I dont understand the foreign officers of Pakistan army and air force in the beginning. I mean they were not pakistanis then why were they let to work? How could they be trusted? There are stories how gen gracy sabotaged kashmir jihad. Do brits still weild deep influence on pak army??
It could be due to the fact that the young nowadays take so many things for granted; I am still rather surprised at the ‘nativity’ of many of my fellow Pakistani members. This is a scholarly forum, kindly permit me to set the record straight
Except for Turkey, Iran & Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, virtually the entire Muslim world was under the domination of a Western Colonial Master. Allies also occupied Iran kicked all the German engineers out and replaced the King with his son.
Turkey was the only relatively modern country but most of her AirPower, following the defeat in WW1 had been with the help of the Allies and it was not until 1932 that Turkey started training her own pilots.
Most of the Turkish Air Fleet consisted of, until the end of WW2, allied made aircraft such as Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire, Bristol Brenham & Beau fighter, Mosquito, & C-47. Royal Indian Air force was also established in 1932 and received as good training on similar kinds of aircraft as the Turkish Air staff. Pakistan received her share of the men & material from RIIAF and called it the RPAF. Nearly all of the senior officers of the RPAF had been serving with their juniors for years and were familiar with their capabilities and training.
As a matter of fact, Pakistani pilots and technicians at the time of partition were equal to their Turkish counterparts in experience & training. Most importantly, Turkish Air force staff was no match to the RAF personnel in combat experience & training in 1947. Hence replacing RAF personnel with equally competent staff from the Muslim countries was an impossibility. One must not ignore that until 1965, it was Pakistan that provided training to the neighboring Muslim armed forces personnel.
To the best of my info, most pilots form the subcontinent got their wings in 1942 or thereafter. For example, Asghar Khan was only a Squadron Leader at the end of WW2 and was the first commander of the Risalpur Academy.
One cannot seriously expect Sq. leader (Major) to Command the entire Air force. However in 1957, when he had reached the rank of Air Commodore and had experienced at the senior Command & Staff positions, Asghar Khan took over as first Pakistani head of RPAF in 1957.
Regarding Gen Gracy's role:
The young are so easily misled by made up history & conspiracy theories. I was a 4-year child living at Sialkot in October 1947 where my father was a Supervisor at the Military Dairy Farm located near Dalowali, right on the Jammu border and involved in supplying milk & butter to the army personnel at the Jammu front. Thus he received firsthand information about what was really happening.
After the invasion of nearly 5000 Pathan tribesmen equipped by the Pakistan Army (Brigadier Akbar Khan) on October 22, 1047, Kashmir's Raja Hari Singh decided to accede to India. Indian forces arrived in Kashmir and pushed back the tribesmen. Quaid-e-Azam ordered Gen Gracy to help the tribesmen and Pakistan Army entered the war in May 1948.
India had received two-third of the British Indian Army & Air force Assets and only 20% of cash assets of the British Indian govt. Besides, full share of Pakistan, parts of which were at Indian locations, as released only slowly. Thus by the start of the 1948 Kashmir conflict, even though the quality of the equipment was exactly the same, the Indians were better equipped and far superior in numbers.
At that time, Pakistan was also a ‘Dominion’ therefore Pakistan Army came under the command of Gen Auchinleck, who was C-in.C of both the Indian & Pakistani Armies, thus boss of Lt Gen Gracy. In order to avoid British Officers who were aplenty on both sides getting killed. Opposing commanders were in constant touch and moved the forces under their command forward or retreated as the situation required. This frustrated Nehru and it was Nehru who took the dispute to the United Nations.
Therefore putting the blame on Kashmir stalemate on the British Officers is unfair and unjustified. There was no guarantee that a poorly equipped Pakistan Army would have won a long protracted Kashmir war against vastly superior Indian forces. Gen Gracy did not sabotage Kashmir jihad. It was hurriedly & poorly planned and instead of helping the Poonch rebellion by Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan of Bagh with funds & equipment (keeping it a local insurgency and probably avoiding Hari Singh from signing the instrument of accession) Brigadier Akbar Khan armed Pushtoom tribesmen who also indulged in looting the locals enabling India to call the jihad an “invasion" by Pakistan.
In fact, we should be thankful to Major Brown of the Gilgit Scouts who helped the liberation of Gilgit & Baltistan from the Dogra rule.
