Mystery Trivia: The Indian Air Force Service numbers for officers were put in place only in Oct 1942 (10+ years after formation) and unlike RAF/RFC that started with the number 1, IAF started with the service number 1551. Why 1551 remains a mystery (and an itch)?
Prior to Oct 1942, the Air Force Lists only carried the names, organized in seniority with no reference to any service number. Possibly, the small size of the IAF did not require an elaborate numbering system.
Via an Air Force order, all officers appearing in the Air Force List of Oct 1942 were given a service number starting from 1551, in descending order of seniority. Implicitly, officers that died or left prior to Oct 42, never had a service number. We counted 93 such officers!
Subroto Mukerjee became the senior most IAF officer in public memory as he was in service when the system of Service numbers was implemented in 1942, Sircar having left. Bhupinder Singh and Amarjit Singh died in an air crash, leaving AB Awan as the next senior with Service number 1552 (After 1551 to Mukerjee). JN Tandon got 1553…
From 1942 to 1950, the service numbers were preceded by the words “IND” to reflect IAF and not confuse with other commonwealth countries who operated together and had the same commission. On 26 Jan 1950, the “IND” was dropped.
In the 1980s, IAF added a “check suffix” to service numbers, an alphabet to avoid confusion when using service numbers for data entry via a crude, yet a clever system in the pre-computer era.
Originally published on Twitter
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