Late Winco Walter Marshal was the Chief Instructor at the FTW in Hakimpet – down south and far behind where the action was. There was little chance of him seeing any action in the war.
In true spirit of “I wont be left behind in the war”, he took a force of obsolete Vampire fighters/trainers to the front line – and operated as an ad-hoc squadron flying nighttime interdiction sorties against Pakistan. For this gallant leadership effort, he was awarded the VM (Gallantry).
About the Camo, in late Winco Marshal’s words….
The move from Hakimpet to Chandigargh & on arrival at Halwara the Vamps were in std silver paint. Parked off the taxi track under camfl’ nets the need for some sort of camaflouge was felt. Eq. Sec. Was approached for requisite paint. What was issued was blue, black, white & Red.
So the aircraft were painted a mix of blue black & grey ‘ al fresco’ in what ever format the painter weilded his brush. All four were thus different.
At this point the Technicians requested permission to do some ‘ Art Work’ on the aircraft War Bird Style’
To the best of my knowledge this had never been done on any IAF aircraft other than WWII. To seek Official Approval would be like asking for the Moon!!! The Technicians were so enthusiastic about this, So in similar vein it was approved. ‘No holds barred’
The jaws were in white & teeth in red giving the painting a ‘ fearsome look’ . All four aircraft features wore different expressions. Good fun. Since we flew at night no body saw or new the ‘ fun & games’ we were up to, or for that matter reported the breach of regs’
And if you see the citation of Winco Marshal – it will tell you nothing about the action he and his boys saw. He was doing night interdiction in an aircraft with no aids/ lights or protection. And they did blast many train wagons and likes!
Beyond the pic and Camo – Here is the action story by the man himself.
“Our role assignments were kind of ‘ad hoc’ assigned to our Vampire Trg.Commd Det. from Hakimpet FTW….
…Almost in the same ‘breath’ as an ‘after thought’ as the short notice, meant there was no set Operational Plan, Training Syllabus or even time to train other than “night fam” sorties. As I recall there was NO written Ops….
Order just verbal instructions that this is your Role ‘Night Interdiction’ of Railway Junctions. As you can well imagine we faced many problems, apart from the age & somewhat unreliability of the Vampire 52 , no night flying allowed,, prior to Ops due the risk of…
‘rear bearing failure’, a single VHF set & no Ejection seat. As for the cockpit, with the G4F Gyro behind the stick & UV lighting with Inst. luminosity, fit ONLY for day flying, apart from the skill level of the pilots. Frankly, I was completely stunned when assigned this role.
I had thought that since we had moved out of Trg. Cmmd. enroute to our Ops. base Srinagar but, stranded at C’gargh this role was, an after thought, as WAC was responsible for the lack of cordination that there was no blast pens for the Vamps at S’nagar
I am not aware if the Su-7 or Mig-21 were equipped with some sort of Auto pilot. The Vampire 52 on the other hand was totally unsuitable for low level night navigation, leave alone weapon delivery profile, I was emphatically convinced that to even commence training in this role
with the 52 was courting disaster, & a liability to ourselves leave alone the ‘enemy’. I was not prepared to risk my aircrew, I was responsible for them as any commander is. I had to do my ‘homework’.
Much of our planning depended on the targets we were assigned, mostly Road /Rly. Jn &/or specific stalled train location from ‘dusk fighter sweep ‘ debrief, in the late evening in the Ops Room with TOT midnight plsu.
We had RP & FGuns. We had to harmonies the guns for either ‘straffing’ or ‘point targets’. as the armourers had never harmonised for ‘straffing’ it not being a Range Exercise, & if so ‘how much’ deflection’ as the guns were channelled & may blow your own panels off. ..
& of course while RP req. a ‘dive angle’ straffing was Str.& Level. Where the old Vamps scored is that we never had the sophisticated MTI & RC, so DR was a ‘daily rote’.
In all this the Vampire T11/55 stood out “H& S” above the SU-7 & Mig -21.
The dual ‘side by side seating, provided the most comfortable combination. The Nav/Pilot RH seat, did all the chores of Navigation, map reading, re-setting the Stop watch, Course correction calculations & re-seting the Compass cursor for follow up route etc.
He would raise his seat & look out & down for Pin Points & water bodies calling out & discussing course change & monitoring speed, direction & height. So much so that we could look out for the red tail lights of vehicles on the road…
The most valuable input was weapons delivery, as he would set the switches call out the pull up point & height & speed & roll in direction & call out course correction & the command ‘FIRE” & pull out, pull out . ..
Generally, the RH Seat pilot flew the return leg. Yes, fuel was our worst fear as the Vamps fuel gauges were notoriously UNRELIABLE & so was fuel consumption, every aircraft had a different combination.
It is to the credit of these ‘average Instructors of Ftw’ not assigned for the war to any Squadron to have performed in this ROLE with the VERY BEST – TACDE.”
Originally published on Twitter
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