When you are making a propaganda movie at least keep some simple facts correct.
At 0:29 why the hell a Pakistani naval commander would use a map for planning that shows Kashmir including AJK and GB as part of India.
movie based on a fake incident... shited over and busted by indias own generals..
bollywood chutiyapa.
The Ghazi That Defied The Indian Navy
Pakistan's first submarine, the Ghazi, blazed a trail of raw courage and professional skill and national dedication that has inspired and guided the young naval arm ever since. Within a year of its arrival in Pakistan on 4 September 1964 PNS/M Ghazi established the tradition of aggressive patrolling across the strategic expanse of North Arabian Sea.
When the Indo-Pakistan war broke out on 6 September 1965, the Ghazi was assigned to keep a vigil off the Bombay harbor which at that time was packed tight with Indian warships including the aircraft carrier Vikrant. The Ghazi was told not to tinker with smaller vessels but focus on the heavier units. So effective was its blockade that no Indian warships dared run the gauntlet.
It was the bottling-up of the Indian fleet by the Ghazi that enabled the Pakistan flotilla to move in and blast the Indian naval fortress of Dwarka.
A graphic account of the Pakistan Navy's performance is offered by India's Vice Admiral Mihir Roy, a former Commander of the Vikrant and Commander-in-Chief of India's Eastern Naval Command, in his 1995 book War in the Indian Ocean. He writes, "But the Bombayites failed to understand the lack of success by the Indian fleet especially with sirens wailing, Jamnagar attacked and Dwarka shelled with the Indian fleet still preparing to sail was an affront to the sailors in white who could not understand what was holding the fleet back". As Vice Admiral N Kirshnan is supposed to have said: "One of our frigates, Talwar, was at Okha. It is unfortunate that she could not sail forth and seek battle. Even if there was a mandate against the Navy participating in the war, no government would blame a warship going into action, if attacked. An affront to our national honor is no joke and we cannot laugh it away by saying 'All the Pakistanis did was to kill a cow'. Let us at least create a memorial to the 'unknown cow' who died with her hooves on in a battle against the Pakistan Navy".
Adds Vice Admiral Mihir Roy:
"In this context, one recollects the court martial of Admiral Sir John Byng of the Royal Navy for neglect of duty when he failed to take adequate action against the French fleet at the siege of Minorca. As a postscript, Admiral Byng was executed on the quarter-deck of the 74-Gun HMS Monarch in Portsmouth on 14 March 1957 as the 'British found it necessary from time to time to shoot an Admiral to set an example to others'!"
The Ghazi's audacious performance won it 10 awards including two decorations of Sitara-i-Jurat and the President's citations said, "He (Commander Karamat Rahman Niazi) operated the submarine in the enemy territorial waters from 6th September to 23rd September 1965 with courage and determination . His personal example of valor, sound judgment and aggressiveness inspired his officers and men to maintain a high degree of operational efficiency of the submarine in the face of the enemy".
The dread of the Ghazi seems somehow to have persisted in the Indian mind in the six years between the two wars. As the danger of another Indo-Pakistan conflict loomed large on the horizon the Indians moved their aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, not only out of Bombay but even out of Cochin, and from Cochin in October 1971 all the way to their eastern seaboard, and finally, not content even with the security of their massive naval base at Vishakapatnam, they hid it away in the backwaters of the Andamans. Setting the response to the insistence of the Pakistan Military High Command to reinforce Pakistan's position in the eastern war theatre.
The strategic soundness of the decision cannot be questioned insofar as Ghazi was the only ship which had the range and capability to undertake operations in the distant waters under control of the enemy. The presence of a lucrative target in the shape of the aircraft carrier Vikrant, the pride of the Indian Fleet, in that area was known. The plan had all the ingredients of daring and surprise which are essential for success in a situation tilted heavily in favour of the enemy. Indeed, had the Ghazi been able to sink or even damage the Indian aircraft carrier the shock effect alone would have been sufficient to upset Indian naval plans.
