16 Squadron in January 1964, and held it till July 1966.
When the balloon went up in 1965, No 16 Squadron was initially deployed in the East. But quite early in the war, a high-level decision was taken to confine offensive operations to the Western sector, so No 16 Squadron turned its attention there. Again, details of No 16 Squadron's actions in 1965 are covered on B-R's '65 history pages, which I will not repeat. But I cannot write about Pete Wilson without mentioning the Badin raid (Would you write about Guy Gibson without mentioning the Dams raid?).
Badin was more than just another radar unit; it was a Sector Operations Centre, one of the two major nodes of Pakistan's US-supplied Air Defence Ground Environment. It had both Early Warning and some Control capability, and is thought to have had a detection range of 200 miles. It was, make no mistake about it, a critically important -- and ferociously-defended -- target.
Wing Commander JM Nath, another of the IAF's legends, flew a difficult PR mission which brought back photos of Badin, which were used to help plan the attack. Badin's antennae were housed in two prominent white mushroom-shaped domes, on 80-foot towers. (By 1971 the Pakistanis had built numerous dummy domes, around the real ones; but in '65 they had not got that far.) Wilson and his crews were briefed that the Eastern tower housed the azimuth radar, the more important of the two. Wilson, tasked to attack with rockets from low-level for maximum accuracy (while four other Canberras attacked with bombs from medium-level for maximum impact, and another flew at high level as a decoy), therefore made the Eastern tower his aiming point. This attack pattern, of sending a single aircraft in at low-level, for target-marking or for enhanced precision, was a tactic that IAF Canberras seem to have used often, to good effect.
In daylight, without any escort, and with the PAF base at Mauripur just minutes away, it must have been a mind-concentrating run-in. Wilson recalls that he did not acquire the towers on his first pass, and had to make a second. He thought he had glimpsed a white column, some way off his true heading, on his first low-level run-in, and altered course to line up with it. Whatever it was, it turned out not to be his target, so he had to turn back for another pass. He therefore wound up attacking "from the South, instead of from the East" as had been planned. He does not say this, but it would have been into the teeth of now-alerted AA defences. In yet another Wilson trademark, he was flying so low he was actually below the level of the domes when he got there.
Wilson firmly rebuts allegations that Badin village was strafed. He says, reasonably, that at high speed and low level, and looking for a prominent, easily identifiable and well-defended target, he had no inclination or even time to fire at secondary targets. "I was flying for my life!" As is now known, Wilson's rockets and the other crews' bombs went home with pin-point accuracy. The Eastern tower turned out to house the height-finding and GCI unit, rather than the azimuth unit as they had been briefed. "But the damage was enough, to take Badin off the air?" I asked. Air Commodore Wilson smiled and shrugged. That wordless gesture is more eloquent than a book.
I asked him who the other crews who flew on this raid were. With a wry expression, he said, "I knew you'd ask that", but says he cannot remember all the names. Characteristically, he was so concerned about unintentionally leaving out someone who deserves credit, that he was reluctant to name those he did remember. But he was eventually persuaded to identify "Kaddu" Rajput, and PP "Pooky" Singh. His own navigator that memorable day (and throughout the 1965 war) was Squadron-Leader ON "Shanks" Shankaran, whom he describes as "a delight to fly with."
Departure from No 16 Squadron.
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Wg Cdr PM Wilson receiving the Vir Chakra immediately after the 1965 war from President S Radhakrishnan. |
In 1966, on the Wilsons' departure from No 16 Squadron, as is usual, many of the squadron personnel came to the railway station to see the family off. But somewhat unusually several of the aircrew left the station early, making some excuses, even before the train had actually pulled out. Wilson was puzzled, and at the time even a little hurt, at this apparent discourtesy. But behind it was a plot to pay an unforgettable tribute to a highly-regarded departing CO. This became clear, shortly into the train journey. The train had not gone far, when six Canberras came screaming in at low level, and proceeded to carry out a beat-up to end all beat-ups. The noise was incredibly loud, and the Wilson family recalls that the other passengers in the train accorded them special respect, for the rest of the journey.
ATW Jamnagar + 1971 Ops.
By then a Group Captain, Wilson assumed command of Armament Training Wing, Jamnagar, from April 1968 to February 1972. Again I will not repeat material from elsewhere, but here are some stories which might be new.
