Meet Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, the only Indian Air Force officer to win the Param Vir Chakra

Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon

Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon was born in the village of Isewal Dakha in Ludhiana District of Punjab. Sekhon hailed from an army background as his father Tarlochan Singh Sekhon was a flight lieutenant. He was commissioned as a Flying Officer in the Indian Air Force in 1967.

Pakistan Air Force, during the war of 1971, had decided on the strategy to neutralize Amritsar, Pathankot and Srinagar airfields as they were crucial to their plans at the time. No. 26 squadron, based at Peshawar, was assigned with the task to carry strikes on Srinagar Airfield. 

Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon was on readiness duty with “The Flying Bullets” of IAF, flying the Folland Gnat fighter aircraft based at Srinagar. When his airfield was attacked by PAF’s Force F-86 Sabre jets, Sekhon rolled for take-off as the No. 2 behind his leader Flt. Lt. Ghumman in a two-Gnat formation. 

The daily attacks by Sabres had caused damage to the runway but the repair gangs always ensured that the runway was never out of permanent service. So, when the Sabres of Pakistani commander Changazi, Dotani, Andrabi and Mir attacked the airfield carrying 500 lbs bombs each, Sekhon lost no time in singling out the first Sabre Pair, which was forming its original position after the bombing run. Nirmaljit’s leader Lt. Ghuman lost contact with the wingman, and therefore, Sekhon was left with six Pakistani Sabres on his tail gunning for his aircraft.

But Nirmaljit never lost sight of those two Sabres and quickly settled his aim on one of them. “I am getting behind one but the other is getting an edge on me,” is how Sekhon had described the situation to his controllers. But as soon as he made contact with the Sabre in front of him, he could feel the air getting thicker on his own tail. While he was busy neutralizing the Pakistani aircraft in front of him another Sabre had come up on his tail.

Nirmaljit, in order to evade the Sabre behind him, started going in circles and it seemed for a while that Nirmaljit had succeeded as the Pakistani commander Andrabi’s voice crackled on the radio, “Three is Winchester” meaning he had exhausted his ammo. Sekhon had successfully hit one Sabre and set another one ablaze which was seen heading towards Rajauri sector covered in smoke.

During the dogfight, Sekhon’s fighter sustained heavy damages and he failed to eject out of the Gnat as the flight control system had failed. Sekhon went down with the aircraft but his legacy was established on that day in the mountains. Coming out on top of six Pakistani Sabres had odds of 1:6, and Sekhon did it in style making the enemy run for cover.

Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon was awarded India’s highest wartime medal for gallantry, the Param Vir Chakra for his exploits in the field, and thereby, he became the only officer from the Indian Air Force to be decorated with the prestigious award.

Decisive win in 1965 war: Parrikar

The then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and army officers atop a captured Pakistani tank

India delivered a telling blow to Pakistan across the Western front, added Army Chief General Dalbir Singh.

Presenting a new narrative of the India Pakistan war of 1965, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said Pakistan made some “misplaced assumptions and wrong calculations” and it was a “decisive victory” for India though sceptics call it a draw.

“Many sceptics call the outcome a draw, but I disagree. My impression is it was a decisive victory to India,” Mr. Parrikar said at a seminar on the occasion of the golden jubilee celebrations of the 1965 war.
Speaking on the occasion Army Chief General Dalbir Singh said that India had delivered a “telling blow” to Pakistan across the Western front.

As part of the commemoration, two books on the war supported by the Army and the air Force were launched by Vice President Hamid Ansari.

The book, 1965, Turning the Tide: How India Won the War, is the effort of the Army’s think tank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies and has been written by defence analyst Nitin Gokhale. The second book, The duels of the Himalayan eagle: The first Indo-Pak war, was written By Air Marshal (retd.) Bharat Kumar and supported by the Air Force.

Mr. Parrikar said that 1965 war did not receive due “attention and analysis” and called for inclusion of the books in school education.

Veterans and experts while agreeing that India had an upper hand, however, differed on the view that it was a victory.

Major Chandrakant Singh, a decorated veteran agreed that India had an “upper hand” but felt that no one had won. “The Pakistani’s were definitely defeated in their aim of cutting off Kashmir but it is not a victory for India. However, credit must be given to our Generals and jawans for taking on the modern equipment that Pakistan had,” he said.

On a similar note Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow at Centre for Policy Research said the key was how the victory was defined.

“As we do not have access to most of the documents, the official history is the best source available. Official historians are clear that this war is not the kind of victory that it is being made out and mistakes were made both in strategic and operational realms,” he said.