Hectic Days in Halwara-10: The War Limps Along in the West

As I had noted earlier,   the war was steadily taking the shape of an exercise.   On the night of 6^th December, the feeling of relief amongst the aircrew on the station was quite palpable.    After dinner, I switched on the small transistor at the BADC tuned to Radio Pakistan Lahore.  

Hectic Days in Halwara-9: On to Day Three

The battle on the ground and air seemed to go quite according to our plans.   Pakistan had been made to commence the operations and our response from the air was quite overwhelming.    The land forces had planned to blunt any Pakistani advance and it seemed that their plan was working too. 

Hectic Days in Halwara-8: The 2nd Day of Ops

As the sun set on 4 December  1971, with  the war between India and Pakistan being barely 24 hours old, I was already burdened with a personal loss.   Gopal, my closest associate for the past three days was gone.