Gp Capt Suresh Ratnaparkhi (Retd): The fighter pilot who bombed Dhaka to stop Pak Sabers
   Date :02-Jan-2022

Gp Capt Suresh Ratnaparkhi
 Gp Capt Suresh Ratnaparkhi
 
 
By Kaushik Bhattacharya :
 

The attack left eight craters on the runway, totally disabling it for any use by the PAF fighters
 
 
Gp Capt Suresh Ratnaparkhi (Retd), who carried out air strike on Dhaka air field to stop Pakistani Saber jets in 1971 war, shared his war memories with The Hitavada. The air warrior shared many other memories of the war in which he was personally involved and bravely contributed to the grand victory. “During the 1971 Operations, I was a Squadron Leader borne in No. 4 Squadron IAF flying Mig 21 FL (Oorials) from Tezpur, Assam. I had reported to the squadron around mid February 1971 and by October 71,” said Gp Capt Ratnaparkhi. “We were informed that full-fledged air operations against Pakistan were highly possible and we had to be prepared for actual combat. Early November 71, the Squadron was given an actual commitment to carry out retaliatory strikes in East Pakistan in case of any air activity from Pakistan,” said the air warrior.
 

Suresh Ratnaparkhi  
 
 
Talking about the Dhaka bombing, Gp Capt Ratnaparkhi said, “Gp Capt MSD Wollen, who was controlling the fighter operations from Guwahati, told us during the briefing that the only way to stop the Pak Sabers from getting airborne was to carry out a bombing run on Dhaka airfields with four Mig 21 FL aircraft formation carrying 500 kg bombs. Two aircraft from the other Squadron and another two from my Squadron were loaded with two M62 Russian 500 kg bombs. These bombs had an arming device which would arm the detonator in minimum 5.5 seconds, informed the Group Captain. “Anything less, the bombs wouldn’t explode on impact. So, the bombing technique had to be steep dive technique where the release height of the bombs was more than a kilometre and above so that the bomb would be armed prior to hitting the surface.” he explained.
 
“I bought out in the briefing that since anti-aircraft (AA) guns near the runway had ranges of about 900 mtrs, so we should release higher at about 1.5 km range with 35–40-degree angle so that we had enough time to pull up above the maximum range envelope of the AA guns,” said Gp Capt Ratnaparkhi. The plan was to take off from Guwahati and go low level post crossing the Meghalaya ridge and carry out a pop up near the runway for the attack. I suggested and it was accepted by the Gp Capt Wollen that we would climb to 4 km slightly before our original pop up point so that we could orient ourselves with the surroundings and align ourselves with the Tezgaon runway where the Sabres were based to carry out the attack along the runway accounting for errors and have more bombs hitting the runway, explained Gp Capt Ratnaparkhi. The fighter jets took off at around 11 am and carried out the attack as per plan and the end results was that there were eight craters on the length of the runway totally disabling it for any use by the PAF fighters. “Same afternoon I escorted another 4 aircraft formation of my squadron where we dropped another set of bombs on the parallel taxi track causing similar damage on the parallel taxy track rendering then,” he added. Explaining about the his first operation in 1971 war, Gp Capt Ratnaparkhi said, “During the first week of December 1971, I was tasked to take a five Mig 21 FL aircraft detachment to Guwahati.
By December 3 evening my Squadron and the other Mig-21 Squadron in Tezpur moved all their assets and equipment with personnel to Guwahati.”
 
“After landing, we were briefed that on the evening of December 3, Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched surprise pre-emptive strikes on eleven airfields in north-western India. My first mission was in the afternoon of December 4 in support of the Army,” he explained. We attacked the Pakistan brigade formation (HQ) at Rajendranpur area with rockets. Next day we were informed that after our strike the brigade had surrendered, he said. “The next important mission I led was an attack on the university where all the army top brass were meeting. We were given a tourist map of Dhaka, using which we carried out rocket strikes on the university building on December 14. The Governor’s house was also attacked the same afternoon by a joint team comprising of No 4 Sqn Mig 21 FLs and the other Sqn Migs,” he added.