The Oldest Officer in the Indian Air Force - Gulmast Khan

We all know that the oldest officer at any point of time in the Indian Air Force is probably the Chief of Air Staff - who retires as soon as he reaches the age of 60. Additionally there could be a Master Warrant Officer who reaches his late 50s before he retires. There have been cases where personnel from the ranks were commissioned into the Officer stream - and some of them pretty late in their career. But most if not all would have retired before hitting the 60 year mark.

Enter the mysterious IND/1721 Flight Lieutnant Khan Bahadur Haji Gulmast Khan, commissioned into the Indian Air Force as a Pilot Officer on 10th October 1941. Gulmast Khan was among the first ever 200 officers in the air force, and was commissioned into the Administration Branch - then known as A&SD. What puts apart Gulmast from the others was that at the time of his commissioning, he was 59 years old! You see, Khan Bahadur Gulmast Khan was born on 1st May 1882!

Not much is known about Gulmast Khan. He seems to have served in the North West Frontier Province as much is known about him. The end of the Second World War found him on the strength of RAF Station Kohat - which at that time was the only RAF Station entirely staffed by Indian Officers. It was from this post that Gulmast Khan was demobilised. On 18th December 1946, Gulmast Khan was sent to No.1 Demobilisation Center at Lahore for release - at which point he was 64 years old!

Gulmast Khan, however, can only claim to be the IAF Officer with the oldest birthdate. The credit of being the oldest officer at the time of commissioning goes to IND/2112 Pilot Offr Edmund George Lazarus of the Signals Branch. Lazarus was born 14th Sept 1882 -- five and a half months after Gulmast. But Lazarus was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 11th November 1942 - An year and a month after Gulmast Khan! Thus making him the oldest ever person to get a regular IAF Commission - at the ripe old age of 60 years and two months! (nearly). It is not know as to when Lazarus left the IAF.But he is noted as still serving as of October 1945.

No known photographs exist of either Gulmast or Lazarus - but it certainly makes an intriguing story to find out why and how they ended up getting commissioned in the Indian Air Force at such an advanced age. One can say for sure - that neither of these gentlemen will lose thier records in the near future!

A Mystery 8 Squadron - Pursoot's Badge from UK

The latest acquisition off eBay - a lovely wooden plaque with the badge of 8 Squadron fixed on it. Two metal plates with the inscription "The the Memory of" , "Jack Foster". The Seller was from UK and he apparently got some items from the Glouchestershire RAF Association. The origin of this plaque is a mystery - my guess is that this was made to honour an RAF WW2 veteran who served in SEAC With 8 Squadron .

Anyways - another procurement to be filed under "if-it-says-Indian-Air-Force---must-buy---"

Khusro Manzil, AC Guards, Lakdi-ka-pul

Khusro Manzil at AC Guards near Lakdi Ka Pul.. I went there today and to my surprise it was still there - I expected it to be knocked down completely and replaced by apartment blocks...

The erstwhile residence of Nawab Khusro Jung Bahadur - the son of Major General Nawab Sir Afsur-ul-Mulk Bahadur, Chief Commander of Regular Forces in Hyderabad State during the period of the Nizam-VI. Khusro died in 1930. The building situated on a hillock between Lakdi-ka-pul and Masab Tank was constructed in 1920. It is divided into several rooms and was housing the Census Department. I was told that the building would be prominently visible from the main road leading from Lkdkapul to Masabtank / Mehdipatnam - now a bunch of apartment buildings and other monstrosities block out any view of it... (Tip of the hat to fellow Aviation Historian Mrs Anu Reddy for letting me know the history of this)

The original owners are apparently trying their best to knock it down..

65 Air War Mysteries : The Hunter vs the Starfighter

Its almost five years since the "India-Pakistan Air War of 1965" was published - At that time we had done our best to research most of the facts and stories of the 65 War. We interviewed veterans, procured official records and reports and squeezed whatever information we could to the best of our abilities. We tried meticulously to compare accounts from either side, and to resolve differences in accounts.

