In late September 1950, the Indian Naval Squadron was steaming home to Bombay from Ceylon. The ships were set to cover the last 30 miles in daylight, between noon on the 27th and early evening on the 28th. Rear Admiral Bernard saw a perfect opportunity. He decided to treat the homebound flotilla as an “enemy” force and put the IAF and the Indian Navy’s still-nascent joint command structure to the test.
The exercise was given a wonderfully unassuming name: Exercise Pomfret.
The gap, the moment, the wager
The Second World War had left India with paper plans for ten squadrons each of the RAF and IAF, with only one RAF unit assigned to maritime duties. Independence and partition changed that, leaving India with a long coastline but no dedicated air cover. This operational gap was glaring, pushing the services toward integration.
One key asset offered hope: No. 5 Squadron, formed in November 1948 with refurbished Liberator bombers. These same aircraft had previously patrolled the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean for the RAF, hunting submarines and surface craft. But as the IAF’s only bomber squadron, No. 5 was overloaded. Even after moving to Poona in late 1949, the unit hadn’t found the bandwidth to start joint drills with the Navy.
The Navy’s return transit provided the perfect foil. If the IAF could execute an interception from a Bombay-based Joint Operations Room (JOR), it would validate the whole joint approach. The die was cast.
The Pomfret
The goal was to intercept, shadow, and simulate attacks on the “enemy” fleet approaching Bombay between September 24 and 28. The JOR in Bombay, mainly staffed by the IAF, would serve as the nerve centre.
Wing Commander Victor Srihari, Air-I at HQ Operational Command, was the Air Defence Commander. His team included Squadron Leader B. S. Agnihotri as Chief Navigation Officer, Flying Officer V. Vaz from No. 8 Squadron, Flight Lieutenant Surjan Singh from No. 2 Equipment Depot for signals, and junior officers Latta and Mitra from No. 3 Squadron, plus Ram Singh from No. 4, rotating as duty ops officers.
Six Liberators (callsign Bigben) from No. 5 Squadron would comb the sea approaches from Bangalore and Poona. Four Tempest fighter-bombers (callsign Kidnap) from No. 4 Squadron would handle close-in work, deploying forward to Santa Cruz civil airfield. The “enemy” fleet: INS Delhi, Jumna, Cauvery, and Tir, all tasked to “attack” Bombay port sometime during the window.
The rules were spelt out with care. Liberator searches capped at one hundred miles from coast. Tempests not to venture beyond thirty miles offshore, maintaining R/T contact with the JOR at all times. For camera-gun attacks against ships, Tempests were ordered to stay above 300 feet ASL. Liberators would challenge suspect ships with red lights or by flashing the letter Q on an Aldis lamp; a hostile would acknowledge with a green light. Tempests would challenge by waggling wings; same green-light reply.
A W/T control channel tied the JOR to No. 2 Wing (Poona), to Liberator aircraft, and, on listening watch only, to the ships in case of distress. VHF/RT channels connected the JOR with the Tempests; ships and radar stations kept a listening watch. Overlaid on this was an early-warning net for Bombay, patched together with Type 14 or 6A radar sets from No. 7 and No. 8 Radar Units at Colaba. In 1950, this was as contemporary as it came.
Air-Sea Rescue arrangements were basic: a naval vessel earmarked, a standard 500 kHz distress watch for all ships and a listening watch on Tempest R/T channels.
Time was the main limit. Daylight approaches were possible only on two afternoons. The coastline offered many routes, but the search time was short. Six Liberators could only throw a modest blanket; Tempests were daylight-only and limited to 30 miles offshore. Srihari assessed that cruisers like INS Delhi might stay 200+ miles out, while frigates cruising at ~10-16 knots would form the primary targets.
The Exercise in Motion
The JOR received its first “enemy” position on 24 September, and the drill began in earnest. Wing Commander Srihari and his small IAF team reported finding “virtually nothing” inside the Joint Operations Room. They improvised the plotting system and fixed up temporary telephones. The Navy managed only one “officer of the watch” at a time.
26 September. Morning Search A at 0800 spotted a merchant ship and a Royal Navy minesweeper. Afternoon Search B at 1300 was cut short by endurance limits but saw more merchants. The JOR abandoned the two-box scheme, concentrated on Search A, and held spare aircraft to shadow anything found.
27 September. The outer patrol and coastal sweep ran as planned in the forenoon with no “enemy” in the net. Then, reports confirmed the presence of two “enemy” groups about 40 miles out. Crucially, INS Delhi slipped through unmolested. She was seen and reported by a Liberator at 1300 hours, but the JOR didn’t have this contact in its book, and she made harbour untouched.
The frigates were another matter. The JOR scrambled Tempests in two sections. The first, escorted by a Liberator, struck a target about 30 miles south at 1346, then returned. The second section intercepted and “attacked” another frigate group shortly after; both camera-gun affairs were directed from the JOR.
