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New
Delhi, 01 December 2005
Navy
Day is celebrated on 4th December each year. This year
the Navy is riding a high tide as it were, and the most ambitious
expansion plans ever undertaken by a developing Navy are in place.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went on record to assure funds for the
Navy and hoped to increase the Defence Budget from 2.5% of GNP to
3%, if the economy grows at 8%. So on the occasion of Navy day 2005,
in a tribute to our Navy, we recall with pride some of the glorious
achievements of the past with the hope that they would inspire the
naval fraternity to even greater achievements in the future.
On
the midnight of 3rd/4th December 1971, the Pakistani submarine PNS
Ghazi sank off Visakhapatnam coast and later that same night the
Indian Navy’s Osa class missile boats (nick named The Killers),
ventured into Pakistan’s bastion at Karachi and sank three ships.
The architect of the mission Admiral S M Nanda wrote of the incident
in his memoirs aptly titled ‘The Man Who Bombed Karachi'.
Luck
it is said favours the brave and so it was in the 1971 war for the
Indian Navy. Except when the INS Khukri with Capt M N Mulla
in command went down to a watery grave off Diu on the fateful night
of 9th December along with 18 officers and 176 sailors.
The submarine PNS Hangor (Cdr Tasneem in command –– later
Vice Admiral) torpedoed the Khukri and made a heroic gateway
although he was stalked and cornered the next day by IN ships and
newly acquired Seaking helicopters. The Admiral was in Delhi two
years ago and had quite a tale to tell, but both countries have not
released the original documents pertaining to the war.
The
Sinking of PNS Ghazi
It
is said that Napoleon always chose the General with a lucky streak
for a difficult mission, from among the names, which were put before
him. In war, as in love, an element of chance always persists ––
thus the discussion whether it was bad luck or a deliberate depth
charge attack that sent the Pakistani submarine Ghazi
(formerly USS Diablo) with Cdr Mohammed Khan in command, to a
watery grave with no survivors a few miles off Visakhapatnam early
on the morning of 4th December 1971, still rages. The
debate is whether the Pakistani crew was negligent, or was it that
INS Rajput and patrol craft Akshay on patrol off
Visakhapatnam, forced the submarine to dive deep when they dropped
depth-charges and she hit the bottom of the sea? Or did a mine
explode in the submarine’s vulnerable hull when attempting to lay
mines hoping to get the INS Vikrant?. The Navy had generated
bogus signal traffic which suggested that INS Vikrant was
operating off Visakh, but the aircraft carrier was in the Bay of
Bengal? Or did the submarine suffer some mechanical problem and lose
buoyancy and dive into Davy Jones’ Locker (the bottom of the sea)
–– the word is derived from Divya Loka (Goddess of the Seas)?
All these are moot questions that will never be answered with
certainty, for not one of the 90 Pakistani sailors on board survived
to tell the true tale of their mishap. Yet it was Indian Navy’s
luck that contributed to the Ghazi’s demise.
A
large explosion was heard off Vishakapatnam immediately after
midnight of 3/4 December by the Naval coastal battery and INS Rajput
had reported depth charge attacks with no results. Next day two
fishermen Chintapalli Satyalu and Chintapalli Achayya of Kotha
Jalaripeta, fishing in a “Todi” found a life jacket belonging to
the Ghazi floating near Visakhapatnam, and when they handed it over
to the Navy, the C in C Vice Admiral N Krishnan promptly rewarded
the fishermen Rs 500 each. He ordered INS Nistar a diving
tender to find the wreckage. When Nistar located the wreckage it
retrieved many relics from the submarine, and it became clear that
had the Ghazi lived it would have had a tale to tell of hardship,
endurance, and courage but alas she fell prey to lack of underwater
art. It was a lucky shot for the Navy on the first day of what
turned out to be a 14-day victory trot for India, and led to the
birth of Bangladesh.
The Missile Attack On Karachi – 4th December 1971
The Western Fleet led by Flagship INS Mysore (Capt later VAdm Rusi
Ghandhi) was at sea geared for battle. The Pakistani Fleet failed to
come out which confused the Indian Fleet Commander, RAdm Chandy
Kuruvilla and his staff. The C-in-C West (Vice Adm S.N. Kohli ) set
in motion the attack on Karachi. The frigates Kiltan (Cdr Gopal Rao ) and the Katchall (Cdr K.N. Zadu ) were ordered to meet up with the
missle boats Nirghat
(Lt Cdr I.J. Sharma ), Nipat (Cdr
Babru Yadav, K-25 (Lt Cdr B.N. Kavina) and Veer (Lt Cdr
O.P. Mehta ) and were put on their way to Karachi after fuelling
under shore control. The C-in-C was in the Maritime Operations Room,
fingers crossed, having let his killer dogs loose on Karachi with no
air cover. With speed in excess of 28 knots, the small boats, which
offer minimum radar targets, approached Karachi in darkness, and
launched their Styx missiles. Pakistani officers on duty in the
control room at Karachi failed to realize that it was a sea borne
attack. The missile boats were relieved to be allowed their goal
without retaliation, and speedily retreated with a few missiles
still intact for their retiring phase. Keesing’s
Archives reporting the incident in
January 1972 had this to say, “In the biggest naval battle since
the Second World War an Indian Task Force sank the Pakistani
destroyers Khaibar (formerly HMS Cadiz) and Shah Jahan (formerly HMS Charity ) and
two mine sweepers off Karachi in the early hours of 5 December.”
In actual fact only the destroyers PNS Khaibar
(Capt Nasseem Mallik) Minesweeper
PNS Muhafiz (Lt. Cdr MS Usmani) and merchant ship Venus Challenger
carrying contraband sank on that fateful day.
The historic attack is commemorated as Navy Day. All Commanding
Officers were decorated for their heroic sortie, which will long be
remembered for it earned the Navy two MVCs and 4 VrCs.
Today
the Navy’s plans are ambitious. It has 24 ships on order in India
including an aircraft carrier at Cochin. Another INS Vikramaditya
(Admiral Gorshkov) is being readied in Russia with 16 MiG 29s and
the Navy may soon acquire the 17,000 ton LPD USS Trenton with
helicopters for its increased role in the Indian Ocean and to safe
guard India’s future. The nation can truly be proud of its Navy.
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