The HF 24 - Marut Fighter Aircraft

 The HF 24 - Marut Aircraft, the Battle of Longewala and Nehru Science Centre - An Interesting Connect. 

There was euphoria and hype all across the country when the first set of five Rafale fighter Aircraft’s landed in India from France. This was quite significant particularly in the context of the current stand off between the Indian and Chinese forces in Ladakh, post the Galway Valley incident in which our brave soldiers were martyred. Fighter aircraft’s play a pivotal role in the defence preparedness of any nation and India is no different and it is in this context that Indians rejoiced the induction of Rafale’s in to the Indian Air Force (IAF). The Indian air preparedness will further be strengthened with the induction of the indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) - Tejas, which is now in its advanced stage. 

A look back in history reveals that LCA - Tejas, is not the first fighter aircraft to have been indigenously designed, developed and manufactured in India. This credit goes to the forgotten HF 24 - Marut aircraft, which has now been confined to history. However, one of this historically significant HF24 aircraft is in the proud possession of our centre - Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. It is interesting to note that India was, perhaps, the first country, outside of Europe and the US, which has the distinction of designing and manufacturing its own fighter aircraft - the HF 24 Marut, Fighter Aircraft that was manufactured by Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL). Incidentally the Marut fighter aircraft created history by successfully participating in the famous battle of Longewala during the Bangladesh liberation war, which India successfully fought and won against Pakistan. 

The battle of Longewala - fought on that sandy desert out post in Rajasthan on our western boarder, is now a folklore story in India, which has been beautifully captured on celluloid in the Hindi film - Border. Longewala witnessed a historic and epic battle that exemplifies one of the most heralded bravery of the Indian armed forces.  The indefatigable spirit of Major Kuldip Chandpuri and his 120 valorous men of the Indian armed forces, with extraordinary support from their airforce brethren, flying Marut and Hawker aircraft’s, took on a massive Pakistani paltan that majorly outweighed the Indians many times in men and armed materials, to script that folklore epic victory for us in the 1971, Bangladesh liberation war.

The Pakistani paltan, which had orders to capture Jaisalmer and Jodhpur after bulldozing over Longewala, boasted of some 2000 plus heavily armed infantry that was supported by some 50 odd ‘Type 59 tanks (Chinese copies of the Soviet T-54/55) and other armed vehicles and ammunitions. Courtesy the valour of our 120 men led by Major Chandpuri, on the Longewala sand post, and their brethren  Indian Airforce pilots, aided by their HF 24 Marut and other fighter aircraft’s, the Pakistani received one of their bloodiest nose before their hasty and cowardly retreat - (दुम दबाके भागा). Scores of essays have been written on the bravery of our men in this historic battle at Longewala including the famous Bollywood film ‘Border’, which has highlighted the valour of our armed forces and their commandant Major Chandpuri. Therefore this post of mine will be confined mostly to the contributions of the IAF in general and HAL manufactured HF 24 Marut aircraft in particular. The role of Indian Airforce at the Battle of Longewala has been immortalised by Jackie Shroff in the film, Border. 

The HF 24 Marut Fighter, which participated in the battle of Longewala, is now history. However,  one of this aircraft was gifted by the IAF  to our centre in 1978. Ever since, the HF 24 aircraft is on display in our science park and has been seen by millions of visitors. The rusty climatic conditions of Mumbai has taken a heavy toll on this precious aircraft, which was very badly damaged and courtesy the CMD of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HAL) and Mr Muthalick Desai and staff from the HAL office in Nashik, this aircraft has been restored to its near pristine beauty of yesteryear’s. We have plans to create a new shed with proper ambience for the aircraft, which we hope to take up during the next financial year. We have effectively used the lockdown period to restore most of our precious artefacts that are displayed in our science park.

Courtesy J P Datta and Bollywood, the Battle of Longewala has been made into a war film ‘Border’, in which Sunny Deol plays the role of the protagonist- Major Kuldip Chandpuri, and is supported by equally popular  cine artistes including Jackie Shroff, who plays the role of an Indian Air Force Pilot. This film, which besides being a blockbuster hit movie, has captured the hearts and minds of the audience and this battle - fought in early December 1971, will remain  alive in all our collective memories. I am one of many who has seen this film multiple times. The image of the Pakistani forces making a hasty retreat and running for cover and so also the destruction of the Pakistani tanks and other ammunition’s by the Indian airforce pilots is so very fresh in my memory, which gets further refreshed whenever I see the HF 24 Marut Aircraft displayed in our science centre. 