The odds undoubtedly were formidable. It was not the same Arabian Sea nor the same Bay of Bengal as in 1965. Just as stung by its defeat in the Himalayas by the Chinese in 1962 India had revamped and multiplied its land forces, stung by its humiliation in the naval encounter with the Pakistan Navy in 1965, India had tripled its naval power between 1965-71.
The Ghazi had to traverse Ghazi on the Vikrant's scent was not only an irresistible temptation but also a smart strategy.
According to Naval experts Ghazi's deployment to the Bay of Bengal ought to be regarded as a measure taken to rectify a strategic posture that was getting increasingly out of step with military realities. The dispatch of the Ghazi to Bay of Bengal was in over 3000 miles of the Indian Ocean, defying the threat posed by a host of shore-installations in ports dotting the Indian coastline including Okha, Kunjali. Bobmay, Hansa, Karwar, jaruda, Cochin, Madras, Rajah and finally Vishakapatnam and Dega.
But undeterred, PNS/M Ghazi valiantly but quietly sailed forth from Karachi on 14 November 1971, under the command of Commander Zafar Mohammad Khan and with a complement of 92 officers and men. The regional situation was so tense and explosive that the submarine was directed to maintain radio silence and use its snorkel and charge its batteries only at night. The Ghazi was to make its last report when rounding Sri Lanka about 26 November 1971; it hoped to run past Madras around November 28, and after that it was entirely on its own.
It appears that it bypassed even Vishakapatnam and embarked upon an extensive search for the missing Indian aircraft carrier across the vast expanse of the Bay of Bengal like a bloodhound smelling around for its prey. Unable to locate it, the Ghazi turned back and made for the major Indian base of Vishakapatnam, the headquar-ters of India's Eastern Naval Command, confident that it will take its swipe at the Vikrant or at least bottle up the Indian Navy's heavy units clustered in this major Indian naval base. To that end it started laying mines off the harbour.
The Ghazi seems to have met a tragedy on the night of December 3/4, 1971. It blew up with a force that shook the entire harbor. For quite a while the Indian's did not know what had happened but when some Indian fishermen found a life-jacket of the PNS/M Ghazi floating in the sea, the Indian Navy started claiming credit for sinking it and even awarded medals to some of its officers and men.
However, t
he true story has been told by Vice Admiral Mihir Roy in his just recently published book. He says: "The Ghazi had obviously been positioned off Vishakapatnam and presumably had commenced laying mines on 2/3 December 1971. At least 2-3 mines in close proximity had already been laid as a mine damaged a ship later. The mines were being laid in a linear pattern 150 meters apart and at a depth of 30 meters as confirmed later by the under-water television of the submarine rescue vessel Nistar". But presumably picking up the sonar transmissions or propeller noise of the two patrolling vessels, he adds, "the Pakistan submarine got out of the area to the safety of deeper waters". The Indian Vice Admiral concludes,
"At about midnight when the patrolling vessels had returned to harbor the submarine presumably approached the partly mined area to complete her assignment of bottling up the entire Eastern Fleet in their home port of Vishakapatnam. In her anxiety to complete her task Ghazi probably made the cardinal error of inadvertently recrossing her previous track, possibly due to strong tides which occur in this post-monsoon period off this coast".
On the enemy's own testimony, the valiant Ghazi exploded in a flash of glory while trying to make doubly sure that it had done a through job of mining the narrow approaches to the strategic harbor in a bid to bottle up the entire Indian Eastern Fleet.
To the Indians so important was the demise of the Ghazi and so skeptic was Admiral Nanda that underwater televisions and divers were used to physically check the wreckage and a special IAF plane was commissioned to carry Ghazi's life-jackets etc to Delhi, and the announcement was withheld until 9 December 1971, as according to Mihir Roy, the Indian Defence Minister insisted on being the first to report the sinking of the Ghazi to the Indian Parliament.