As Station Commander at Jamnagar, Gp Capt Wilson issued instructions, based on his own experience in attacking Sargodha in '65, not to fire at passing enemy aircraft, unless it was obvious that our own location had definitely been compromised. Before the start of the war he had had all AA guns trained on headings converging just above the intersection of the runways; but had also ordered, in no uncertain terms, that "they must not open fire, until we're sure that that man has found us." The first B-57 attack on Jamnagar took place the same night the war started in the West. IAF Canberras based in Poona were staging through Jamnagar, on their way to targets in West Pakistan. They had already called up Jamnagar ATC and been given descent instructions. At that moment, a PAF B-57 flew at low level straight up one of Jamnagar's runways. "It must have been the navigational fluke of the century!" Jamnagar ATC transmitted to the approaching IAF Canberra leader, "Stand by, One, we're under attack!" Wilson was at that moment standing outside, shouting to the AA command post to hold fire. The PAF B-57 came back, in what Wilson describes as "a beautiful attack"; but made the mistake of dropping all its bombs in a single pass. They made a tremendous bang, but fortunately missed the runway intersection, which was probably the B-57's aiming point. And then it was gone.
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Gp Capt PM Wilson (in flying overalls, front row) at ATW Jamnagar. Wg Cdr R Sundaresan is seated immediately to Wilson's right. |
Within minutes, our own Canberras were down, with their bombs on. They were quickly refuelled, and went on their way, to bomb their own targets in Pakistan. These night raids were the first launched from Jamnagar.
The first day-time missions, next day, included Wing Commander Donald Conquest's celebrated mission to Mauripur. This was a particularly high-risk strike. The Pakistani airspace they had to fly through, "from the border to Karachi to Mauripur," was positively bristling with air defences "like Sargodha". We had no intelligence about the aircraft types based at Mauripur, and were taking a calculated risk in sending in Hunters. But the pilots who flew this mission were instructors on the regular PAI course at ATW; and the results, as you would expect from IAF PAI instructor-rated pilots, were "excellent".
The raid yielded gun-camera film that Wilson describes as "spectacular". On one sequence that Wilson remembers in particular, the cameras caught and preserved a sequence of direct hits on a B-57 in its pen. It seemed to be "expanding, getting bigger and bigger in each frame" of the film, as it blew up!
The Jam Saheb, and his contributions.
During the 1971 ops, as in every conflict, the Jam Saheb of Jamnagar was keen to play a role. At his request, Gp Capt Wilson gave him charge of an AA gun and its crew for the duration. The Jam Saheb would bring freshly-prepared food (and drink!) for "his" gun crew every day, from his palace. "That crew", Wilson smiles, "was hoping the war would last about five years!"
The Indian Navy base at Okha suspected they were being overflown by PAF aircraft during the nights. Okha's air defence was nominally one of Jamnagar's responsibilities; one that in practice was difficult to effect, because of its distance (about 60 km) and the lack of early-warning infrastructure. Also, no damage was being done at Okha by the suspected overflights, so Wilson was not inclined to believe that Okha was being specifically targetted. But in response to urgent requests from the CO of the Naval base, he sent Squadron-Leader (later Wing Commander??) CKK "Mini" Menon to Okha, to carry out an assessment. Sqn Ldr Menon travelled in company with the Jam Saheb, in the Jam Saheb's own vehicle, which he had volunteered because of a shortage of service transport.
As it happens, both the Jam Saheb of the time and Sqn Ldr Menon were somewhat unusual figures. The Jam Saheb sported a waist-length beard; Sqn Ldr Menon had a complexion inherited from his American mother, and an accent inherited from his Malayali father. When the two of them arrived at Okha, the Navy sentries (who were clearly not subjects of the Jam Saheb!), faced with one visitor's magnificent beard, and the other's incongruous combination of American appearance and strong South Indian accent, emerging from a civilian vehicle, initially refused them entry. The sentries were eventually persuaded to telephone their CO for permission, but still kept a wary eye on the two unusual-looking visitors. When they were finally let in, and just as Sqn Ldr Menon was delivering what turned out to be a singularly ill-timed explanation to the Navy CO as to why it was unlikely that Okha would be the target of actual PAF raids, a PAF F-104 came over. Sqn Ldr Menon and the Jam Saheb and had to abandon their explanation, with some precipitation, and take cover.
