Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand says…: The Tiger Cubs of 1 Squadron

13 Nov 2023

1 Sqn Jaisalmer, end January 1984. Sitting: Vashisht, Saha, Nijjar, Saini, Tam Sarma, Zapo Sinha, Jimmy Thomas, Koti Rao. Standing: Sahota, Kika Khanna, OR Parsad (partially hidden), Fuzz Moulik, Santa, Oka, Teshter, SC Mehta, Harish, Kadian, Mallu Malhotra. Newly married Sandip Sud went back to Gorakhpur ferrying an aircraft.

 My recollection of the time I spent in 1 Squadron, “The Tigers”, 40 years ago came back like a flood when early in October, I was informed about the celebrations for the 90th anniversary of the Squadron planned on 6/7th of November 2023 and invited for the event. More importantly, reflecting on those days brought to the fore the lessons I had learnt while serving as the flight Commander of the Squadron in Gorakhpur in 1983-84. This piece is thus dedicated to those young Tiger Cubs and the airmen who taught me some things about life and leadership, despite being years younger and junior to me, which I may never have picked up unless I had been there with them in those difficult days.

I say difficult because the Squadron had been declared non-operational by DASI sometime in late 1982 and the morale of the Squadron was obviously low, particularly since 1 Squadron had the distinction of being the premier squadron of the Air Force, being the oldest, rich in its history and achievements and having produced almost all the initial leaders of the Indian as well as the Pakistan Air Forces. What prompted me to write this article at this time was also the fact that some of the later 1 Squadron members, that I had met recently, had no inkling or recollection of these events and how the Squadron recovered from this humiliating and demoralised period in its history. This article is thus meant to express my gratitude to all the folks of 1 Squadron of those days who stood with me and contributed to our combined efforts in bringing the Squadron back to a respectable operational status in quick time, albeit a little suspiciously and reluctantly initially, which is what taught me an immense amount in terms of human relations and man-management and which came in handy in my future appointments.

1 Sqn, Jaisalmer, January 1984 on the tarmac

How I landed up in 1 Squadron also makes a strange story because, by all normal parameters, I should not have been there. The readers may recall that in my previous article on Air Marshal Dilip Jog, I had mentioned how I was sent for the Su-7s when I was actually seeking a conversion to MiG-21s. Due to that experience, I never again asked for any choice posting through the rest of my career in the Air Force and always left the column for the choice of posting in the ACR Form blank, leaving it to the powers that be to decide on where to utilise me. In end of 1982, I was completing the Staff Course in DSSC, Wellington and it was customary for the Director Personnel (Officers), DPO for short, to visit and ask the students where they wanted to go after the course. I gave a blank Form as usual which prompted the CI (Air), then AVM Cecil V Parker, to call me and ask me, in a lighter vein, whether I intended to settle down in Wellington permanently. I replied in the same manner to state that I really didn’t care where I was sent and would not really mind if I stayed back with him in Wellington, which suited Malini and me in every aspect. Then came the perplexing posting order to 1 Squadron, then located in Gorakhpur. So, Malini and I drove across North to Gorakhpur along with our daughter, Ruheene, who was just over a year old then, slowly through Poona, Indore, Delhi and Lucknow, to meet family and friends during the bit of leave and joining time as also to collect our belongings, most of which were parked in Indore with my parents after our return from Iraq in July 1981.

Passing through Delhi, we called on then Group Captain Vinay “Kappy” Kapilla and his charming wife, Rekha, whom we had known since Adampur days, when I was a Flt Lt in 101 Sqn in 1977-78, and had been privileged to be their neighbour while Kappy Sir was a Wg Cdr commanding 108 Squadron. In Delhi, Kappy Sir was the JDPO and the conversation over dinner came around to my posting to 1 Squadron. I frankly expressed my surprise at this move since I was essentially a MiG-21M (Type 96) guy having spent my time in 17 & 101 squadrons with a bit of MiG-21FL (Type 77) flying in TACDE in 1978-79 and all other variants, but essentially the trainer, in Iraq from 1979-81. So, while I was being sent to a Type 77 squadron to be the senior Flight Commander in a short-while, others who were far more qualified on Type 77s and senior to me, due for command of a squadron soon, were being sent to Type 96 squadrons as the third or fourth in seniority for Flight Commander’s post. Kappy Sir, in his typical laconic manner, told me to stop thinking of such things and just said he had personally chosen me to restore the squadron’s operational status since the Tigers had been declared non-ops by DASI a few months before. One couldn’t argue with that.