The endless chain hours reserved for the 28th weren’t needed as the “enemy” was safely in harbour on the 27th. On the morning of 29 September at 0800 hours, the JOR filled for a detailed debrief, but it would take Srihari the better part of a month to finalise his report and observations.
Air Defence Commander’s Report
Srihari’s report, submitted October 28, 1950, detailed the four-day exercise. Issues included poor R/T discipline with excess chatter. Position reports often missed courses and speeds, complicating plotting. One Liberator added unnecessary details, such as a “ship’s number,” causing confusion and delays. Clocks were off by 20 minutes on one patrol, fixed mid-exercise. Another Liberator returned early, assuming the exercise ended, “a practice which could have proved disastrous”, Srihari noted.
On the positives, shore radar worked reliably; Tempest serviceability was 100%; Liberator serviceability was good, with unserviceable aircraft quickly replaced. Fighters handled a busy day: perimeter sweep and two interceptions, then refuelled and stood by.
Srihari’s observations formed the meat of the document:
- The JOR worked well for a first try but needs permanent setup: dedicated space, landlines, plotting gear, and backup power.
- Communications discipline requires training: position reports must include courses, speeds and turning points; R/T chatter cut to essentials; watches synced.
- Formalise Air-Sea Rescue with the Navy before sending heavies offshore.
- The Navy should post a permanent officer into the JOR; as a stretch goal, Srihari floats the idea of a small spectators’ gallery for senior visitors.
- The time window shaped everything. If future exercises allow earlier starts on both approach days—or spread work across more daylight—the search yield would rise without turning the drill into fantasy.
Srihari’s report was straightforward: The IAF showed a small force could be directed from a joint room to find and “strike” a fleet. But the next exercise should be larger, more real, with better systems and both friendly and hostile fleets. The report reached Naval HQ by November 4. The Navy Chief forwarded it for comments from the Commodore-in-Chief, Bombay, and Rear Admiral Commanding, Indian Naval Squadron.
The Navy’s View from the Bridge
On 8 January 1951, Rear Admiral Commanding Indian Naval Squadron, G. Bernard, CBE, DSO, sent his assessment to the Commander-in-Chief, Indian Navy. He praised Srihari’s frank report as valuable for improving reconnaissance, reporting, and control.
He quickly moves to the single question that matters at sea: would we have got in if this had been real? Bernard thought yes, with minor speed or timing changes to avoid IAF windows. The main reasons he lists for why the IAF didn’t find the fleet earlier are blunt: the IAF’s search hours were short, the JOR’s formal readiness bands were tighter still, the lack of embedded naval operational advice in the JOR, and the failure of airborne radar on the day it would have mattered.
That critique sets up his principal prescription: put a permanent naval officer in the JOR. A naval officer sitting the watch would have adjusted tracks, speeds, and likely approaches in real time; would also have kept the air picture honest against the ways a fleet actually moves when intent on not being found.
He agrees wholeheartedly with Srihari’s broader instinct for realism and Air-Sea Rescue. Next time, he says, fight two fleets, not one—a friendly and hostile—so the air picture is more confused and therefore more real. Air-Sea Rescue, he argues, needs clear ownership and Service rules that say who does what when a fighter goes into the water off the harbour entrance.
That last aside reveals the heart of his worry. The Liberators that gave Pomfret its long reach are scarce; No. 5 Squadron is too engrossed in its primary bomber role and too concerned about preserving engine hours. If maritime reconnaissance isn’t given seriousness either as a standing responsibility or as a regular single-service program of sweeps, then the sea-air shield will exist only on paper.
He urged raising maritime reconnaissance to the Defence Committee for clear ownership and focus. Until then, he warns, everyone will be forced to make do.
The Shore Voice from Bombay
If the Rear Admiral’s letter gave the fleet’s view from the bridge, Bombay’s Commodore-in-Charge, Commodore RMT Taylor, supplies the shore voice from Vithal House, Mint Road, on 24 January 1951.
He begins by addressing the criticism most likely to sting: Why wasn’t a naval commander seated inside the Joint Operations Room? Because there were no “friendly” ships being controlled from ashore, he argues, the Navy hadn’t considered it essential to post a senior sea-going commander into the JOR. The Navy provided an Officer of the Watch with three crisp duties: maintain constant liaison with the IAF duty officer for communications and shipping intelligence; plot hostile sightings as reported by aircraft; and trigger Air-Sea Rescue action if needed. A Staff Communication Officer ran the Navy’s side of the signals floor, and naval ratings literally carried messages between the Receiving Officer and the plot.
But the Commodore is frank about a second, more human reason: inexperience. With officers scattered at sea and ashore, the Chief Staff Officer often sat the JOR watch himself; others were “comparatively inexperienced in handling” a joint room and in the finer points of air communications.