Distinguishing Characteristics of Victory in 1971.
When asked for his views, on what contributed to the resounding success of 1971, Wilson gave a revealing answer. "We had Lal as the Chief" he said simply.
Air Commodore Wilson remains reluctant to discuss details of the tactical innovations he put in place in 1971. They were clearly immensely effective, as his PVSM citation acknowledges; and he clearly respects and feels himself as bound as ever by the same old Services constraints on discussing them. What he will say, in the understated language of a Staff College report, and with a quiet half-smile, is that "what we did, in 1971, was highly successful".
Years after the '71 war, he recalls being accosted, in a UK supermarket, by a Pakistani who turned out to be connected to the family of Wg Cdr Mervyn Middlecoat, a distinguished PAF pilot shot down and killed while attempting to attack Jamnagar in 1971. It seemed that Middlecoat's family had never been given clear information such as to enable closure, on his death. Wilson was able to provide some definitive information, which was said to have been passed on to a relative of Middlecoat's, now in Australia. He later received a message of thanks, passed back through the same channel.
Other personalities.
Much of Air Commodore Wilson's time was devoted to paying tribute to other IAF personalities. Most veterans would do likewise, remembering the best of their instructors, contemporaries and COs, before saying much about themselves. A career in the Air Force involves a range of hugely demanding, but potentially hugely rewarding relationships, between instructor and pupil, commander and subordinate, leader and wingman, captain and crew. These relationships can be hard on the people involved. But when they turn out well, no-one who has been party to them forgets. Wilson paid particular tribute to.
Group Captain Navroze Lalkaka, one of Wilson's instructors, whom he describes as one of the best flying instructors you could hope for, and a great pilot. Gp Capt Lalkaka was clearly a role model for numerous other IAF pilots of his generation; and is the subject of almost reverent tributes from many other IAF veterans;
Air Commodore Mickey Blake, whom Wilson described as "a real character; the type to cause grave distress to staff officers." As Air 1 of Central Air Command, Mickey Blake would usually travel with the AOC-in-C on his inspection visits. The C-in-C's official travel in those days was carried out aboard a Fairchild C-119 Packet aircraft of the Command Communications Flight. On landing at the base they were visiting, Mickey Blake was often the first to appear at the Packet door, usually bare-chested; and would loudly greet the officers drawn up to receive the C-in-C with the words, "Hello, girls!!" Mickey Blake (like some other IAF veterans) donated his entire pension to the IAF Benevolent Fund, when he migrated to Australia;
| Left to Right: Flt Lt SC Singh, Sqn Ldr PM Wilson, and Flt Lt P Gautam. All three served with distinction in the Congo. Gautam later flew in the 65 and 71 Ops and with two MVC Awards to his credit, was the highest decorated officer in the IAF. |  |
The late Wing Commander P ("Bob") Gautam, the most highly-decorated pilot in the IAF in his time, and another IAF veteran for whom contemporaries seem to have nothing but praise. Wilson paid him heartfelt tributes, for his courage and "richly-deserved" MVCs, and also for his kindness as a human being.
Wg Cdr Gautam was one of three brothers in the IAF, P Gautam, P Ashok and P Ajeet. It was not often realised that they were brothers, because of the South Indian lack of a common last name. They came from a conservative, intellectual South Indian Brahmin family - a fourth brother is a professor who publishes abstruse textbooks in a rarefied intellectual discipline. But the three brothers who joined the IAF were "three of the biggest law-breakers you can imagine!" Wilson said this with undisguised affection in his voice;
The late Group Captain R ("Sandy") Sundaresan, whom Wilson described as the best operational pilot he ever knew, adding that he was "almost without fear".
Sundaresan suffered a hockey injury as a young officer; the treatment of which, at the MH, left him with his left arm locked rigid, in the straight position. "The MH probably assumed he was Army," Wilson adds with a dry expression. This, if not addressed, would have left Sundaresan unable to operate an aircraft's throttle, and therefore unable to fly; but he was reluctant to take the problem back to the Services Medical branch, which he saw as responsible for the problem in the first place. He went on leave to his home village, where a local bone-setter re-broke and re-set his arm at an angle which enabled him to work the throttle. Sundaresan returned to flying after it healed, with the Medical branch none the wiser.