At the same time the Indian Navy's Eastern Command flashed a message to the Western Command that after the sinking of the Ghazi they should feel free to operate in the Arabian Sea.
The Indians however forgot one thing, the tradition of valor and consummate skill and national dedication bequeathed by the Ghazi had been inherited by the new fleet of Daphne submarines acquired by the Pakistan Navy. Just about the time Indian Defence Minister was voicing his joy at the demise of the Ghazi another Pakistani submarine PNS/M Hangor hit the Indian anti-submarine frigate Khukri, patrolling off the Kathiawar coast, blowing up its magazine with a torpedo and sinking it in a matter of minutes. The Pakistan Navy submarine also damaged another Indian ship Kirpan. However, one is left with the unhappy impression that there has been inadequate recognition of the splendid performance of Pakistan's first submarine PNS/M Ghazi, and sufficient appreciation of the heroic solitary voyage undertaken by the Gliazi clear across the Indian Ocean and not enough tribute has been paid to the brave officers and men who willingly laid down their lives for their country while daring into the "enemy's Lair" and who but for a mishap might have accomplished what looked like 'a mission impossible'.
If rules permit the Ghazi ought to be posthumously awarded Nishan-i-Haider. In any case, the nation salutes the valiant warriors
Naval battles revisited
By Commander (retd) Muhammad Azam Khan
No star would I be, if it lay in my will,
But a gleaming white pearl in the cavernous sea, --
Lives that need have no acquaintance with death:
Can that be called life, which hears death's importunity?
If, making earth lovely, our end must be thus,
Let me rather be changed to a flower-falling dew drop
Iqbal (Bang-i-Dara)
It is a fact that countless acts of gallantry, indomitable courage and sacrifices of our officers, soldiers, sailors and airmen during the 1971 war could not stop the inevitable from happening. Some heroic events of the naval battle in which a relatively small and much neglected Pakistan Navy put up a resolute fight against a far bigger Indian Navy find scant mention in chronicles. This is so since history, more often than not, is documented by the triumphant. Thus there is no shortage of war accounts most of which have been rendered by Indian authors in a rather blown out fashion.
In his recently published memoir, which is a crude attempt at personal glorification, the then Chief of the Naval Staff, Indian Navy, Admiral S.M Nanda catalogues some lofty actions of Indian Navy during the 1971 war. But only two events prove that had Pakistan made some rightful investments in its navy and certain crucially needed decisions come in time, the history of war, at least in the naval context, may have been different.
Pakistan Navy submarine, PNS Hangor under the Command of the then Commander (later Vice-Admiral) Ahmad Tasnim, SJ sailed on Nov 22, 1971, for war deployment. On the night of 2-3rd Dec, while lying in wait off Bombay, Hangor detected a large formation of ships from Indian Navy Western fleet that included cruiser INS Mysore. Sensing impending war in the west, Indian armada was sailing out of Bombay harbour, and passed incredibly close to Hangor. Since the commanding officer of PN submarine did not have the clearance, a valuable opportunity to destroy some prize enemy units was lost just hours before the onset of war. Within Hangor, frustration at missing the prey by such a narrow margin was too great and as Admiral Nanda states in his memoirs, years later when he met Admiral Tasnim, the latter told him that while Indian fleet passed almost overhead, "he was egged by many hotheads (sic) in the control room to fire his torpedoes which he refused on the grounds that war had not broken out".
When PNS Hangor proceeded for war patrol in November 1971, outbreak of war in the west was a foregone conclusion. Even at the peril of starting the war, had permission to the Pakistan Navy been accorded and a large Indian Navy combatant like cruiser INS Mysore sunk in the opening moments of war, the entire Indian western fleet (fearing PN submarines) may have remained repressed inside the harbour. In the event Pakistan could have avoided several missile attacks that I.N subsequently carried out on Karachi. It was not until the morning of December 4 that Hangor learned about the outbreak of hostilities. The much-needed information that could have tilted the tables in favour of the Pakistan Navy thus came a little too late. Indeed, what is lost in a moment is lost for eternity.