1 Sqn 75^th Reunion 2008

We arrived in Gorakhpur in mid-January 1983. The CO then was Wg Cdr RRJ “Lala” Dass and the senior Flight Commander Sqn Ldr V Pashupathi, the latter I knew from Hasimara days when he was in 17 Squadron. Immediately after me was Sqn Ldr Satish Mehta, again well known from Hasimara days and who also was my neighbour since we were allotted a flat next to him in the married quarters. After that, there were some Flight Lieutenants and lots of young Flying officers, all in various stages of their operational syllabus with just “Koti” Rao, Kadian and Arvind Oka just operational by day. Initially, I found it strange that all the younger folks, the Cubs as I called them, were absolutely cold and indifferent to us, in the squadron as well as the Mess. Malini and I started to visit the Mess, which was almost 4 km away from the married quarters, regularly for the library and a drink. In the initial few visits, we found that all the bachelors avoided talking to us and just disappeared from the area after seeing us. I found out slowly that this was because of a deep distrust that had developed between the senior leadership and the junior lot. So, the first agenda on my list was to gain their trust so that we could work together as a team towards our operational goal. The same thing applied to the airmen who were also initially unfriendly. So, we had to adapt instead of just assuming that our position as a Flight Commander automatically gave us the standing we wanted and find innovative ways to get the young Cubs in sync with us. What I practically also learnt in this process was different techniques to gain the trust of the subordinates, by giving them due respect and space, till they felt that you were honest and sincere in your efforts towards their operational training/performance and welfare while displaying high professional standards yourself. 

1 Sqn GJ April 1983. L to R Peter, Guddi, MIAF, Self and Malini.

Another opportunity came my way within 2 to 3 weeks of my arrival when “Lala” Dass decided to pit himself against me to prove a point, after just a few familiarisation sorties due to my longish break from flying, by putting me for a 1 vs 1 sortie against him in the flying program. Somehow, that morning of the sortie, I found all the cubs looking at me in a strange manner and later found out that they had all gathered around the radio set in the crew room to monitor the sortie as soon as we took off. This important sortie was flown on 2 February 1983 as per my log book. Without being immodest, Lala tried to get the better of me by initially positioning himself at an advantage but I managed to get behind him pretty quickly every time. We did some four or five situations before he got tired of it. In the debrief, Lala just said we would repeat the sortie since his aircraft seemed under powered. So, we switched aircraft between the two of us and took off again, with the same results. Needless to say, there was no debrief and Lala just walked off with an expression of disgust. After these two sorties, I thought I saw a trace of respect in the eyes of the cubs and sure enough, that evening in the bar, a couple of them joined us for a drink. No names here, but one of them even expressed satisfaction at what they had heard over the radio in these sorties because Lala had a habit of taking one of them off and on for a combat sortie and then gloat over the situations in the debrief instead of teaching them how to do better. Immediately thereafter, I started flying combat sorties with the cubs towards their operational syllabus and, though they perhaps found it initially boring, I briefed and debriefed them thoroughly while explaining my pet theory of paths to them explaining that the objective was that they should be able to step on my shoulders and do better than me when they reached anywhere close to my seniority and experience. 

However, my flying in the squadron was a little restricted in the initial period because of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the squadron planned on 1 April 1983. For this, the CO tasked me with a number of jobs, because of my PSC, which included the compilation of the squadron history, organising the squadron museum and all the the events, including golf in the afternoon, the entertainment programme in the evening followed by the GJ dinner. Particularly for the history and the GJ brochure, I had to make a few trips to Delhi to meet, and collect some stories and material from, our illustrious predecessors which included then Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh, Air Marshal “Timki” Brar, Air Marshal LM Katre and Group Captain “Omi” Taneja, the latter having commanded the Squadron during the 1965 Indo-Pak War on Mysteres. This is when I picked up the details of the mission the Squadron had flown on September 7, 1965 and the missing Sqn Ldr AB “Tubby” Devayya which led to my writing a dream sequence on what may have happened in Tubby’s mission and publishing it in the Squadron Golden Jubilee Brochure. Unfortunately, my copy of the Brochure has gone missing but I still have the typed manuscript with me.  

