Remembering INS Khukhri
A slice of history
By Avadhesh Prasad

THE recent treachery of the Pakistani government is hardly surprising. While the Indian Prime Minister was out there discussing peace with Pakistan, it was planning war against India. Lies, deceit, treachery and fraud seem to come naturally to Pakistanis. Remember their dubious claims of having developed missiles and nuclear devices to go with them? Remember their claim of sinking the Indian naval ship Khukhri?

When the I.N.S. Khukhri went down , I lost many of my friends and shipmates. I was a part of its penultimate command team, and had left the ship just a few months prior to the hostilities. The ship had an alert anti-submarine team, and her weapons and systems too were in fine condition. And yet it was torpedoed by a sneaking sub with impunity.

Who sank the good ship? Was it really the Pak-sub Hangor as we are told?

The I.N.S. Khukhri was sunk during the 1971 war. A board of inquiry later concluded that it was a victim of complacency on the part of its Commander, Capt M.N. Mulla. It was alleged that he had ignored even the basic tenets of operating in the submarine-infested area by not taking active and passive anti-submarine counter-measures in self-defence.

These conclusions were based upon the accounts narrated by the survivors, and the witnesses drawn from the escorting ship — the Kirpan. None of those persons could have known as to what was going on in the Sonar Control Room, or on the bridge of the Khukhri that day. In the absence of a better feedback, the inquiry officers apparently fell for the obvious. Captain Mulla certainly did not deserve the ignominy.

On December 5, 1971, the I.N.S. Khukhri and the Kuthar were returning to Bombay, escorting the Sagardeep and the Vijeta, when they attacked a submarine contact of Bombay. From the analyses of the Khukhri’s attack, it was concluded that even though the submarine may have escaped sinking, it must have been damaged extensively. It was further inferred that it was some unidentified submarine, a snooper, operating surreptitiously off Bombay.

Soon after the incident, naval intelligence intercepted radio transmissions from the area of the southern coast of Saurashtra. It was believed that presumably a Pakistani submarine was lurking in that area. it could have been positioned there to attack our ships. But then why would it give away its presence by breaking radio silence persistently?

Or, could it be that some other sub was masquerading as Pakistani submarine, and keeping a watch on the warring forces, albeit from a safe distance? Even that did not explain those frequent transmissions, the very antithesis of submarine warfare.

Another possibility was that it could be the same submarine, which the Khukhri had attacked earlier. The sub lay in shallow waters. This later hypothesis somewhat explained the desperate need to transmit persistently. Obviously, it was reporting its condition to its mentors.

A hunter killer group comprising the Khukhri and the Kirpan was dispatched in the early hours of the December 8, 1971. It arrived in the operational area late in the evening the same day. We are told that on arrival, they searched the designated area twice. The ships were, at the time, doing just ten knots and were on a steady course. This was quite irrational. Yet, the ‘inexplicable reason for the commander’s behaviour’, as noted in one of the issues of the US Naval Proceedings later, was not quite inexplicable. But, it is gathered, he did have a good reason.

Around 2000 hours the Kirpan observed explosions on board the Khukhri. As the ships were darkened, the ubiquitous flash must have dazzled everyone around. As the Khukhri’s blip on the Kirpan’s radarscope faded, they knew that it had sunk. Just about the same time, on board the Kirpan, the Sonar Controller reported torpedo HE (hydrophone effect) indicating that they too were under attack. The Commander of the Kirpan himself and anti-submarine warfare specialist of considerabale experience, and present on the bridge, ordered firing of a salvo of anti-submarine mortars in the direction of the HE. As luck would have it, the Mortar Controller reported misfire at the mounting. In spite of all the misfire drills, and emergency procedures, the mortars refused to respond. The Kirpan was thus frustrated in its efforts to retaliate. By all counts the enemy was hell bent upon attacking the Kirpan, and there it was, without a sporting chance to fight back.