However despite all our efforts, we still come across stories that fascinate us, or those tales that we have not been able to resolve. These are what I call 'Mysteries' of the 65 Air War.

Five years on , a couple of these gaps have been filled but most remain so. In a series of posts, I will list out the stories and mysteries that either still require solving or have been solved in these recent years.

The Hunter Vs the Starfighter:

A very fascinating story was narrated by Fricker in his book - about an aircombat between a Pakistani Starfighter and an Indian Hunter. The fight started on an unspecified date, when two F-104s scrambled and visually identified two Hunters ahead of them. Fricker continues the story:

..No.2 Flt Lt Arif Manzoor, picked up the two Hunters on his radar and took the lead. As he began overtaking the Hunters at Mach 0.85, both IAF aircraft broke left, possibly warned by Amritsar Radar.

One Hunter rolled over on its back and pulled through in a split-S manoeuvre, while the other turned so tightly during its break that Flt Lt Manzoor saw it stall and pitch up no fewer than three times. By then the F-104s had been seperated, but Flt Lt Manzoor stayed with the second Hunter, hoping to release a Sidewinder as soon as it became possible to relax the amount of g being pulled in the turn. In th emeantime, he also endeavoured to close the range of the Hunter so that he can use the Vulcan cannon. At about 5000 feet distance, he laid his computing gunsight ahead of the Hunter, but found the target sliding up his windscreen as the IAF aircraft tightened its turn still further.

As he racked the Stargihter round as tightly as possible, Flt Lt Manzoor opened up power to keep his speed above about Mach 0.9, He was therefore unworried about being intercepted in turn despite warnings from his No.1 of other enemy aircraft in the vicinity.

In all, the F-104 made four attempts to nail the determined adversary, but each time the Hunter was able to out-turn the Starfighter, although it stalled out twice more in the process. . Eventually Flt Lt Manzoor realised that the situation was a stalemate.... disengaged by zooming up in afterburner....

...This degree of flying skill was not often demonstrated by the pilots of the IAF....."

It is surprising that Fricker didnt pin a date on this aircombat, even though it is said to be one of the only eight aerial encounters of this type. All the other seven encounters get a date with the exception of this one.

Ofcourse, neither could we figure out the story from the Indian side. Certainly the Battle Axe History does not mention any such encounter. The only other possibility may be 27 Squadron, but no accounts or corraboration appeared from that side as well.

Identifying this Hunter pilot shouldnt be a difficult task. With only 2.5 Squadrons of Hunters taking part, there wouldnt be more than 45 - 50 Hunter pilots who may have taken part in offensive ops. How many of these actually reported encountering a PAF fighter in air combat? There must be some operational report somewhere!

The task would actually be easier if any interprid Pakistani Historian can nail the date of the encounter by referring to the logbook of Arif Manzoor. But apparently Arif Manzoor had passed away long ago. That shouldn't stop anyone from trying to find out more about this combat.

Ten Years Old : The History of the Indian Air Force

This is the story of another find on ebay a couple of months ago. I recognised the cover straight away . It was a booklet published for the 10th year anniversary of the Indian Air Force. Infact in a very famous photograph showing the three Engineer Brothers (Below) Aspy Engineer is shown carrying copies of the booklet when he flew down to Risalpur for a reunion with his brothers - Minoo and Ronnie.

To cut a long story short, gotta have it, and yes, i did get it.

Its a 30 page booklet. With a sprinkling of photographs but mostly text oriented throughout. While most of the pictures have already been elsewhere, they appear to be printed with better quality in this booklet. Atleast one photograph was a first - dating from Oct 41 shows Sqn Ldr Majumdar escorting the Governor of NWFP at Peshawar during his inspection of No.1 Squadron. I havent seen it elsewhere.