In order to avoid compromising its position and thus losing surprise when deployed, submarines always avoid transmitting messages. This becomes critically important during wartime where a minor lapse can cost heavily. Nonetheless, Hangor made a daring departure from the established policy and sought shift in the assigned patrol area to a position where the command believed the submarine had better chances to get enemy ships. The bold deviation eventually paid off but not before Hangor was picked up the Indian Navy via communication intercept. The Pakistani submarine was positioned by the Indians west of Diu (on India's Kathiawar coast, 330miles south west of Karachi). Two Indian Navy ships, INS Khukri and INS Kirpan, were dispatched to hunt down Hangor.
In the early hours of Dec 9, PNS Hangor spotted the two Indian ships patrolling alongside each other. PN submarine positioned itself in-between and fired the first torpedo that missed INS Kirpan. The second torpedo, however, hit INS Khukri right under the ship's aft explosive magazine. The massive combined effect of torpedo and explosion in the magazine sank enemy ship so rapidly that 18 officers and 176 sailors had no time to abandon. Mission accomplished; Hangor now had the formidable task of evading enemy onslaught.
What followed during the next 72 hours or so, (though cannot be described in detail due to space constraints) is naval history rewritten by PNS Hangor's crew. It is a tale of heroism, glory and valour etched in the memories of scores of men of the Pakistan Navy. Following sinking of INS Khukri, the Indian Navy assembled every available asset at its disposal in order to chase and destroy PN submarine. PNS Hangor was ceaselessly and aggressively attacked using all kinds of platforms ranging from destroyers, frigates to reconnaissance aircraft. Nearly 156 explosive depth charges were dropped by the Indian Navy to destroy PN submarine. Luck, however, was on the side of Hangor. Thus much against odds, PN submarine managed to elude Indian Navy blitz.
The sinking of INS Khukri was a devastating blow to the Indian Navy's high spirits generated by the earlier exaggerated success stories of missile attacks on Karachi. Not only did the Indian Navy call off a planned missile attack on Karachi due on the 10th of Dec, but no further attacks were conducted for the remaining duration of the war.
The action of Hangor and the ensuing hunt shall remain an unrivalled event recorded in the annals of naval history. The story shall also serve to remind the future Indian naval generations of the hollowness of the then large Indian Navy anti-submarine force. Here, it is also worth mentioning that despite having preponderance and a huge fleet of Soviet submarines, I.N could neither effectively deploy nor achieve a single strike against the Pakistan Navy through these offensive platforms. To this day, however, unpersuasive attempts continue to be made by the Indians in justifying the blemished role of their submarine fleet in 1971.
The story of PN submarine Ghazi, though tragic, is no less death defying. It is an epic account of guts written in blood by the crew members. In 1971, PNS Ghazi was the Pakistan Navy's only submarine which had the reach to undertake operations on India's Eastern sea board in the Bay of Bengal. Dispatch of PNS Ghazi (commanded by Commander Zafar Mahmood, Shaheed) was not part of the original plan. The submarine was sent under intense pressure from the Pakistan Army's Eastern command which desired some action by PN to thin out Indian pressure on land. Oddly, this was much against the long stated belief of the Pakistan Army that "defence of East lies in the West" to which PN had previously suffered with at least one naval chief stepping down after Field Marshal Ayub refused his request for maintaining a strong navy to defend both wings.
In any case, the long and arduous journey of nearly 2,250miles along the enemy's coast, the overwhelming task to lay the newly-acquired mines (launched from submarine torpedo tubes) and the singular effort to track down Indian Carrier against the imposing strength of Indian Navy's Eastern Fleet were just not enough to deter the command and crew of PNS Ghazi in undertaking a mission which by all accounts they knew was only one-way journey.
