COMMENTS IN BRACKETS ARE MY OWN
“At that time there were two schools of thought on the
question of the use of tactical air support in case of hostilities on the
northern border."
1. "The General Staff was strongly in favour of it because
we felt that it was the most effective way of restoring the imbalance of forces
at the front, particularly in Ladakh. Furthermore, air force officers at squadron
and wing level considered it an eminently feasible task. ( Gen Palit, here conveniently
doesn’t mention the thoughts of officers in air force staff or higher
headquarters and restricts himself to wing level.) I had discussed the
possibility of air strikes in that area with the pilot (in a vampire fighter
for an air reconnaissance of western kameng) and he had agreed that
identification and destruction of ground targets woiuld be much easier on that
high and open expanse than in the rugged, heavily forested and weather-driven
terrain on our side of the border. (But wouldn’t the pilot have to fly the
aircraft through the same weather driven terrain ? Wont that pose a problem?)
Later in informal discussions with other officers of the squadron the consensus
was that strikes on targets north of the border were a feasible task. In Kameng
the frontier zone was close to the airfield at Tezpur, a factor that would
allow our fighters enough time-over-target to be effective. In ladakh the
circumstances would be moreadverse but the task coiuld still be worthwhile."
2. "Counter-argument – India would be the loser should hostilities
escalate to the use of air forces, because cities in north India were
vulnerable to Chinese bombers based in Tibet, whereas Chinese cities were
clearly beyond the range of our aircraft."
3. "Counter Counter Point – There was little reason to
fear strategic bombing by the Chinese. First, we had no positive intelligence
of a bomber base anywhere in Tibet. (Well, we had no positive intelligence on
the invasion in waiting and massing of Chinese troops as well. Intelligence was
as such defunct and most of it was being fed by CIA to IB, Military Intelligence
was as such non-existent). Second, if hostilities broke out over border claims,
all indications till then were that fighting was unlikely to spread beyond the
border regions. (The general impression in Delhi amongst the politicians, bureaucrats
and the defense personnel was that the Chinese would never attack, forget fight
in the border regions) Third, even if the Chinese action did escalate to air
bombing of civilian targets, our air defense potential, although not
sufficiently well equipped at that stage, could still meet the challenge. The most
the enemy could hope to do would be to mount occasional raids over northern
India which, while causing some damage, would have litter effect on the border
war. (What about the lowering of morale of the citizens when the cities are
bombed ?)"
The fact of the matter :-
"When the Chinese finally
attacked, in October, a hasty decision was taken under a counsel of fears and
with no homework done by the Air Force. It was decided that it would be best
not to escalate the intensity of operations in case the Chinese retaliated in
like measure. This was a grave misjudgment because, as Deputy Air Chief Arjun
Singh admitted to me a year later, the
Chinese could not have launched bombers and fighters from Tibet at that time. Airfields
located at heights of 4,000 meters or more require protracted and costly
preparations, such as extended runways and other facilities. This was a gross failure
of air intelligence. (Why only air intelligence, intelligence community at
large had failed and so had the people in staff who could not appreciate this
at an early stage)"
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