Folland Gnat: "Sabre Slayers" of The Indian Air Force

Hello my fellow readers, after so many Sundays and numerous stories of the Indian Army from the Battle of Asal Uttar, Rezang La as well as a piece on Sam Manekshaw(check most of them here), today I will narrate a fabled story from the hangers of Indian Air Force. When IAF itself is promoting #KnowTheIAF this Air Force Day, It would be my pleasure to bring in certain contributions too. And If you want any specific stories to be covered or have any articles, quiz sets to contribute, feel free to contact me on my Twitter, Quora, Facebook(They flagged my blog, I flag them), and even LinkedIn

I will be trying to cover some more interesting stories from the "Guardians of our Skies" in upcoming weeks, but today I will be covering one of the most trusted sepoys of the Indian Air Force, which served us valiantly in not one but two wars, and such was its destruction that it came to be known as the Sabre Slayers.

A Folland Gnat (pic credits Swarajyamag)

Folland Gnats were one of the very first procured aircraft by the Indian Air Force, it was built in Britain and with India accepting its first Gnat in Air Force on 30 January 1958, the journey of the "Sabre Slayers" in the service began. The first Gnat squadron was the No. 23 Cheetah. It converted from Vampire FB.52 on 18 March 1960 using six Folland-built Gnats. Subsequently, with the establishment of HAL, Indian assembled and sub-assembled Gnats were also being inducted in Indian Air Force. The first aircraft built from Indian-built parts first flew in May 1962. The last Indian-built Gnat F.1 was delivered on 31 January 1974.

While Gnat was a light aircraft and was not specifically developed with combat abilities as its primary objective, even the host nation Britain used it in a training capacity. But the service it showed with highly skilled personnel of the Indian Air Force was no less than any combat aircraft. Well now you know about the hunters allow me to give a short introduction of the prey. F86 Sabres were one of the ablest dogfighters of its era. Coming straight from the arsenal of the US Army, it was considered one of the primary weapons for the Pakistan Air Force and was indeed used heavily in two major wars with India.

Story of the Legendary Hunt

So it was the hostile condition in the western border when the Indian Air Force was being nagged by Advanced Sabres. They were equipped with better missiles and radars and was pretty much believed to be invincible.

IAF’s then Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Arjan Singh (maybe he deserves a story another week😉😉), took this challenge head-on and decided to bust the myth of the Sabre’s invincibility once and for all. He dispatched an elite task force to Pathankot(Punjab) to take on and eliminate the Sabre threat in a suitable manner.

Then COAS Arjan Singh 

At the tip of this initiative were Folland Gnats of 23 Squadron ‘The Panthers’, which were to be deployed at Pathankot on 2 September, to provide air defense cover to IAF assets over the Chhamb–Jaurian battlefield. The Gnat was a lightweight fighter with a small profile, which was very difficult to spot during combat. It was powered by the Bristol Orpheus engine, which being lightweight gave the Gnat a speed advantage over the Sabre at medium and high altitudes. The Sabre, however, was a better performer at low altitudes. The Gnat was armed with 2×30 mm cannons, which could bring down any aircraft in PAF service with just a few high impact hits. At the same time, the Gnat was very sensitive to fly and required the pilot to be ahead of the aircraft and handle it with considerable skill. 

On account of its supposedly small characteristics, the PAF had literally discounted the Gnat as a threat and considered the Hawker Hunter in IAF service as its main adversary. They were in for a rude shock.

The 23 Squadron Gnats landed in Pathankot at dusk on 2 September, undetected by PAF radars. In the end, the brief to the pilots from the base commander was straightforward: “We want you to shoot down the Sabres. How you do it is your problem, but the Sabres will have to be tackled and Pakistan denied a chance to build up the Sabre’s myth.”

IAF Air Defence pilots would be taking Sabre pilots of the PAF head-on. IAF’s dedicated ‘Sabre Slayer’ mission would be flown from the very next day. The day of reckoning had arrived.

In the Chhamb—Akhnoor axis, the morning of 3 September was ominous, with Sabres were out to undergo missions in a usual routine for them. Just this time Indian Air Force was ready to welcome them with lighter Gants, in the hot melee of fighter planes from India and Pakistan, a Sabre struggled to persist behind Gnat being flown in tight formation in a further attempt to get a lock on his missile. One of the Gnats recognized this danger correctly, relaxed his turn, and deployed airbrakes to maintain behind oncoming Sabre. Certainly a show of skills from our pilots.

It was ironic. ‘The hunter was about to be hunted’, just the way Johnny Greene had briefed them the previous evening.

It was Wing Commander Trevor Keelor (veer chakra awardee) who fired his maiden burst from the Gnat’s guns and hit bull’s eye, as the Sabre’s right-wing and elevator spewed off metal parts and smoke. Keeping his nerves under the order, a calm and composed Keelor continued closing into the Sabre and fired his penultimate burst at 200 yards. Mortally hit, the right-wing of the Sabre ripped off and the aircraft headed in a spiral towards mother earth.

As the Gnats touched down back at Pathankot, the station commander rushed to meet them and hear the story of the vanquishers. He was debriefed extensively on the encounter and he quickly informed the CAS of the events over the landline. A delighted Arjan Singh is rumored to have famously told the defense minister post the encounter, “Sir, please tell the Indian nation, on this day a Sabre Slayer is born!” Thus was born the appellation “Sabre Slayer” for the potent Gnat, which had taken part in the first air combat of its operational career and comes out victorious in the face of a gritty enemy attack.