The valour of our 120 Indian soldiers, led by Major Chandpuri,  who stood their ground against 2000 plus men from the Pakistani army and their 50 plus tanks and other arsenal, reminds me of that infamous Crimean war, which we had learnt during our school days.  The Crimean war and the valiant fight of 600 soldiers of the Light Brigade, who ‘rode in to the valley of death’ has been beautifully captured in the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The hair raising poem recounts an extraordinary assault by 600 soldiers (Brigade) of the British cavalry. The charge of light Brigade is regarded as one of the most heroic, yet futile assaults in British military history that took place at the Battle of Balaclava, during Britain’s war with Russia in Crimea in the mid 19th century. The Longewala battle and the bravery of our men, led by Major Chandpuri, has a parallel in the Crimean war.  120 Indian soldiers and their commanding officer  - Major Chandpuri stood their ground facing the enemy until scoring the most heralded victory against the enemy, who made a hasty retreat. The valour, grit and undying courage shown by our armed forces reminds me of that famous Lata Mangeshkar song, “ ये मेरेवतन पे लोगों .....” in which Lata Mangeshkar - nightingale queen of India, appeals to the nation to remember the valour and sacrifice of our armed forces. 

The story of the battle of Longewala is incomplete without the role played by HF 24 Marut aircraft and the Hunters of the Indian Airforce, which destroyed the enemy tanks in large numbers. The happenings in the eastern borders and the mistreatment of the Pakistani forces against the Bengali speaking citizens in the erstwhile East Pakistan had it’s expected impact of mass immigration of the Bengalis into the Indian side and thus leading to the unavoidable conflict between India and Pakistan. When the war on the eastern front was imminent, Pakistan hoped to capture territory along the West Pakistan border and planned for a preemptive strike - on December 3, 1971, to compensate for the weak position of its forces in East Pakistan. Their plan was a thrust, on the first day of the war, to aim and capture Jaisalmer and eventually Jodhpur. But then for achieving this they had to endeavour their first target -  the isolated border outpost of Longewala, located in the middle of the Thar desert. The Pakistani force ordered to achieve this mission constituted two infantry brigades and armored battalions totaling to more than two thousand infantry and 45 to 50 Type 59 tanks. The Post of Longewala was manned by  120 men of the company of the Twenty Third Battalion of the Punjab Regiment. This post was led by Major Chandpuri and it had in its arsenal only a single 106 millimetre recoilless antitank gun mounted on a jeep, a few mortars and a medium machine gun, and a camel riding squad of the border patrol - Suneil Shetty. The sheer mismatch of the strength of the two armies, when analysed from any normal tactical analysis, inferred that there was no way the Indian defenders should have held out for so long to defend their Longewala post. But then the Indian soldiers are made of a different mettle. They not only managed to hold on to the post but also, with support of their airforce brethren, caused an unspeakable miserly and destruction on their enemy, which has been so beautifully captured in the Border film. What is more creditworthy is that as against the melodramatic scenes in the film, where many soldiers are shown to have been martyred, in reality the Indians lost just two of their brave men in the process of giving a bloody nose to the enemy, who hastily retreated leaving behind a scene of massive destruction.

The Pakistani troops had begun to advance at half past midnight on 3rd December and head towards Longewala. Without the benefit of tactical reconnaissance, the tanks bogged down in the thick sand dunes around the Longewala outpost. Major Chandpuri and his men, who were defending this post, were strategically positioned on a rocky outcrop a hundred feet high, and were waiting until the struggling tanks had crept up to short range. The Indian soldiers then opened fire, destroying twelve of the enemy tanks with their lone recoilless gun and old World War II–era Projector Infantry Anti Tanks (PIAT). The Pakistani attack came to a halt since they encountered, what they believed to be a tank minefield behind a row of barbed wire, which hours later was discovered not to exist.

The Pakistani began a renewed offensive at the break of dawn, and it was now the turn of the Indian Marut jets of 10 Squadron, reinforced by four Hawker Hunters, who were waiting for the dawn to launch their assault. They descended on the battlefield, unleashing T-10 rockets and spitting thirty millimetre cannon shells at the bogged down armor in what was described as a “turkey shoot.” By the afternoon, the Indian Airforce planes had destroyed an additional twenty-two tanks and at least a hundred more vehicles forcing the enemy to a hasty retreat. This outcome is particularly remarkable as the Indian aircraft did not benefit from the specialized guided antitank missiles that give modern ground-attack planes high lethality against tanks. Indian ground forces counterattacked by noon, sending the Pakistani force into full retreat. 

The HF 24 Marut, remained in the thick of the action throughout the thirteen day war, strafing airfields, bombing ammunitions dumps, and hitting tanks and artillery on the frontlines—flying over two hundred sorties and suffering just three losses to ground fire. A fourth Marut was destroyed on the ground while taxiing on the runway at Uttarlai by a strafing Pakistani Air Force F-104 Starfighter. Nonetheless, the HF-24 boasted a high serviceability rate and proved quite tough and lethal, with several of the jets managing to return to base on just one engine even while their second engine was shot. 