Fortunes do change hands in war, and one could conveniently presume that the sinking of the Khukhri was just another piece of good luck for the adversary. Besides, as it did, it happened when the Pak navy was lying stultified in its homeport, virtually imprisoned. We had already sunk PNS Khaiber, and badly crippled PNS Badr during the December 4 attack on Karachi. One expected that anything to boost their morale would record well with them. But no, they sat over this good news for another 48 hours before claiming the kill. Surprisingly, it appeared that they did not hear about the sinking, even as the radio transmissions continued.

The inference was obvious. That someone else was surreptitiously using the Pak navy frequencies, but not transmitting in their code. This could well be a subterfuge to protect her own identity. Credibility of this allegation is further augmented by the fact that even after this procrastinated claim the Pakistanis failed to identify the unit, or the area of action. It was only on December 2, four days later, they credited the Hangor for the sinking. And yet, one did not hear about the awards and accolades accredited to the ‘valiant’ submariners. This sudden penchant for a sober reticence made their claim totally suspect. Memories of euphoria generated in the Pak media after the clandestine hit-and-run raid on Dwarka, by PNS Khaiber in the 1965 war, were still fresh. And here it was, a clear victory relegated to back burner.

There were other reasons too, that betrayed the fact that the Khukhri had not been sunk by the Pak action. The blundering decision to send the US 7th fleet into the Bay of Bengal was made by the White House Special Action Group during a meeting on December 8 (dateline: Washington). The Nixon administration at that time just wanted to subdue the Indian fighting spirit, and demoralise the Indian Armed Forces by parading their might in the wake of the debacle. They certainly had no intentions to invite the Red Fleet in the Indian Ocean at that juncture. That the US fleet remained clear to the south of the Bay only confirmed what had been suspected all along. It was a diversionary move to scare us on the one hand; and, on the other, to impress the Pakistani dictator, with their empathy. Evidently, the bluff was prompted by their knowledge of the sinking. But how could they have known it in advance? They knew it since they themselves had done it. These allegations of the American involvement were quite convincing, even at that time. The media made no bones about Indian sentiments. Newspapers, from Blitz in Bombay to Hindustan Standard in Calcutta, went to the extent of reporting that it was the US submarine Fargo that had attacked the Khukhri.

Kenneth B. Keating, the erstwhile USA Ambassador, promptly denied this allegation, stating that no American submarine bore that name. He further elaborated, that no CENTO naval exercises had been held in the Arabian Sea during November-December, 1971, implying that no US ships were operating in the area. The denial was more Machiavellian than veracious. Actually, there had been a joint naval exercise — ‘Midlink - ’71’ — of Karachi, originally scheduled from November 27 to December 6, 1971.

Reportedly, the USN ships — Valcour and Mckean — and notably the US submarine Sargo, were known to be exercising with the RN and other units.

We need not blame Keating for being preposterous. He was merely singing to the tune set by the Nixon administration. In those ‘cold war’ days, Washington was selling the idea of keeping the Indian Ocean a ‘power-free zone’. Their treachery was further highlighted, when it was found that much against the avowed US policy they continued stoking hostilities in the sub-continent by secretly supplying arms and weapons to Pakistan.

Naturally, the Indians complained loudly against the American duplicity the betrayal. And we were not alone to infer that. Earnest Weatherall of The Times, London, in his report concluded that he had serious doubts if the Pakistan navy ‘bottled up in Karachi’ could ever sink the Khukhri.

Be that as it may, an aura of mystery does surround the incident. Even more so today! When we know how deceitful our neighbours can be when it comes to making claims by proxy! We never particularly believed that much publicised Daphne class subs in the Pakistani hands were a formidable adversary. Earlier conflicts had given us a good insight in to the Pakistani psyche. They are a proud albeit boisterous people, who unquestionably trust their weapons to do the fighting. To conclude I must add that the actual nemesis of the Khukhri did not lie in the hands of the Hangor or the Sargo. It laid elsewhere... but that is another story....