The Weapon of the Very Bravest

The year was 1971 and the Indo-Pak border had become a battlefield. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was carrying out strikes ceaselessly to neutralize the crucial airfields of Amritsar, Pathankot, and Srinagar. A detachment of IAF’s 18 Squadron had been charged with the air defense of Srinagar.

Sekhon was a part of this famed squadron, also called Flying Bullets due to their incredible maneuvering ability in the air. On the morning of December 14, 1971, he was on Stand-By 2 duty (they had to be airborne in two minutes when given the ‘scrambling’ orders) at the foggy Srinagar airfield with Flight Lieutenant Baldhir Singh Ghuman.

Back then the Kashmir valley had no radar and the IAF was dependent on observation posts pitched atop ridges and peaks to provide warnings of incoming raids. The PAF Sabres were finally spotted by an IAF Observation Post a few kilometers away from Srinagar and a warning was immediately conveyed to the airbase.

Immediately, ‘G-Man’ Ghumman and ‘Brother’ Sekhon scrambled towards their Gnats and rolled them out of the hangar while trying to contact the Air Traffic Control (ATC) and get permission to take off. However, a mismatch of radio frequencies resulted in their being unable to connect with the ATC despite all their efforts. Unwilling to dally any longer, the two took to the skies just as a pair of bombs exploded on the runway.

PVC Nirmaljit Singh Sakhon with his Gnat

Such was Sekhon’s confidence in his machine and courage in face of danger that he decided to take on the four Sabres himself. The feisty fighter expertly maneuvered his Gnat in circles to evade the Sabres while relentlessly firing at them. His fierce gunfire single-handedly downed two of the PAF Sabres but the odds were against him.

One of the Sabres chasing him (piloted by Flt Lt Mirza) finally managed to hit Sekhon’s Gnat with a volley from its six machine guns.

With black smoke belching from its rear fuselage, the wounded Gnat headed towards the base. But the 37 bullets that peppered the aircraft had ensured the failure of its flight control system. As the Gnat flipped and went into an uncontrollable nosedive, Sekhon tried to eject from the aircraft but the ejection system had also been knocked out.

It gave us the only Param Veer Chakra Awardee from the Indian Air Force and the story of his valor with his own Sabre slayer remains one of my personal favorites from the Indian Military history.

IAF’s 18 Squadron, raised in 1965 and number-plated in 2016, was resurrected again at Sulur just on this 27 May with the induction of LCA Tejas which in my opinion is the best tribute someone can give to the legend. 

Hunters out for killing again.

This time the Gnats went out on the eastern border, and the war was the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The battle of Boyra or technically Battle over the skies of Boyra is one of the most famous air fights between the two countries.

The gnats were placed in the Dum Dum base(Calcutta) and it was then that IAF caught up some activity of incoming Sabres. The planes were scrambled quickly in a classic interception mission.

The four Gnats dived into the attack to bounce the Sabres. The first section of Gnats was of Flt Lt. Andrew Massey and Fg Offr. SF Soarez as his No.2. The second section consisted of Flt Lt MA Ganapathy and Fg Offr. D Lazarus. As the Gnats dived in, a section of two Sabres pulled out of the attack and placed themselves in an awkward position, just in front of Ganapathy and Lazarus. Ganapathy called out on the Radio Transmission, 'Murder Murder Murder'. Both the pilots did not waste time on this perfect opportunity. Cannon shells slammed into the pair of Sabres and both the Sabres were badly damaged. The Pakistani pilots promptly ejected out of the Sabres and drifted down to Boyra by parachute. The wreckage fell near Bongaon village.

Massey in the meantime pulled up over Ganapathy and Lazarus to latch onto another Sabre. The Sabre broke into Massey's attack forcing him to take a high angle-off burst. The burst missed the target. Massey took another well-aimed burst at 700 yards and hit him in the port wing. By that time, Massey's starboard cannon had stopped firing. But the Sabre streaked back into Pakistani territory trailing smoke and fire. Massey himself realized that he was well over East Pakistani airspace in the chase to hit the Sabre. He then turned around and rendezvoused with the rest of his formation.

That was yet again a resounding victory for the Gnats over the Sabres.

Heroes of the Battle of Boyra: The Boyra Boys with a Gnat

All four pilots became instant heroes of the Armed Forces. One of them, Donald Lazarus had a very very distinguished career. He was an FCL, an Instrument Rating Instructor, and a pioneer member of India's first ECM Squadron. He was also the first Commanding Officer of No.102 Trisonics, which was raised on the MiG-25R -- then (and to some extent even now) India's ultra top secret squadron.

I would like to cover Trisonics in my subsequent articles in the series too.

End of their Journey

Gnat was a pretty old aircraft and was facing various operational issues even before the war of 1971 came. One of them had to do an emergency landing on the Pakistani side due to Electrical failure. (Proudly kept by Pakistan as a war trophy because why not)

Finally, after distinguished service in two major wars with Pakistan, Gnat was retired in favor of a more advanced version of it called the Ajeet (licensed production of Gnat by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited)

HAL Ajeet

Ajeet came with a lot of improvement as served the forced till 1991 after which Gnat and its derivatives departed from the Indian Air Force.

So this was the story of a beast machine at the hands of the very best. 

I hope the article managed to engage you enough. Do share it and subscribe to it for more such stories from the unknown pages of the Indian History and of course from the Indian Air Force.