When the Indian Navy earned its spurs

IN the Indo-Pak conflict of 1965, the Indian Navy was made to remain a mute spectator when it was asked to ‘lie low and remain passive’. Despite protests from the then Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral BS Soman, the fleet was directed to remain south of the Porbandar parallel and only act in self-defence against a markedly inferior force. Determined to prove its mettle, six years later, a transformed Indian Navy blasted the hell out of the Pakistan Navy.

The Navy had swung into action as soon as the adversary hit our airfields in the West in 1971. While the Western Fleet — configured around the cruiser, Mysore —was already in the North Arabian Sea, a Special Task Group waited off the Saurashtra coast. At dusk on December 4, the Task Group comprising two Petya class corvettes and four missile boats (newly acquired from the USSR) headed towards Karachi, the former towing the boats. Operation Trident was under way. At the predetermined range for top speed, the boats were unleashed; they then headed at the maximum speed (34 knots or 63 kmph), launched their missiles from 20 nautical miles (38 km) at ships off Karachi; withdrew at the same speed and were outside the Pak Air Force range before dawn.

This operation scored impressive hits: Pak naval ships Khyber, a destroyer, and Muhafiz, a minesweeper, received hits and sank. So was the fate of the MV Venus Challenger, a merchant vessel. More critically, one missile went over land and struck the Keamari Oil Terminal (which was also attacked by the IAF, the same day). This daring raid — the first of its kind in the region — took the Pakistanis by surprise. Never had they expected that Osa class boats could be towed beyond the designed range and quietly unleashed at the last mile.

A similar operation, code-named Python, was undertaken on the night of December 8-9. The MV Gulf Star, a merchant vessel, was sunk, the Keamari oilfield again set ablaze, and the PNS Dacca (a Pak naval tanker and logistic backbone) and the MV Harmattan, a merchant vessel, were damaged. The devastation was so large that the Pakistan Navy withdrew ships inside the Karachi harbour and ordered a reduction of their ammunition outfit — both things unheard of among the militaries.

Thus, maritime operations on the western front were effectively over within five days. The ‘bombing of Karachi’ owed itself to Admiral ‘Charles’ (as he was fondly nicknamed) Nanda. His strategy of destroying the war-fighting capability of the enemy played an important role in our victory. The spirited execution by the missile boat squadron went a long way in the successes. The political backing for this audacious plan must also be acknowledged.

In the East, the Navy’s one-point agenda was to seek action; destroy the enemy in his ports; strangle his supply lines to Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and the Chalna-Khulna Mongla riverine port complex. The lynchpin was the aircraft carrier, Vikrant. Unknown to the world, she was straggling on three (of only four) boilers, restricting her speed to about 16 knots — much below the threshold for safely launching her aircraft. Her Seahawk air-defence fighters and Alize anti-submarine aircraft were deployed in the ground attack, strafing and reconnaissance roles. For a light carrier to perform power-projection roles was a game-changing venture. Credit must be handsomely apportioned to Vikrant.

On its part, Pakistan had planned (and we had rightly assessed their mind) that it should neutralise India’s Vikrant. It had deployed its submarine, Ghazi, off Visakhapatnam where the carrier had been temporarily based before the war. But the Indian Navy was no novice and clear that no ship was to be in harbour when hostilities were imminent. Long before the war, Vikrant, along with other ships of the Eastern Fleet, had been sailed out of Vizag and deployed off the Andaman Islands. So, when the Eastern Fleet charged from the Andaman Sea to unleash Vikrant on enemy ports, Ghazi had already been sunk, far away in her hiding place, off Vizag, thanks to uninterrupted and urgent attacks by the destroyer, Rajput, and a few other ships.

While there was much to celebrate, a sad incident too happened: the loss of Indian frigate Khukri on December 9. On December 8, Khukri and Kirpan were tasked to hunt for an enemy submarine known to be hiding off the Diu Head. The submarine, a modern French-supplied boat with a weapon-sensor suite, obtained contact of Khukri and struck her with a salvo of three torpedoes. Khukri sank within minutes, taking down with her the Captain, 18 officers and 176 men. But two things stood out: Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla left the age-old tradition alive as he went down with his ship; the loss made way for investigations, resulting in improvements in anti-submarine warfare. Consequently, today, our Navy is a much better force.

Lastly, about the USS Enterprise, around which so much debate has gone on. Pushed to the corner by early December, Pakistan had invoked a secret agreement with the US. The US ordered Naval Task Group 74, comprising carrier USS Enterprise, plus seven major combatants to sail from the Gulf of Tonkin towards the Bay of Bengal. The ultimate manoeuvre, however, was not to be. Though the Enterprise Task Group transited through the Malacca Strait on December 14, instead of heading towards East Pakistan, it shaped course towards Sri Lanka! To cover up, the next day, it was stated in Washington that after the ceasefire, the Task Group might help evacuate Pakistani troops from the East. That too was hyperbole — given that over 90,000 Pak troops were in the East and the Task Group had room for just two or three thousand extra people and, that too, for a short voyage. Unfortunately for them, nothing worked and the Pakistan forces in the East surrendered on December 16. The US Task Group was made to play a cat-and-mouse game by the Soviet flotilla stationed in the Indian Ocean. The two rivals engaged in manoeuvres, far away from the scene of action, even as the war ended bountifully in India’s favour.

While it is acknowledged that 1971 was the Indian Navy’s finest hour, an important fact must be reflected upon. The Navy has for long been capable of ‘sea control’ and has, whenever called upon, subdued, if not fully neutralised, the adversary. Look at Operations Chutney/Vijay — the liberation of Goa; the 1971 war; or Operation Talwar during the Kargil conflict. However, in 1965, it was wasted like a fleet-in-being. That should never happen again.