Utkarsh Sharma

Professional Pilot
Travel Enthusiast

[Anchit Gupta @AnchitGupta9]

I have been thinking a lot about 1951 lately. Five IAF squadrons turn 75 within 47 days this year. They all came up in the same frantic few weeks.

Nos. 14 and 15 on 15 August. No. 11 five days later. No. 16 on 16 September. And finally No. 17 on 1 October. There is quite a story behind that bunching of dates.

At Independence, the IAF was largely still the force built during the Second World War. Partition took away three of its squadrons, along with bases, people and much of the neat plan for the post-war Air Force that I wrote about recently as Target C.

No. 5 Squadron was the first new addition, raised with Liberators in 1948. Then came this burst in 1951. Apart from No. 5, the squadron lineages around them all went back to the pre-Independence Air Force. Nos. 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17 were the first batch of new squadron identities the IAF created after those difficult early years.

No. 11 had been waiting in the wings for a while. The IAF always wanted a second transport squadron, particularly for the east. What it did not have were enough transport aircraft. Once the Dakotas could finally be found, No. 11 Squadron came up at Barrackpore on 20 August 1951.

The other four were born in rather more hurried circumstances. By July 1951, India and Pakistan were again mobilising over Kashmir and Plan Shikar had been activated. The problem was simple. The war plan needed more fighter squadrons than the IAF actually had.

So Air HQ had to make them out of whatever it could lay its hands on. The Air Force Academy had moved out of Ambala and left behind 14 Spitfires. Eleven were unserviceable. Those aircraft became the beginnings of Nos. 14 and 15 Squadrons.

At Poona, a rather grandly named new formation began life as the ‘No. 2 Wing Flight’, with Tempests scraped together from 1 BRD. Within weeks it became No. 16 Squadron.

At Adampur, instructors and pilots were pulled out of the Flying Instructors School, Harvards were found for them, and No. 17 Squadron appeared on the order of battle.

I ended up calling these four the ‘Emergency Teens’ when I first wrote their story. The name seemed appropriate. Their early ORBs are full of the slightly chaotic reality behind the squadron numbers. Aircraft promised and then taken away. Airmen arriving in dribs and drabs. Orderly rooms opening months after the official raising date. Units that existed on the order of battle while still trying to acquire enough serviceable aircraft to function as one.

Following that trail was also what led me deeper into Plan Shikar. Shikar is a much bigger story than these four squadrons. Air Task Forces appeared, wings were raised and disbanded, radar units popped up across the country, training establishments were stripped of men and aircraft, and the IAF began working out how it would actually mobilise for another war.

The war never came. Much of the machinery created for Shikar was eventually wound down. The squadron numbers stayed.

And 75 years later, the calendar has unexpectedly brought that summer of 1951 back together. Nos. 11, 14 and 15 have already crossed the mark. No. 16 follows on 16 September and No. 17 on 1 October.

Over the next few weeks, I thought I would rummage through some of their early history again. There are wonderful photographs, people and small stories buried in those first years, and I will post a few as these anniversaries come around.

For anyone who wants the longer story, I will leave my earlier pieces on the Emergency Teens and Plan Shikar below.

#IAFHistory @IAF_MCC

[Utkarsh Sharma @_utkarshsharma]

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