In 1971 Sundaresan, then CO of No 14 Squadron IAF, shot down a Sabre probably being flown by the CO of No 14 Squadron PAF2. Wilson describes the gun-camera film from that engagement as "nearly unimaginable", for the "precision" with which Sundaresan placed and held his pipper right on his adversary's cockpit;
Captain Quaiser Ali, whom Wilson describes as "the finest all-round pilot that I've ever flown with". He left the Air Force relatively early and moved to Air India, from where he retired;
Neville Gill, who was Wilson's cousin, and flew with the RIAF during World War II. (Possibly an early role model for Wilson himself?) Mrs Wilson, who joined in the reminiscences occasionally, said that getting Neville and Pete together usually resulted in a flood of animated stories and "Do you remember"s, as each reminded the other of another incident. Strangely, on the one occasion when she attempted to tape them exchanging anecdotes, they immediately became self-conscious and dried up;
Sqn Ldr ON Shankaran, Flt Lt (later AVM) SL ("Chotu") Datta, and Fg Offr (now Air Marshal) GCS Rajwar, all Canberra navigators. As on other occasions, Wilson spoke very highly of the special courage of Canberra navigators. He has flown in the navigator's position in a Canberra, and describes it as "terrifying" to be in the navigator's position in the aircraft's nose, watching the target grow bigger in a dive, and not being able to see the pilot's reactions or preparations for pull-out.
Finally, Wilson also added, shaking his head, "There were so many good people ... unheard of, unheard of" publicly, but "They made the Air Force." This is another thought common among senior veterans known for their human touch; that the IAF as an institution has been built by thousands of unsung individuals, as much as by the legendary names.
On courage.
For all his own record of courage, and his decorations for gallantry in combat, Wilson made the following point several times, in different words: No-one who has actually been in combat can assume too much credit, for bravery or skill. Sheer blind chance plays too large a role, in determining opportunities, success, and even survival.
However, he added (another common thought, from those who have seen combat) that some of "the bravest fellows never got much", by way of recognition of their courage. Sometimes for no better reason, Wilson suggests, than that they didn't look the part. Wilson singles out particularly Sqn Ldr JC "Boss" Verma. Short, plump, and unheroic-looking, he didn't "look like a conventional hero", but should have been better-recognised for his valour.
Leaving.
Air Commodore Wilson graciously lent me some of his log-books and photographs, to have scanned and shared. He was gently encouraging of our efforts to preserve IAF memorabilia, and admitted that in the past the IAF has allowed "a misplaced sense of security" to inhibit the preservation of its history.
Before leaving, I showed him a magazine article on the last Canberras in IAF service. He examined the photographs with professional interest, and stopped at one showing the serial number IF 901. "I've flown this one," he said, and went straight to the very log-book volume (out of five), opening it almost at the exact page where there was an entry for this aircraft.
Following a wonderful lunch, of Mrs Wilson's unmistakably Indian food laced with equally unmistakable Indian hospitality, it was finally time to leave. Going through the door, I paused to take a last look around the living-room. The main display items are not, as you might have expected, unit mementos and framed citations - they are photographs of four children, now distributed by their own efforts across three continents, and nine grandchildren - and two generations of Jack Russell terriers.
When chips are down, India and the Indian armed forces have always had some marvellous men to count on. We have an uneven record of remembering them afterwards. This courtly, understated gentleman, after weathering some storms along the way, does now appear, touch wood, to be enjoying a peaceful retirement and supportive family. Which, in Somebody's grand scheme of things, must count as not a bad return, for three decades of duty done. Rewards come in understated form, sometimes.
Notes:
1. Wilson cannot recall this pilot's name, but it may
have been Lieutenant Per Bøe Karlsen, who was invested with Knighthood of the Royal
Norwegian Order of St Olav, for a daring rescue of a group of priests and nuns.
2. Though Air Cmde Wilson mentions it as CO of the PAF Squadron, Pakistani
versions put the pilots name as Fg Off Sajjad Noor.
All Photographs are from the collection of Air Cmde P M Wilson PVSM, VrC Via K Sree Kumar
Copyright © 2002 K Sree Kumar. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of K Sree Kumar is prohibited.