1 Sqn GJ 1983 with MIAF

In this time, I was hearing some stories of the stuff that was going around in the Squadron which had broken the trust between people, both from the officers as well as the men. Somehow, I found a good link to the men with two Junior Warrant Officers, Mathur in the MT section and Premnath, an Inst/Fitter who was literally in charge of the technical activities in the squadron. Both got very friendly with me and I used to visit them regularly for tea and samosas, in JWO Mathur’s house and Premnath in the SNCO’s Mess since he was living-in. I also got involved in the Squadron games, particularly football and hockey apart from volley ball with them. Due to all these activities, the mutual respect and bond grew further, particularly due to the entertainment programme wherein the men’s families including their young children were participating for the GJ. This also taught me how to gain the trust of the airmen without any over familiarity but with mutual respect while motivating them to work as one team and produce the desired results. 

1 Sqn 1983 GJ and Bhangra

Soon after the Golden Jubilee events, my flying with everyone picked up. We were also required to move to Poona for the command gunnery meet in early May 1983. Lala asked me to pick the team for various events which I politely declined since I had not done any armament training with the Squadron and did not know individual capabilities in that area. I politely told the CO that I could only go by the armament register and the scores recorded therein, (all of which suspect in my mind), and it would be better if Pashupathi and he together decided on the teams for the events. Since I had not done any armament training myself for over four years by then, I also requested him to leave me out of this event till I got my hand in. While the latter request/suggestion was not accepted, and I was put in the team in all the events, my doubts on the authenticity of the armament register were confirmed since the squadron did not perform anywhere close to the scores of individuals logged therein. I wouldn’t like to say any more on this and name individuals who performed or who did not.

The same held true for the aircraft serviceability state which was confirmed soon after when Pashupathi was on leave pending posting in May 1983 and the young technical officer, Flt Lt “Pandit” Sharma came to me with the inflated morning serviceability state for my signature and I refused to sign. This resulted in an angry Lala calling me and literally ordering me to sign it but I held my ground and politely refused. Quite obviously, that did not win me any points with him or my report that he wrote shortly thereafter on handing over the Squadron to Teshter Master in end May or 1 June 1983 and which hurt me later in my career but I think it did take my stock up with all the youngsters when they realised that I was willing to sacrifice my career on principles. I could narrate some more stories on this aspect but would desist from doing so here after so many years. So, that was another lesson in transparency, honesty and principles for me. 

1 Sqn on the sands of Sam, January 1984

 At that time though, I didn’t really care nor made any efforts to have the report corrected and since I was not informed of anything in writing. Instead, my entire focus was to get the Squadron up to speed as soon as possible once Teshter Master took over. Towards this, I started with a fair amount of theory for air to ground armament work and for tactical and air combat manoeuvring with detailed briefings on the theory of paths that I had formulated for my own self. I also started flying with each individual to slowly build up their capabilities. On taking over, Teshter also designated me as the 2 i/c of the Squadron and asked me to look after most of the administration too. This involved a fair amount of paper-work and also interaction with the airmen in the afternoons before night flying.

At the same time, I decided to make all the standard briefing guides and sight pictures for various conditions on readily available charts. Tester was also particular that I didn’t keep the youngsters in the Squadron after 1.30 pm and get them back only if there was night flying planned. That gave me a lot of time in the afternoons on my own to do all the required works before night flying on almost 10-12 days a month. While I didn’t keep anyone back in the Sqaudron after 1.30 pm, the pace with day and night flying made some of the young wives complain to me, in a lighter vein, that I was keeping their husbands busy and away from them most nights. Here, Malini helped a lot. She was a friendly, easy-going person so, on the social front, she was truly my greatest asset to break the ice and get people going.  Through all this, we formed a good cohesive team with lots of professional as well as social activities. I also found the Cubs enthusiastic about advanced exercises like 4 Vs 2, 2+2 Vs 2, strike plus escorts Vs CAP as also night strike role to which I progressively introduced them. This was the time when we really bonded and coined phrases like, “Number One, Second to None” and “work hard, Play Hard” for the Squadron.