Once again, I have to make a survey of known copies . One is certainly there at the British Library in the UK - Its record can be accessed here . Other copies? I am not so sure.

The " Tank Bund " Road

Another Gem from the TIME-LIFE archives. Tank Bund Road at Hussain Sagar - with the Naubat Pahad in the center background at the distance. For the Hyderabadi challenged, Naubat Pahad is the hillock on which the Birla Mandir was constructed. To the right of the photo, one can see the chimney stacks of the "Mint" - at the Mint Compound location. And wonder of wonders! - no cars or automobiles on it!

If you look closely behind the third light pole from the right - you can see a strange building - which we used to say was shaped like a steamer ship - it was the Hyderabad Boats Club Building. I thought the building is still there today, but i cannot locate a picture of it anywhere.

I still remember the road being this width when I was a kid. Only after NTR came did he undertake the widening and beautification of the road.

The "infamous" Burhan-ud-din of Chitral?

Among the various photos of No.1 Squadron, Indian Air Force from the late 30s, early 40s is this gentlemen - always wearing a uniform that is of a slightly different colour than the rest of the squadron - my take is that he is one of the Indian Army deputed officers who were part of the Squadron at that time. But there weren't many - D A R Nanda, Burhan-ud-din of Chitral, M K Janjua, M S Verdi, Jaswant Singh , Niranjan Prasad, P K Kuriyan and Asghar Khan are a few who are known.

This particular gentleman - I would tend to believe is the colourful Burhan-Ud-Din (spelled sometimes as Burhanuddin ) - later of INA infamy and the brother of the Mehtar of Chitral of that time.

Burhan-ud-din was originally commissioned into the Indian Army in 1935. After some time with the Baluch Regiment, he was one of the Army officers sent for flying training. He joined the IAF Squadron sometime in 1939 and remained with them till atleast January 1941.

The first assignment that Burhan was with the Squadron was to form part of the "Q" Flight - which was sent to Karachi for Coastal Defence Duties. Led by A B Awan, the Q Flight (Ex- A Flight) had Mehar Singh an S N Goyal with them as well.

The words "Colourful" "Infamous" etc are used in context with Burhan Ud Din's name is because he was a controversial figure. Quite a few used to look at him like an eccentric character. Air Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh has quite a few tales to tell of Burhan - one of which involved Burhanuddin requesting harjinder to teach him how to drive a car. As Harjinder recalls - Burhan-ud-din was an absolutely hopeless case as far as learning to drive a car was concerned. Flying an aircraft was much simpler for him - with the simple throttle and all. But to drive a manual transmission car which requires soem control over the Clutch, Burhan proved absolutely beyond help and infact ended up wrecking his car by reversing into a wall. That was the first time he discovered that his car had a reverse gear!

The 'princeling' from Chitral - as Harjinder puts it - was the 'most eccentric of them all'. He always talked ill of his brother - the Mehtar, and once told Harjinder that he expected his brother to either kill him or imprison him whenever he visited Chitral on his days off. It is said that any ruler of Chitral would feel unimportant if he was not killed by a relative when in power ! Burhan Ud Din ofcourse belonged to the same clan and had his own fears! He was also a suave player - During the Q Flight detachment, Burhan-ud-din worked himself into the Station Commanders inner circle and would get invited to any social event that was there - many times missing out on his duty pilot requirements. Leaving a very frustrated Flight Commander (Awan) stepping in to fill the void!

The harshest critcism comes from Air Marshal Aspy Engineer who would write in 1993 :

Then there were some people who never should have joined any air-force. As the detachment commander at Miranshah, I had the misfortune to have a new posting. I will call him Burhan. Son of a petty chieftain from way up north, he first joined the army but one mess night he threatened to shoot his C.O. after the latter had remonstrated that Burhan’s two dogs would not let him enter the building. Burhan promptly retorted, “Sir, you shoot my dogs and I will shoot you.” Well, that is how I had him in my unit. To cut several hair-raising stories short, I had his pet wolf shot, as the only humane option left after the wolf had severed his tongue by trying to chew through a Wapiti’s spare main plane. So glad to inform you that I am still alive in 1993.

