Windjammer
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 41,290
- Reaction score
- 181
- Country
- Location
Peter Preston, The Guardian, London.
September 24, 1965.
"One thing I am convinced of is that Pakistan morally and even physically won the air battle against immense odds.
Although the Air Force gladly gives most credit to the Army, this is perhaps over-generous. India with roughly five times greater air power, expected an easy air superiority. Her total failure to attain it may be seen retrospectively as a vital, possibly the most vital, factor of the whole conflict.
Nur Khan is an alert, incisive man of 41, who seems even less. For six years until July he was on secondment and responsible for running Pakistan civil airline, which in a country, where now means sometime and sometime means never, is a model of efficiency. He talks without the jargon of a press relations officer. He does not quibble about figures, immediately one has confidence in what he says. His estimates proffered diffidently, but with as much photographic evidence as possible, speak for themselves. Indian and Pakistani losses, he thinks are in something like the ratio of ten to one.
"The Indians had no sense of purpose, the Pakistanis were defending their country and willingly taking greater risks. The average bomber crew flew 15 to 20 sorties. My difficulty was restraining them, not pushing them on".
" This is more than nationalistic pride. Talk to the pilots themselves, and you get the same intense story"
September 24, 1965.
"One thing I am convinced of is that Pakistan morally and even physically won the air battle against immense odds.
Although the Air Force gladly gives most credit to the Army, this is perhaps over-generous. India with roughly five times greater air power, expected an easy air superiority. Her total failure to attain it may be seen retrospectively as a vital, possibly the most vital, factor of the whole conflict.
Nur Khan is an alert, incisive man of 41, who seems even less. For six years until July he was on secondment and responsible for running Pakistan civil airline, which in a country, where now means sometime and sometime means never, is a model of efficiency. He talks without the jargon of a press relations officer. He does not quibble about figures, immediately one has confidence in what he says. His estimates proffered diffidently, but with as much photographic evidence as possible, speak for themselves. Indian and Pakistani losses, he thinks are in something like the ratio of ten to one.
"The Indians had no sense of purpose, the Pakistanis were defending their country and willingly taking greater risks. The average bomber crew flew 15 to 20 sorties. My difficulty was restraining them, not pushing them on".
" This is more than nationalistic pride. Talk to the pilots themselves, and you get the same intense story"