Our team work really paid off and was visible both professionally in the Squadron and in social functions. Knowing how busy I was, some of young Cubs and some wives started asking Malini out whenever they had the time and taking her for movies or just a gad in town, at times. Malini also built a great rapport with all the Station Ladies, and some of them became friends for life. The pace of training and camaraderie paid off in quick time since DASI visited us without any notice in February 1984 when the young Cubs proudly and confidently showed Wg Cdr “Ben” Brar, the main Inspector, what they had learned making him ask me what I had done to them.

We didn’t reveal that having manoeuvred with 6 to 8 aircraft in combat, the Cubs now found 2 Vs 2, with just three other aircraft to keep in contact, a piece of cake. We got our operational status back from DASI with an Average Plus rating which was pretty good considering the experience level of our pilots and the limited time we had for retraining after the GJ. Our armament scores, both air to ground as well as air to air, also showed tremendous improvement because of all the theory we studied before the phase, followed by detailed film debriefs, with a healthy competitive spirit developing between everyone during the armament detachment at Kalaikunda in September 1983. Soon, I also quietly introduced the Cubs to the night strike syllabus, with just dummy attacks, which was practiced with zeal in the desert later while in Jaisalmer. The perking up of the self confidence levels in the Squadron was obvious.

1 Sqn 90^th Anniversary. With Chimpy Kaushal and Ramas Ramaswamy

  At the same time, with motivated men working on the aircraft, our aircraft serviceability also truly started matching the earlier made-up figures. As I had mentioned earlier, having won over “Pandit” Sharma and JWO Premnath earlier, and even the senior STO, Sqn Ldr Yadu later, really helped us in this effort. We also had the advantage of being the only fighter squadron in Gorakhpur where we there was little difference between first line and second line men and equipment. With better serviceability, everyone got a lot of flying and quickly became operational in all phases which gave each person greater confidence and satisfaction. We also instituted procedures wherein we got into combat or the main portion of the mission as soon as we reached the designated sector at the desired altitude and finished exercise heading towards base so that we could recover without wasting time.

This led to shorter sortie durations but higher sortie generation, thus also saving precious aircraft hours while reducing the down-time for servicing. The efforts and sacrifices made by all the folks to achieve the mutually agreed laid down objectives is something I have not forgotten and am grateful for even today. In a lighter vein, Teshter liked me to lay down such formal monthly objectives, having come from CDM, and we got the opportunity to show-off accomplishment sometimes even before the deadlines we had set for ourselves. The best part was that we achieved all these objectives progressively without a single accident or serious incident, minor ones like hitting a buck at night on the runway during the landing roll and then celebrating with a barbecue, in the play hard part, notwithstanding.

Of course, such team achievements also came with an odd problem when I had to ground one of the operational Flight Lieutenants, who had joined the Squadron from elsewhere, and recommend him for transfer out of fighters due to his lack of situational awareness and leadership in the air. This did cause a bit of a flutter but almost all the pilots saw this happen in a transparent manner and understood that there was no compromising on professional standards and flight safety. Though the affected officer initially questioned my assessment, even Teshter soon found out for himself and accepted that this was being done essentially to save that pilot’s life and family though, initially, he may personally be disappointed at this turn of events. Another lesson that is fresh in my mind through which all the folks from that era are still alive. The only one we unfortunately have lost from that team of 1983-84 till date was “Koti” Rao, later in Tezpur after moving to MOFTU, due to ejection seat failure. The rest all did well in various walks of life with some notable ones making it to C-in-Cs/VCAS/DCAS. They certainly did better than me, as exhorted to them earlier.   