He pivots to structure, referring to the recently formed Air Task Force HQ that will include appointing a Naval Commander to sit in the room when required. This will allow a joint review of the area with IAF and Navy staff to improve speed and area design.
On the search box itself, the Commodore is sympathetic and stern. Yes, the area was “on the large side”, given IAF resources. But the exercise was explicitly designed to teach maritime reconnaissance, not gift easy kills. Had the IAF’s representative accepted one early “enemy” report for what it was, keeping track of the ships thereafter would have been straightforward. That they failed to locate the squadron reflects that general sea reconnaissance needs more practice than the Air Force imagined. The remedy is more sea time, not smaller boxes.
He closes by fully concurring with the Rear Admiral’s key recommendations—those calling for two fleets (friendly and hostile) next time and for a hard look at who owns maritime air reconnaissance.
The Two Service Chiefs’ Private Debrief
A secret letter from Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Parry, Chief of Naval Staff, to Rear Admiral Bernard on January 23, 1951, followed a meeting with the IAF Commander-in-Chief, Air Marshal Gibbs. He structured his note around four knots: Exercise Pomfret, Air/Sea Rescue, the forthcoming exercise, and the larger question of Maritime reconnaissance cooperation.
The IAF chief, he reports, bristled at the Navy’s use of “inexperience” to describe the air side of the JOR. The C-in-C felt “inexperience” suggests a lack of professionalism rather than the teething of a new joint routine. Parry accepts the point and pivots to substance: flying hours. The hours actually flown were shorter than the search box merited, the C-in-C concedes, and mistakes were made—some because the exercise clock was tighter than expected, some because decisions at the JOR lagged reality. On Air/Sea Rescue, the two chiefs are aligned. The IAF will not send single-engine fighters on strafing runs over water unless ASR is visibly in position.
The next planned exercise gets a whole page of nuance. The IAF chief is “a little hurt,” Parry notes, at the Navy’s casual comparison between RAF Coastal Command Lancasters and IAF bombers. The IAF Liberators may be airframes that have been resurrected, he points out, but they’re serviceable, and crews are being trained for such work. What the IAF wants, above all, is control for the JOR: ships not to alter course or speed at will, no last-minute “cleverness” that teaches the wrong lesson. If the aim is to grow a generation of controllers in Bombay, let the JOR hold the reins. Parry takes the point.
The last section was where Air Marshal Gibbs conceded the need for dedicated maritime resources. A fresh directive had gone out, Parry confirmed, to raise No. 6 Squadron at Poona specifically to overcome the awkward dance between bomber tasking and naval cooperation. For now, the force was just four aircraft strong, but it would be strengthened. And critically, its sole commitment would be to work with the Navy.
The Institutional Legacy
While the Indian Air Force had employed aircraft in a maritime role from 1939 onwards, first with Q Flight of No. 1 Squadron at Karachi, then with dedicated Coastal Defence Flights, it had never truly attempted a maritime role in a genuinely joint fashion. Ex-Pomfret changed that calculus.
On 2 February 1951, Squadron Leader HSR Gohel took over as the first Commanding Officer of No. 6 Squadron at Poona, moving across the tarmac from his previous role as CO of No. 5 Squadron. Over the next few years, starting with Exercise Octopus the very next month, No. 6 Squadron and the Indian Navy conducted numerous regular exercises. With each iteration, the envelope expanded.
By the late 1950s, Liberators across the IAF were consolidated into No. 6 Squadron, which by then also had the early ASV-15A radar. Liberators would be supplemented when the IAF acquired the Super Constellation from Air India. Liberators would bow out in 1968, and in 1976, the IAF handed over the MR role and the Super Constellations to the Indian Navy, which now owns this role.
Right up to the 1976 transfer, the worry that maritime aircraft would be pulled into bomber or transport duties continued to plague Navy–Air Force relations. After the handover, the IAF retained the maritime strike piece on other platforms, notably the Jaguar (again with No. 6 Squadron) and the MiG-27.
A word on the Joint Operations Room. The skeleton for that had been laid earlier in 1950 as part of Plan Sikhar. The broader plan proposed establishing multiple Air Task Forces, each physically co-located with Army and Naval commands in their respective operational theatres. No. 2 Air Task Force, based in Bombay, would align with Southern Command and naval leadership to monitor approaches to the Arabian Sea and the Kathiawar coastline. In fact, as part of the No. 2 Air Task Force in Bombay, a simple air-sea exercise was conducted in May 1950.
This innovation eventually evolved into the Tactical Air Centres and Advanced Headquarters that continue to define Indian air power doctrine today. Maritime Air Operations HQ in Mumbai, headed by an Air Vice Marshal, is now the nodal agency.
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