Source : The Indian Armed Force - A Basic Guide by Major General AFSIR KARIM AVSM (retd), © 1995 by Lancer Publishers & Distributors. Reproduced with Permission.
The Indian Air Force is a young service. The oldest of its units is only 60 years old. Its birth in 1932 and its growth to date can be conveniently divided into four 15-year periods: 1932 - 1947 - 1962 - 1977 - 1992. By a coincidence these dates correspond to the major changes in the structure, composition and the capability of the Air Force. The origin of the IAF can be traced to the recommendation of the Skeen Committee set up by the British in 1925. This committee looked into the local demand of Indians for a greater say in matters of defence. The committee, chaired by Sir Andrew Skeen (then Chief of General Staff) was formally constituted as the Indian Sandhurst Committee in 1925. It recommended, among other things, the induction of the Indians into the RAF College at Cramwell and the formation of an Indian Air Arm manned fully by Indians. As a follow-up of this report, 6 Indians were sent to the RAF college for the first time in 1930. When 5 out of the 6 successfully became pilots, the Indian Air Force came into being on 8 October 1932. The first unit of the IAF, No. 1 Squadron, was formed on 1 April 1933 at Drigh Road Airfield, Karachi.
The beginning, 1932-46
It was a slow start. No. 1 Squadron was formed with only one light of 4 aircraft, 5 pilots and 9 technicians. The rate of training was only two pilots per year. Pilots had to go to the RAF College for training as there was no facility in India. Three years went before the second flight was added, with only one more aircraft Another flight was formed in June 1938, initially with no aircraft at all. The squadron so far had had no real existence as a unit. The flights were being moved about as appendages to various RAF units. Then at long last, the three flights came together in Ambal in July 1938. A committee in 1938 recommended the formation of an IAF Volunteer Reserve and 5 Coastal Defence Flights manned by this . An act authorising the formation of the IAFVR was passed, but nothing much else happened. Even though the war cloud had by then started gathering over Europe, the colonial government did not seem interested in letting the Indian Air Force grow.
In the twenties and the thirties, the RAF was engaged in man experiments to find out the best way to utilise air power. One of the expensive operations of the British Imperial Forces in those days was to mount punitive expeditions against rebellious tribes on the fringes of the empire, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The RAF postulated that punitive expeditions could be replaced or at least largely supplemented by aerial strafing and bombing of the rebel strong-holds as a more economical alternative. This proposal was accepted. RAF set up a number of airfields and secured a presence for itself in India. In 1920, it had 8 squadrons in India. This force was reduced to 6 squadrons in the thirties and again went back to 8 squadrons by the end of the decade. When the formation of the Indian Air Force became inevitable, the RAF wanted to use this token force as its appendage in the rebel-suppression role. 'A' flight of No. 1 Squadron was tried out for six weeks in this role in 1937 The ‘C’ flight was deployed for a couple of months in 1938. Technical the Indian units performed at par with the RAF units both in air and on the ground. No. 1 Squadron was then re-equipped with a slightly better aircraft, the Hart, and one of its flights was introduce to a new task of maritime air patrol while the other two flights went back to its air suppression role in the NWFP.
After Britain entered the war, it stopped training Indian pilot at Cramwell for the IAF. However, it took in a large batch of Indian for training. These pilots were commissioned into the IAFVR an were utilised by the RAF. Those pilots who survived their operational tour in Europe came back to the IAF in 1942.
In 1940 the proposed IAFVR coastal defence flights came into being. Pilots were recruited from British and Indian civilians in the five metropolitan cities of Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Cochin and Calcutta. Available aircraft of the local flying clubs and some small airlines were pressed into service. The RAF squadrons in India were not at full strength. A decision was taken to fill the existing vacancies in these squadrons by training Indians. An RAF squadron at Risalpur was converted to training role. The initial recruits for IAFVR were trained in this squadron and sent to the coastal defence flights o to RAF squadrons in India.
By 1941, it had become clear that the total requirements of air force for the defence of India could not be made available from the RAF. The assessed need was for 21 squadrons and 5 coastal defence flights, whereas the RAF could at the most supply 11 squadrons. Therefore the IAF had to be expanded to a 10-squadron force. Large scale induction into the IAFVR began. To cope with the increase training needs, two Elementary Flying Schools and one Service Flying School were set up at Begumpet, Jodhpur and Ambala. To train technicians and other supporting tradesmen, one airmen's training school was set up at Ambala. This proved to be inadequate. Soon airmen's training was spread over 20 schools all over the country.