1 Sqn 90^th Anniversary with 1965 veterans Phillip Rajkumar and Danny Satur

Such efforts bonded us all and due to the transparency, the divide between seniors and juniors was effectively bridged. The real proof of our operational readiness came when just before new year in 1983, the new Station Commander, Gp Capt Subburamu, charged into me as the officiating CO on 27 December 1983 and said we had to proceed to Jaisalmer immediately since the squadron detachment there had to be relieved from ORP duties. We were initially tasked to move there after New Year in early January 1984 with 2 x An-12s as transport support, the ferry being planned with the Drop Tank. Now, Command wanted us to take over the ORP immediately after landing so we had to fly in the clean configuration with the gun-pod since the transport support was just one Avro, already on its way to Gorakhpur that day, and some more the next day or the day after. While Groupie Subbu kept breathing down my neck to try and hurry me up, I took my time to redo the entire plan with the STO and pilots, delegating different duties to individuals to get us going as soon as possible. In between, we also rushed out to kiss our wives/GFs goodbye and to pick up a change of clothes and toiletries that could be carried in the MiG-21 itself, leaving the suitcases for later transport aircraft since the first Avro was already loaded to its maximum capacity with first line equipment and men to support the ORP aircraft till the other load arrived. Even with this complete change of plans, we managed to get airborne for the first leg till Bareilly within 4 hours of receiving the order to move. Unfortunately, the weather after Bareilly did not permit us to take off for the second leg till Jodhpur that day and we had to spend the night in Bareilly. The next day also, we had to change the route through Sirsa, instead of Jodhpur, due to bad weather. We still encountered a line squall extending to around 45,000 ft on the way to Sirsa but all the 10 fighters and one trainer that we were taking got through safely, even though some of the pilots were young Flying officers who had just attained their Day Operational Status.

As soon as we landed at Jaisalmer, just after lunch, the Station Commander, Group Captain Vishnu Johri, had us ushered into the base ops room to give us a push to take over ORP duties. I think we gave him a scare when he walked into the briefing room and found all young folks and, as he shared with me a few days later, was worried about the record of Jaisalmer till then with young people like us. A glance at the photos of Jaisalmer detachment would make that obvious. The next day, I, perhaps, confirmed his foreboding since after ensuring the ORP manned before dawn, we did not fly that morning since I was trying to get all the administrative support sorted out and had left the rest to go over the station orders for flying. Groupie Johri finally had me traced out in the MT Section and asked me to see him immediately. He then told me that the last squadron detachment had done 400 sorties in their month’s stay there and asked why we were not flying. I told him that the transports given to us were all in bad shape, even the refueller had to be push started, and I was in the MT Section trying to get these repaired and fixed to the extent possible. I told him that even the arrangements for the airmen were far from satisfactory and I intended to get all these issues sorted out so that we could focus on the flying thereafter without having to worry about mundane matters like where the meal transport had broken down, when the shift men would arrive or where the refueller was after each sortie.

Fortunately, he did not take offence and immediately issued orders to rectify all these issues. We, then, literally beat all records by flying 534 sorties in that month long detachment. Over dinner in his house a week or so later, he told me why he had apprehensions after seeing us in the briefing room after arrival but after seeing how well we were flying, all his doubts and apprehensions were gone. Needless to state, Groupie Johri and I struck a good friendship in that period and he always met me warmly whenever our paths crossed later, though due to our different jobs and seniority, the meetings were rare. He also became very fond of all the squadron folks and even invited the whole lot to his house once. Needless to state, he was also happy with our armament scores at Pokhran.

For the next anniversary in April 1984, we all got together and planned an Arabian Night which also turned out to be a great success, due to the contribution of all members.  The events with the men also saw enthusiastic participation from all and were a roaring success with the bonding between all ranks evident to all. In July 1984, Tester Master left us and GM Vishwanathan took over. I had known Vishu Sir since my OTU days in Jamnagar and he was very happy to inherit the Squadron in the shape it was in due to the sustained team effort of everyone. He also gave me full freedom to continue with the “work hard, play hard” line that we had adopted.

I soon left the Squadron in October 1984 on promotion and went back to Staff College, from where I had come retracing the road trip of early January 1983, with loads of good memories and many new Tiger friends. Some attached photographs of those days and the recent reunion over the 90th anniversary celebrations in Gwalior would keep reminding me of the good times of 40 years ago with the greatest lesson of all in life, of making friends so that every time you meet, there is always a big hug and lot of cheer(s).          

The author of this series: Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand seen here at Aero India