In the 1965 war an Additional Secretary ordered the Navy not to take part in the war, so Admiral SM Nanda’s promised to avenge and his legendary leadership with all details of the Navy’s 1971 war are covered with the Navy missile attacks and an accidental IAF attack off Karachi for the first time as also seen from Pakistan. In the East the Navy’s blockade by the newly formed Eastern Fleet led by INS Vikrant and her flying machines and men in also holds details, with views by Pakistanis who took part. The sinking of PNS Ghazi is analysed. In 1971 the Navy’s only large loss was its front line ASW ship INS Khukri which fell prey to PNS Hangor’s E-5 torpedoes and sank on 9th December off Diu with loss of 18 officers and 176 sailors.
Yet 1971 saw India’s first victorious war and the Mukhti Bahini naval wing played a stellar and unsung role in the East, all depicted in the book in a racy style along with all the operations carried by the Indian Navy including Op Vijay to recover Goa ( 1961) and operations to avert coups like Op Lal Dora in Mauritius (1983), Op Flowers are Blooming in Seychelles (1987) and Op Cactus in Maldives (1988).
During the author’s visits to USA he was invited to the US Naval Academy Annapolis to speak about the 1971 war, with emphasis on what the author had researched in the book called USA’s ‘Tilt to Pakistan’, and the role of Task Force 74 (TF-74) led by USS Enterprise, Bainbridge, Decatur, Parsons and LPH Tripoli with 25 large helicopters sent in to the bay of Bengal for evacuation. The ‘tilt’ is juxtaposed with Mrs Gandhi’s security treaty with the Soviet Union and how Marshal Andrie Grechko USSR’s Defence Minister ordered Admiral Sergie Gorshkov to sail in nuclear submarines and a Kynda in to the Bay of Bengal to dissuade any action by America or China. HMS Gurkha was ordered by UK to leave the scene and repair to Colombo. The students at Annapolis were surprised to learn about INS Vikrant’s carrier operations with Sea-Hawks and Alizes and knew little about the Indian Navy.
Since the last book, many new facts have come to light and needed to be aired. Some errors which creep in history books needed to be corrected. The author undertook a visit to Pakistan in 2010 to meet Pakistan Naval officers and historians and even met some wives of officers who took part in the 1965 and 1971 wars and referred to the books by the Pakistan Book Club to eke out details of the wars and actions by the players and participants on that side to the border. The author met surviving Mukhti Bahini participants from both sides of the Eastern border, like CD 1 Petty Officer Chaman Singh MVC in Rewari, Lt Cdr J K Roy Choudhury VrC settled in Lebong Darjeeling, Cdr V P Kapil VrC in Delhi, Major Chandrakant VrC 1 Guards (4 Rajput) in Delhi and Sajid Zahir from Dacca. The author spoke to Lt Gen JFR Jacob, the hand maiden of the Mukhti Bahini. This book Warring Navies - India and Pakistan is therefore a sequel and has an expanded scope with some 30 pages devoted to Geo-Strategic aspects and the unsatisfactory command and control of India’s Armed Forces.
Many Pakistani and Indian issues of war are clouded in doubts and controversies and inter service rivalries. These have been fully covered in the book with substantiated evidence to close many controversies. Many myths written in to war histories or articles are difficult to not believe, for India is stodgy in declassifying historical documents and encourages a statist historiography. Hence the authors’ findings, research & analysis, rely on interviews, books, articles and reports, with Joseph P Chacko who contributed form Frontier India news portal. All this evidence is juxtaposed to help the reader get a larger context, while unraveling the sequence of events and examining controversies. The contents below with photographs tell it all in the 264 pages of the book.