Two squadrons were formed in 1941. No. 2 in April, and N 3 in October. In July 1941, No. 1 Squadron changed over from Ha to Lysanders and No. 2 Squadron discarded their Wapitis for Harts handed over by No. 1 Squadron. No. 3 Squadron didn't get their full share of aircraft for some time.
In December 1941, Japan entered the Second World War. No. 1 Squadron was sent to Burma in February 1942, but came back in March of the same year when Rangoon fell to the Japanese. After returning from Burma, No. I Squadron converted to Hurricanes.
Four more squadrons were formed in 1942: No. 4 in February and Nos. 6, 7 and 8 in December. Throughout 1941 and 1942, IAF squadrons remained on training role in addition to air suppression duties in the NWFP. During the same period, the IAFVR coastal flights were closed down. It was not cost-effective to run these unit with unsuitable aircraft and untrained crew. The task was taken over by better equipped and trained RAF units.
No. 9 Squadron was formed in 1943, but was able to start training only in February 1944. No. 10 Squadron was formed in February 1944. Between 1943 and 1945, some of the units took part in air operations against the Japanese. No. 1 Squadron operated from Kohim from January 1944 to April 1945. No. 2 Squadron from October 19 to May 1945 in Cox's Bazar and various airfields in Burma. N 3 Squadron from January to April 1945 in Burma, No. 4 Squadron from Feni between April 1944 to April 1945, and then in Japan with the Allied Occupation Forces in 1946. No. 6 Squadron from November 1943 to June 1944 from Cox's Bazar, No. 7 Squadron from March to June 1944 from Uderbund near Kumbhigram in support of the Chindits Operation, and again between March and May from various airfields in Burma. No. 8 Squadron operated from Double Moorings near Chittagong between December 1943 and 1944, and again from July 1945 till the end of the war from Mingladon. No. 9 Squadron operated from April 1944 to April 1945 from Kulaura, and again from November 1945 to January 1946 from Hmawbi. For this second operational tour, No. 9 Squadron was accompanied by No. 10 Squadron.
In recognition of the work done by the IAF units in the Arakaan the IAF was given a 'Royal' prefix to its name. From then on till the country became a republic in 1950, the Air Force was known as the Royal Indian Air Force or the RIAF.
By 1946, all units had come back to India, and by now the process of “Indianization” had also proceeded quite far. By 1943, the charge of Kohat airfield had been handed over to the Indian Air Force from then on, till August 1947, all Station Commanders were from the RIAF. Those RAF or Commonwealth personnel who had operated with the Indian units during the war went away by 1946.
New branches
The equipment branch had received its first Indian Officer in 1932. A new branch called Administrative and Special Duties Branch was formed in 1940. Pilots who were unfit for flying duties were transferred to this branch. Fairly large-scale direct recruitment was also made into this branch. Apart from routine administration, this branch took over the duties of air traffic control and codes and cipher duties. The Meteorological Branch took its officers and men from the India Met Department. There was direct recruitment for the Accounts and Education branches. The Medical branch drew its doctors from the Army Medical Corps.
Up to the early forties, the aircraft being flown by the Air Force were simple. The units didn't need an Engineering graduate as an Engineer Officer. Therefore, there was no direct recruitment for the technical branches. By 1942-43, when a need was felt for an engineer in the officer grade due to the increasing complexity of the aircraft and reduced time of the air- crew under the pressures of war to devote to matters technical, a steady stream of senior technicians were commissioned into these branches from the ranks. This solution was adequate for the needs of the unit, but it prevented the growth of a technical staff who would be able to take a broad view of the technical needs at higher staff levels notwithstanding the presence of a few very eminent personalities who thus rose through the ranks. The weakness was rectified after independence, but the later entrants have often had to struggle to get out of the grooves made by the pioneers.
Organisation in the early days
The Air Force was a tiny force for the first 10 years of its existence. No separate Headquarters existed For it. It was controlled as a part of the British Air Forces in India under the AOC India, who in turn was controlled by the Commander-in- Chief in India and the GHQ. The HQ of the AOC India was called AHQ(I) and it consisted of a single branch with a Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) as its head, and about 20 officers. The AOC held the rank of an Air Marshal. With the expansion of air activity in India, this organisation expanded and a second branch, Administration, was added under a Senior Officer Administration or SOA.