I personally heard from another of Burhan-Ud-Din's peers - Air Vice Marshal Surendranath Goyal, was a Cranwell Trainee from 1938, spent time in the NWFP with No.1 Squadron. He remembered Burhan-Ud-Din to be a great friend of his - but also expressed his dissappointment at the brutality shown by Burhan when he was with the Indian National Army in 1945. As late as Jan 41, Burhanuddin was still with No.1 Squadron as a Fg Offr. One of the above photographs is probably of him during a detachment at Fort Sandeman at that time. Prior to that there is a record of him being with the Squadron in July 40.

Burhan went back to his Baluch Regiment duties sometime in 1941 and was taken POW on the fall of Singapore. He would later join the Indian National Army under Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Burhan Ud Din's actions as an INA Officer were unofficerlike , he ordered several deserters to be flogged without due process - and one of the soldiers died. For this he received quite a bit of attention in most books dealing with the INA Trails. He was supposed to be the first one to be put on trial - but instead Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sehgal went up for trial.

Burhan-ud-din was ultimately tried in a Military Court - presided by then Brigadier K M "Kipper" Cariappa - later CinC Indian Army. Cariappa's court sentenced Burhan to seven years rigorous imprisonment . Popular anecdotes recall - that after sentencing him to imprisonment, Kipper walked over and shook hands with him, raising eyebrows among many.

Burhan-ud-din was released on Independence and went back to Chitral. He was supposed to have been quite active during the 47-48 Operations in organising the fighting at Skardu and Zoji La. He then went back to his chieftain days in Chitral till supposedly committing suicide in 1995. As I said, a colourful and infamous figure.

Be that as it may, the early Muslim aviators who were part of No.1 Squadron - like A B Awan, Haider Raza, Burhan-Ud-din appear to have absolutely loved their unit. The link above mentions Burhan-Ud-din signing his name in the guestbook of a PAF Station as "Lt Burhan-Ud-din , 1 Squadron, Indian Air Force!" less than a month after end of hostilities between India and Pakistan!. We know that Haider Raza's Grave Marker too makes an association with the Undividied "Royal Indian Air Force" - even though he served as the Vice Chief of the Pakistan Air Force. These folks absolutely loved their time with the WW2 RIAF.

Sometimes I feel it is a bloody tragedy for the airforce to split.. (But only sometimes... not all the time!)

Medal Quotas in WW2

RafCommands Forums - View Single Post - Medal Quotas?

A fantastic post by Canadian Historian Hugh Halliday - on Award Quotas in the RAF during the Second World War.

Worth Archiving.

Republic Day

With Republic Day approaching ahead, lets hope the Government does not repeat the charade from last year where the Ashok Chakra was given out by the ton

An Old Prisoner from 1947-48 revisited.

The photo on the left shows an old frontier tribesman, who formed part of the marauding forces in the Invasion of Kashmir, captured after Indian troops routed the tribals at the Battle of Shelatang. It was said that this old man was captured after Baramula town was taken - around November 8th, 1947.


This old man was the star of many news . I remember seeing him in quite a few places. Now another newsclip has surfaced on the British Pathe Website - titled "Nehru In Kashmir", it shows the visit of PM Nehru and various other delegates to Kashmir sometime in November 47.

One still from the clip shows the same Prisoner - being examined by Group Captain Arjan Singh DFC (later Air Chief and Marshal of the AF). I do not remember where Arjan Singh was - probably with Air HQ or something, but he is seen in the clip very curious about the tribesman's coat buttons - My guess, the buttons have some kind of an embossed crest that sparked Arjan's interest.

I do wonder who this old POW was - if he got repatriated, if he went back to his village with tales of his stay in India and all.. etc etc.