1: Wg Cdr Karun Krishna "Jumbo" Majumdar, DFC & Bar:
One of the great role models of the early #IndianAirForce, he was in the third batch of Indian cadets trained at the RAF College Cranwell - which itself makes him part of a tiny, select elite ... /2
2: Back in India, he flew Westland Wapitis with the sole IAF unit, No 1 Sqn - seen 2nd from right in the first photo below. His leadership qualities were recognised early; with flight command as a Flying Officer ... /3
3: No 1 Sqn's time in the NWFP is often overlooked; but it should be better-studied; there are lessons which apply to many 21st-century conflicts. There is some evidence that Jumbo Majumdar, and other early IAF leaders, attempted innovative solutions to "air policing" ... /4
4: By 1941 Jumbo Majumdar was CO No 1 Sqn, which was converting to Westland Lysanders. In December that year Pearl Harbor, & the Japanese invasion of South East Asia, brought WW2 to Malaya & Burma - & No 1 Sqn was ordered to Burma ... /5
5: No 1 Sqn's exploits under Jumbo Majumdar's leadership, which included leading raids of mixed RAF & IAF formations - a first for the times - earned the sqn rare encomiums, during a period of disaster for the Allies + Majumdar's first DFC ... /6
6: Sqn Ldr Jumbo Majumdar was invested with his DFC in mid-1942, at a grand ceremonial investiture parade, where both he and Aspy Engineer received their DFCs ... /7
7: For most of that year & next, as the IAF expanded, Jumbo held staff roles, including as Acting Wg Cdr the deputy to then-Gp Capt HJGE Proud, then Inspector-General, about to become AOA. He was in key roles, but for various reasons pressed to go on ops in Europe ... /8
8: By early 1944 he was in Europe, having dropped his Acting Wg Cdr rank to return to ops. While doing ops conversion to Typhoons & Mustangs, he encountered RAF Sqn Ldr David Ince, who wrote this marvellous tribute to him ... /9
9: Conversion completed, he flew on ops over the D Day beaches & the Falaise Gap with 268 Sqn RAF. No photos from that period, unfortunately; but this evocative painting of 268 Sqn Mustangs over D Day by @Posartaviation gives a good idea of what he would have done ... /10
10: And the Operations Record Book of 268 Sqn shows his regular participation in the heavy work of the time, flying initially out of what was then RAF Gatwick; later from forward bases in France ... /11
11: His time with 268 Sqn brought him his Bar to his DFC, the only one to an Indian officer ... /12
12: Back in India, he was put to work with the IAF Display Flight, in some ways the predecessor to the modern @Suryakiran_IAF, with the specific intention that his record and his personality would help recruitment and continued expansion of the IAF ... /13
13: Sadly Wg Cdr K K "Jumbo" Majumdar was lost to the IAF and India doing a display over Lahore on 17 Feb 1945 - the anniversary of which prompted this belated thread.
Others, especially @vayusena, have been compiling material for a full biography - hoping to see it soon 🙏🏽
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Short 🧵 & links for #ArmisticeDay , & the end of WW1. India today feels it had no stake in WW1, but in fact:
- There was an Indian signatory to the Armistice agreement at WW1's end; &
- Part of Germany's reparations payments were specifically earmarked for India ...
2: ... The Indian signatory was Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner, seen in @SirWilliamOrpen's painting of the signing, in Indian Army uniform behind US President Wilson, Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of Britain (& from behind, Johannes Bell signing for Germany) ... /3
3: ... ... The above detail from Orpen's (much larger) painting is included in @GMortonJack's fine book, "The Indian Empire at War", which I enjoyed, together with Dr David Omissi's - embarrassed I still haven't picked up @dStephenB's, tho' I have Malik's own ... /4
18: More damaging were fantastical Western reports describing “Soviet officers strutting the streets of New Delhi”, a phrase & notion that damaged India-US relations well into the 21st century. Some anti-Soviet ayatollahs may not yet be entirely past that notion today … /19
19: Two weeks before, @TIME had run a cover + 9-page article on East Pakistan, with 4 photo pages. This was journalism at its best: clear-eyed, & willing to hold government to account. The US knew what was happening; it was reported on by their own journals of record … /20
20: On the treaty, both @srinathraghava3 & Chandraskekhar Dasgupta have written on the differences between New Delhi’s & Moscow’s objectives from the treaty. India needed a P5 ally, for the forthcoming battles at the UN; the USSR saw a counter to the US-China alignment … 21
In July 1971, 51 yrs ago, US then-NSA Kissinger secretly visited Communist China, then without diplomatic relations. Nine months later Indian PM Indira Gandhi signed a treaty of Friendship with brand-new Bangladesh PM Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. What connects these two events? .../2
2: The answer is the #BangladeshLiberationWar 1971. Arguably the war - & the horrific holocaust in East Pakistan, starting with the notorious Operation Searchlight - would not have happened but for the US-China outreach.
3: Pakistan was, in July 1971, facilitating US-Communist China rapprochement. Nixon & Kissinger needed CMA Yahya Khan (pic 1), & did nothing to stop the Pak Army's crackdown (pic 2), which sent a record refugee wave into India (pic 3) ... /4
OTD in 1971 the end of the #BangladeshLiberationWar was in sight, but still uncertain. Always a difficult period in wartime; nobody wants to be the last man to die in the war. These couple of days would have imposed special demands on courage, and on junior command skills ...
2: The previous day, as recorded by @BrainsTrustIn & others, IAF aircraft had carried out a spectacularly successful pin-point strike on the very heart of the West Pakistani puppet government in Bangladesh:
... /3
3: Remaining Pakistan Army units moved from Dacca Cantonment into Dacca University buildings. On 15th morning the IAF went after them, flying low between tall buildings and firing rockets accurately into where the Pakistan Army was sheltering ... /4
#BangladeshLiberationWar: OTD in 1971 a spirited young Gnat pilot took off, against SOPs as his runway was being bombed, fiercely determined to get to grips with the enemy before the war ended. Fg Off Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon would receive the IAF's first & still only PVC ... /2
2: Fg Off Sekhon's story has been told by many, including (respectfully) by a Pakistani officer. One of the most painstaking is this rendition by VR pro Anurag Rana. Nearly a decade after he first rendered it, it remains imho one of the best:
... /3
3: The various retellings differ in some details - particularly in respect of how many of the enemy he shot down, or damaged, or as Douglas Bader once claimed in his logbook, "frightened". But his sheer determination earned a rare tribute - the enemy's respect ... /4
#BangladeshLiberationWar: OTD in 1971, in a painful sequel to the successes of the previous days, 47 Sqn, AF Stn Jamnagar, the IAF, & India lost Wg Cdr HS Gill, one of the most brilliant pilots to ever strap into a KM-1 seat. Lost leading a second attack on the Badin ADCC ... /2
2: In earlier years, he did breathtaking solo aero displays in a MiG-21 in a distinctive red scheme - at *half* the recommended speeds for aeros at low level. The aircraft was actually travelling on a ballistic trajectory; he was able to retain control & recover energy ... /3
3: Sadly, Wg Cdr Gill's death has not been appropriately closed. Altho' a reliable PAF officer has confirmed recovering a Wg Cdr's body in the area, his name figures in write-ups on Indian PsoW allegedly still held in Pakistan, and still worse ... /4