By 1942, the rank of the AOC India had risen to that of an Air Chief Marshal and his designation had become AOC-in-C India. Up to 1943, there was no room for IAF officers in the AHQ(I). But as the organisation grew further, certain number of RIAF officers were inducted into it at an Assistant Director level. By 1945, certain RLKF officers had reached the level of Deputy Directors. In 1946, an RIAF officer took over the directorate of training, and he was the first RIAF officer to enter the Air HQ at that level. It might be interesting to note however, that in 1943, AHQ(I) was divested of most of its functions including that of recruitment and training. With the formation of the office of the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia (SACSEA), two new air headquarters were formed. Air Command South East Asia (ACSEA) controlled all the operations against Japan, while Base Air Forces South East Asia (BAFSEA) did the house-keeping chores for all the Air Forces operating in India including the RIAF. The AHQ(I) was left to perform only the 'Watch and Ward' duties in the NWFP which were carried out mainly by (and at times only by) the RIAF. This situation continued until the war-time headquarters were dissolved.
The Air Force upto 1945 was purely a tactical air force. It had no transport capability until No. 12 Squadron was formed in 1946. It had no long-range bombers. Apart from the few months of 1938 when a flight of No. 1 Squadron carried out Coastal Patrol duties, and the interregnum of the coastal defence flights between 1940 and 1942, it had not developed any maritime expertise. However, during the War, its equipment was progressively upgraded. Whereas in 1939 it had only one under-staffed and under-equipped unit operating obsolete aircraft, in 1946 it had nine fighter and one transport squadron using equipment that were current if not state-of-the-art, and a reasonably balanced infrastructure. In retrospect, it is quite interesting to observe this metamorphosis.
The IAF was not meant to grow quickly Both pilot and technician training schemes were of small intakes and long durations. There was no attempt to induct Indians into non-flying branches of the commissioned rank, notwithstanding the commissioning of one officer in the equipment branch from the first batch of pilot trainees. Selection of pilots was from the metropolitan cities with previous flying experience. This automatically restricted the choice to the westernised and affluent.
By 1940, immediately after the rate of recruitment was expanded, the then traditional source proved to be inadequate. Rich city boys were not really interested in joining the shooting war. In the initial days of the war, no one really knew how long it would last and how it would end. The Air Force therefore attracted the venturesome from the public schools who had no previous flying experience. This lot was also from a reasonably affluent background. But even this source was not large enough to fill the needs.
Recruitment was then expanded to include the young ones from the middle classes. Here, the recruitment drive came face to face with lack of air mindedness then prevalent. This problem was battled by formation of display flights which toured the country to fire the imagination of the youth from the smaller towns and induce them to join the Air Force. A sustained effort was also launched to induct university students through an Air Training Corps. Despite all these efforts, however, it was not possible to fill all the vacancies in the nine existing squadrons with Indian pilots, Right up to 1946, the units had some RAF and other Commonwealth pilots on their strength, albeit in a progressively reduced number.
The response to recruitment in the non-flying cadre was more prompt. Indeed, it became necessary to restrict the entries into the non-flying branches to only those who were medically or otherwise not found fit to become air crew. To increase the number of volunteers for air crew duties, army officers were permitted to join the Air Force temporarily. Some of them liked the Air Force enough to stay back permanently while some others returned to their parent cadre and still others went back to civilian life at the end of the war.
Not all air crew recruited were to become pilots. In the earlier types of aircraft, there was room for an additional air crew called the OBSERVER. In the first decade of the existence of the IM, two pilots used to crew each other in the Wapiti. However, under the pressures of war, when training institutions were formed, training of a separate Observer's stream within the general duties branch commenced. After a few courses, direct recruitment of this stream was discontinued, the vacancies being filled by pilot rejects. At that stage, some of the earlier Observers opted to re-train as pilots and did so successfully. With the phasing out of the two- seat fighters from the service, some of the Observers were transferred to the newly formed A&SD Branch while some others were employed in various ground duties retaining their General Duty status. Later, with the induction of the Dakota, the Observers were utilised in the Navigator's role.
For the first decade, No. 1 Squadron did not move about much. From April 1933 to April 1936, 'A' Flight of No. I Squadron stayed put at Karachi. With the formation of the 'B' Flight, it moved to Peshawar, Multan, and Sialkot for training exercises. After the 'B' Flight had stabilised, it moved to Bangalore for exercises and then moved into Ambala as its permanent base. In 1938, the 'C' Flight joined the 'B' Flight at Ambala. From then on, the three flights took turns to operate from Miranshah and Fort Sandaman, two of the most used forward airfields, in the air suppression role; and did short army-air cooperation exercises all over the country while maintaining Ambala as the home base.
When the rush of formation of new squadrons came, the RAF spread its wings to many new bases in the country. The IAF units moved at random to these stations. The most frequently used were Kanpur, Allahabad, Calcutta, Ranchi, Begumpet and Amarda Road. With the formation of SACSEA, the peninsular airfields become active. The IAF used Trichinopally, Tambaram, Sulur, Yellahanka, Kolar and Arakonam. More airfields became active in the North and East. Delhi, Bhopal, Chharra, Pune, Vizag, Kumbhigram, Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Kohima, Feni and a whole host of small and big airfields in Burma and Thailand were used.
