History Headline: 6 decades ago, how MiGs won out, joined IAF

Indian Express

5 days ago

Sixty-two years after it joined the Indian Air Force (IAF) at Air Force Station Chandigarh, the MiG-21 will fly into history from the same station in a poignant farewell ceremony.
It was in March 1963 that the first IAF Squadron equipped with MiG-21s was raised in Chandigarh. The No. 28 Squadron came up with Wing Commander (later Air Chief Marshal and Chief of Air Staff) Dilbagh Singh taking over its command on March 2, 1963.
The MiG-21s inducted into the No. 28 Squadron back then were the MiG-21 F-13 type, the older version of the Soviet aircraft. Seven officers had been selected by the IAF headquarters to be sent to Russia for training on the MiG-21s — Wing Commander Dilbagh Singh, Squadron Leaders MSD Wollen and S K Mehra, and Flight Lieutenants A K Mukherjee, H S Gill, A K Sen, Denzil Keelor and B D Jayal. Keelor could not complete the training due to medical reasons while Wollen later succeeded Dilbagh Singh as the Commanding Officer of the squadron and commanded it during the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
Incidentally, Wollen and Mukherjee were involved in the first MiG-21 crash near Chandigarh in December 1963 when two of the aircraft collided mid-air while practising for the 1964 Republic Day parade. The two survived the crash. Over the years, the MiG-21 and its variants would be in the news for several crashes, eventually earning it the pejorative sobriquet 'The Flying Coffin'.
The first six MiG-21s arrived in Chandigarh in April 1963 after they were flown from No. 2 Equipment Depot Bombay to Chandigarh via Agra. They were earlier received in Bombay in a disassembled condition and had been put together by a team of Soviet engineers and were test flown by their pilots.
The No. 28 Squadron rightly earned the name of 'The First Supersonics' with the induction of the MiG-21s and retain that name to date. The unit now flies the MiG-29 aircraft and is stationed in Adampur in Punjab.
The induction of the supersonic MiG-21s into the IAF was preceded by some hectic diplomatic manoeuvring by the USA.
In 1963, given India's war with China the previous year and continued tensions with Pakistan, a supersonic aircraft in the IAF arsenal was a pressing need. The USA had already supplied one of its newest aircraft, the F-104 Starfighter, to Pakistan and there was considerable anxiety in the minds of the political and military leadership in India.
The US F-104 had also been considered by the IAF for induction, but the US was not very keen to supply them in large numbers in order to keep a balance between India and Pakistan. Incidentally, given its high accident rate, the F-104 Starfighter too ended up earning an unflattering reputation as 'The Widowmaker'.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there had been efforts on the part of several US officials posted at the embassy in India as well as the State department in Washington to urge their government to sell F-104s to India in substantial numbers. Their aim was to prevent India from entering into a deal with the Soviet Union as they feared that this would help the Soviets make inroads into the Indian military. They were proven right in the years to come.
Declassified records of the US State Department reveal correspondence with the US Embassy in Delhi where the latter pointed out that in the 'absence of a favorable United States policy, India will go to Soviets for military equipment'. The US Ambassador to India at the time, John Kenneth Galbraith, predicted that if India decides to buy MiG-21 and/or other types of major military equipment from the Soviet, it will lead to a large number of Soviet technicians being introduced into the Indian defence establishment.
'Soviet training and technical advisors who would accompany purchase of Soviet equipment will have inevitable influence on younger post-independence Indian military officers now rising to position of prominence,' wrote Galbraith in a telegram to the State Department.
A September 1962 paper by the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs of the US State Department, titled 'Status of Indian Negotiations for MiGs' quotes Galbraith as reporting that 'Nehru has become increasingly cool to the expenditures necessary for a MiG deal and his disposition is to postpone it or scale it down. When asked about the MiG deal by reporters in London on September 9, Nehru said, however, that 'negotiations have gone a good bit further'.'
The Soviets, too, had their misgivings. Archival documents of the US State Department talk of indications that the Soviets had their doubts, for both technical and political reasons, about providing India with a manufacturing capability for the MiG-21. 'The Soviets apparently have had some question about Indian ability to handle so complicated a program as manufacturing supersonic fighters. This seems to us to be reasonable caution on the part of the Soviets. Additionally, we have received reports that the Soviet Union has been meeting strong Communist Chinese objections, particularly to the proposal for manufacturing MiG's in India,' says the State Department paper.
In order to encourage India to turn down the Soviet offer of MiG-21, US President Kennedy even approved a simultaneous US offer to sell India nine C-130 transport aircraft in Rupees currency.
All these efforts came to a naught and India not only went on to induct MiG-21s but also manufactured them on large scale at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited facility in Ozar near Nashik (Maharashtra) and in Koraput (Odisha), where the engines were manufactured.
The writer is Assistant Editor, The Indian Express