Fearing PNS Ghazi, the Indian Navy moved its carrier force (INS Vikrant) further eastward to Andaman Island; much away from the scene of action. For Vice-Admiral N. Krishnan, Flag officer Commanding Indian Navy Eastern Command, PNS Ghazi was no less than a nightmare. In his account, the Indian flag officer acknowledges that each morning he prayed for divine help and protection from Kali Devi (PNS Ghazi). His prayers were indeed answered; Ghazi sank on the night of 3rd-4th Dec after an explosion occurred onboard while the submarine operated off Visakhapatnam. Since all 82 crew members embraced Shahadat it is unlikely that the mystery surrounding circumstances in which Ghazi met her end will ever be unveiled. Still, the Indian claims of sinking Ghazi are not only false but utterly absurd, to say the least.
It requires no extraordinary interpolation that had PNS Ghazi survived, the possibility of Indian carrier operating in the Bay of Bengal let alone deploy its fighters to augment IAF efforts (as it did following confirmation of sinking of PNS Ghazi) or the symbolic nay bogus naval landing by the Indian Navy carried out on the shores of erstwhile East Pakistan towards the closing stages of the war would have remained only a pipedream. Alas! Things were not in our favour in 1971.
Though Ghazi's heroic effort could not prevent the war finale, it shall remain an icon of unparalleled gallantry and a shinning beacon of sacrifice in the defence of its motherland. Sadly, while the Hangor crew was aptly rewarded for the daring deed, the valiant effort of PNS Ghazi remains unsung to this day. An award even 35 years later may not be too late but rather serve as a fitting epitaph for the resting souls in the Bay of Bengal
Now, no record of Navy sinking Pakistani submarine in 1971
Josy Joseph | TNN | May 12, 2010, 02.51 AM IST
NEW DELHI: The sinking of Pakistani submarine Ghazi in the 1971 Indo-Pak war may have been one of the high points of India's first-ever emphatic military victory but there are no records available with naval authorities on how the much-celebrated feat was pulled off.
As a debate rages over a TOI report on the destruction of all records of the 1971 Bangladesh war at the Eastern Army Command headquarters in Kolkata, it transpires that naval authorities also destroyed records of the sinking of Ghazi.
The troubling finding has been thrown up by a trail of communications among the naval brass. Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi, regarded as a major threat to India's plans to use its naval superiority, sank around midnight of December 3, 1971 off Visakhapatnam, killing all 92 on board in the initial days of the war between India and Pakistan. Indian Navy claims the submarine was destroyed by depth charges fired by its ship INS Rajput.
Pakistani authorities say the submarine sank because of either an internal explosion or accidental blast of mines that the submarine itself was laying around Vizag harbour.
According to a set of naval communications made available to TOI by sources familiar with the Ghazi sinking, senior officers and those writing the
official history of Navy exchanged a host of letters admitting to the fact that crucial documents of Ghazi were missing.
Immediately after Ghazi sank, Indian naval sailors had recovered several crucial documents and other items from the submarine, wreckage of which is still lying underwater off Vizag.
On June 22, 1998, Rear Admiral K Mohanrao, then chief of staff of Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command, told Vice Admiral G M Hiranandani, who was writing the official history of Navy, "All-out efforts were made to locate historical artifacts of Ghazi from various offices and organizations of this headquarters. However, regretfully, I was unable to lay my hands on many of the documents that I personally saw during my previous tenure."
Mohanrao went on to tell Hiranandani, "We are still continuing to search for old files and as and when they are located, I will send appropriate documents for your project." Mohanrao also refers to their inquiries with Commodore P S Bawa (retd), who worked with the Maritime Historical Society, to find out about the artifacts. Here also they drew a blank.
What Mohanrao's letter does not disclose is the letter written by Bawa himself in 1980.