The Air Force got to know India from one corner to the other. This habit of treating the whole country as one unit, along with its recruitment base being devoid of any caste, creed, region or faith, gave the Air Force a stamp of secularity that has withstood the test of time.
Changes in equipment
Like its change in size, the change of equipment came to the IAF in an explosive jolt. From 1933 to 1938, the IAF flew the Wapiti which was obsolete even in 1933. No wonder that the aircraft acquired the nickname of What-a-Pity! This was followed in 1938 by the Audax and the Hart which were by no means modern. These were the products of the transitional period where propellers were made of wood and had a fixed pitch, unable to match the engine speed with variable airspeed. The designers were not sure of making aircraft fully out of metals. Wood and fabric were still considered as major construction material for aircraft. The Audax and Hart were followed by the Vengeance and Lysander which were both slow limbering army co-operation aircraft with poor armament capability. The IAF had to fight a war with these planes where its task was often in the offensive role. The IAF displayed a great deal of innovation in usage and maintenance of these aircraft. Two famous examples were the fitment of a bomb rack on the Lysander and the fitment of a wooden tail wheel on the Vengeance when regulation metal ones were out of stock!
Aircraft design in the UK was revolutionised with the arrival of the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. Both these aircraft entered the RAF just before the war, but reached the RIAF only by 1943-45. Anyway, they were still modern when they came. By the time the War ended, all Air Force units were equipped with various marks of these aircraft in the Western world. The aircraft factories were still producing modem aircraft that were no more required by the RAF. India had a very healthy balance-of-payment situation with the British Government. Independence was also on the horizon. The Air Force therefore found itself discarding its semi new Hurricanes and Spitfire Mark VH aircraft for Spitfire MV which again gave way to Tempest IIa and Spitfire XVIII within the short span of 1946-47. There was no British transport aircraft in the market at that moment. The new Transport Squadron was therefore formed with war-surplus Douglas DC3 Dakota aircraft. The Indian Army had formed a parachute brigade. A Paratroop Training School was therefore established at Walton with the Dakota as its mount.
For training purpose, no specific aircraft was initially provided for. After basic and advanced training with the RAF, the pilots flew the aircraft allotted to their units. The Wapiti, Audax and Hart had the second cockpit fitted with flying controls. The Squadron Commander or the Flight Commander could therefore use the operational aircraft to test or train the unit's aircrew. When the Flying Training Schools came about they used the DH Tigermoth and the North American Harvard. These two aircraft proved to be very hardy, and continued in their respective roles even beyond 1947. With the re-equipment of the fighter unit with single seat aircraft, a couple of Harvards were added to the unit establishment for dual checks and instrument flying practice.
The IAFVR flew a large variety of aircraft during its short life span. The more exotic varieties like the Atlanta and the Blenhim did not find a place in the regular units when the coastal defence flight were closed down.
When the EFTSs and the SFTS were formed, they were manned fully by RAF personnel. As the war progressed, a sprinkling of India flying instructors, trained at the RAF's Central Flying School Little Risington, took their place in these units. By 1946, Indians formed the majority of instructors, though the units were still commanded by RAF personnel. A number of fighter pilots were also trained in UK as Pilot Attack Instructors. Indian pilots, by and large performed very well at these courses.
By 1946 therefore, the Air Force had digested its explosive growth in size and technology fairly well and had become a fairly stable Service. It was also unfortunately realised by then that the impend independence would bring with itself a partition of the country and a partition of the Air Force. For an organisation that was cosmopolitan and secular by design and upbringing, a partition on religious lines was not an easy concept to digest. Many non-Muslim men and officers hailed from areas that were to constitute Pakistan, just as there were many Muslim men and officers who had their roots in what to continue as India. Each and every such person had to decide for himself which side of the fence he wished to be on. Many such decisions were invariably influenced by the communal holocaust had engulfed the country or by the uncertainties that prevailed about the future of the two new nations. When the dust settled, however we found that although almost all non-Muslim men and officers had opted to stay back in India irrespective of their place of birth a large segment of Muslim personnel with their roots in India had done the same and remained with the country of their birth.
The nitty-gritty of division of assets was amicably sorted in four months precending 15 August 1947. The assets of 1, 6 and 9 Squadrons were handed over to Pakistan and these units were number-plated. Similarly the depots and other assets were partitioned and re-located. Personnel were suitably relocated and moved safely with close mutual protection. On 15 August 1947, the first phase of the Air Force came to an end and a new phase began.
Back to