On December 20, 1980, Bawa, then a commander with the Maritime Historical Society, said, "In Virbahu, to my horror I found that all Gazi papers and signals were destroyed this year. Nothing is now available there." He was writing after a visit to Virbahu, the submarine centre at Vizag, where the documents, signals and other artifacts recovered from Ghazi were stored. His letter (MHS/23) was addressed to Vice Admiral M P Awati, the then chief of personnel at the naval headquarters.
Over the years, in the 1990s, as Vice Admiral Hiranandani sat down to write the official history of Navy, he made several efforts to get the Ghazi documents, records show. In one of his letters to the then chief of eastern naval command, Vice Admiral P S Das, he sought the track chart of the Ghazi, the official report of the diving operations on the Ghazi from December 1971 onwards and any other papers related to Ghazi. But none of it was available for the official historian of the Navy.
A retired Navy officer who saw action in 1971 said the destruction of the Ghazi papers and those of Army in Kolkata are all fitting into a larger trend, many of them suspected about Indian war history, of deliberate falsification in many instances. It is high time the real history of those past actions were revealed. "We have enough heroes," he said. "In the fog of war, many myths and false heroes may have been created and many honest ones left unsung," he admitted.
The truth behind the Navy's 'sinking' of Ghazi
Lt General JFR Jacob, (retd), hero of the 1971 India Pakistan war, explains why the Indian Navy destroyed documents related to the sinking of the Pakistani submarine, PNS Ghazi. Earlier this month, there were reports that all documents connected with the sinking of the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi during the 1971 war had been destroyed by the Indian Navy. It is not difficult to conjecture the reasons why. Back in November 1971, our signal intercept units had been monitoring the movements of the Ghazi on her entering the Bay of Bengal. The last intercept we got from the Ghazi was on 27 November. We had been passing on all intercepts to the Navy. PNS Ghazi blew up due to an internal explosion while laying mines off the port of Vishakapatnam, probably at the end of November or the beginning of December 1971. On December 3, I received a call from Vice Admiral Krishnan, Commander of the Eastern Naval Command, who said that fishermen had found some floating wreckage, and that he had gone to the site where the wreckage was found. Among the debris was a lifebelt with 'Diablo' printed on it. Diablo was the name of the United States Navy submarine that was transferred to the Pakistan Navy and renamed Ghazi. Krishnan said he had no doubt that the wreckage was that of the Ghazi and that the sinking of the Ghazi was an act of God. He stated that the Navy was unaware that the Ghazi had sunk. He had rewarded the fishermen who had found the wreckage. I told him that there was no threat now to the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which had been the prime target of the Ghazi. On the morning of December 4, Krishnan again called me, asking if I had sent a report on the Ghazi. I replied in the negative, saying that as it was a naval matter, I had presumed that he had done so. He seemed relieved and told me that I should forget our conversation of the previous day and that he was in discussions with the Navy chief, Admiral SM Nanda, in Delhi. On December 9, the Navy announced that they had sunk the Ghazi on December 4, after the start of the war. Later, officers were decorated for their role and the offensive action of their ships in the sinking of the Ghazi. After the war, however, teams of divers confirmed that it was an internal explosion that sank the Ghazi. The log of the Ghazi was recovered and the last entry as far as I can recall was on November 29, 1971. Sadly, that too has been destroyed. The Navy had earlier decided to change the date of Navy Day to December 4, the day they had proclaimed that they had sunk the Ghazi. But I had spoken to the press regarding the sinking of the Ghazi and later published my conversations with Vice Admiral Krishnan in my book 'Surrender at Dacca' in 1997. The Navy then realised that they could no longer maintain their claims to have sunk the Ghazi on December 4. The Navy then went on to state that December 4, the new date for Navy Day, marked the start of the war. For the record, the war started on December 3 at 1800 hours, when Pakistan bombed our airfields. As the old saying goes, truth is the first casualty in war. General JFR Jacob played a critical role in the 1971 India Pakistan war as the Eastern Command Chief.
Read more at: http://www.sify.com/news/the-truth-...king-of-ghazi-news-columns-kfztj3bhjehsi.html