The HF 24 - Marut, manufactured in India by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), has a unique distinction to be the first jet fighter, which was designed, developed and manufactured by any Asian country, other than Russia. HAL was established by an eminent Indian industrialist - Walchand Hirachand, with support from Sir M Visvesvaraya. Hirachand and Sir M Visvesvaraya succeeded in convincing the then Mysore government to establish an Aircraft Factory in Bangalore. The Government of Mysore made a generous offer in the form of 1000 acres of land, water and electricity facilities for the establishment of the aircraft factory, which later came to be known as HAL. The financial support for HAL project was provided by the Government of India, Government of Mysore and Hirachand and Company. By the early 1950s, HAL had managed to develop few propeller planes and gained experience in building British Vampire jets. In 1956, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had bigger plans for HAL. He conceived an idea that HAL should develop a jet fighter on its own. This was the time when Nehru was building what he called  ‘temples of modern India’ - mega public sector companies and infrastructure projects. He thus authorised HAL to develop a Mach 2 multirole jet fighter, with a range of five hundred miles (800 Kms)

Developing an indigenous jet fighter was an enormously ambitious project for HAL. To achieve this task an expert talent was necessary and accordingly the Government of India, identified and recruited one of the top notch designer, Mr. Kurt Tank, from Germany for guiding HAL in this endeavour. Tank was a Nazi engineer who had to his credit designing the legendary Focke-Wulf 190, which was the best German single-engine fighter of World War II. With Tank on board the HAL went full throttle to gear itself to the onus responsibility of designing and manufacturing the jet fighter. On the recommendations of Tank, HAL massively ramped up its design staff by nearly  twelvefold and also expanded its other facilities to accommodate a project of this magnitude. Kurt Tank, drawing from his German experience, successfully produced a full-scale X-241 glider mockup of the jet fighter plane in the year 1959. He followed it up with the development of a flying prototype of the fighter jet in 1961. Tank had prepared a design in which he envisaged using a swept-wing twin-engine for which he had to depend on an uprated Bristol BOr.12 Orpheus afterburning turbojet that could produce 8,150 pounds of thrust. The cost of this turbo engine was quite exorbitant and the Government was not prepared to invest an estimated 13 million pounds, which was necessary for Bristol to develop the engine. This reluctance by the government for investment in Bristol turbo engine meant that HAL had to look for an alternative for which they spent years fruitlessly shopping for an alternative to the Bristol turbo engine in the Soviet Union, Europe and the United States. This did not yield any fruitful result.

HAL was therefore forced to make do with an alternative engine - Orpheus 703 turbojets, in place of the original Bristol Turbo engine. Unfortunately the Orpheus turbojet could not generate the requisite thrust and could generate only 4,850 pounds, which was by far less than what the design of Tank envisaged. As a result, HAL which had an aim of developing a Mach 2 fighter, ended up in producing a jet fighter aircraft that could barely attain a speed of Mach 1, and that too at high altitudes. Most unfortunately all this resulted in the HF-24 Marut - Spirit of the Tempest, becoming an obsolete technology by the time it entered professional service in 1967. By then the the Indian Air Force had started acquiring the MIG - 21s from the Soviet Union and the indigenously produced HF 24 fighter aircraft’s were unable to match up with the MiG-21s or the F - 104 Star Fighter aircraft’s, which were used by Pakistan. The IAF was vastly disappointed with the sub par performance of the HF24 and therefore these aircraft’s were assigned to light attack duties. In all HAL could produce only 147, HF-24 aircraft’s including eighteen two-seat trainer variants. These aircrafts were used to equip the Indian Air Force’s No. 10 Flying Dagger, No. 31 Lions and No. 220 Desert Tigers squadron, which meant that there were unusually large surplus of redundant aircrafts. The irony was that it costed more to produce each HF 24/Marut, domestically than it did to buy better capable fighter aircraft’s from abroad. All this pointed out to a certain end for the HF 24 sooner than later. The HF 24, as a bomber, could carry up to four thousand pounds of unguided bombs and a hundred sixty eight milimeter rockets, in addition to the heavy firepower of its four thirty-millimeter cannons. Notwithstanding the drawback listed above, the HF 24 Marut had relatively precise controls and good low-speed handling capability.

With all the above limitations the HF 24 Marut fared exceptionally well during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, including playing that pivotal role in the battle of Longewala. Post the Bangladesh liberation war the HAL submitted several proposals to improve the HF-24 by installing more-powerful engines (the Marut Mark 1R and 2). But the Indian Air Force had little interest in investing further in the Marut when it could acquire faster and heavier-lifting Su-7, MiG-23 and MiG-27 fighter-bombers from the Soviet Union. All this resulted in the HF-24 to be phased out of Indian squadrons in the 1980s, with the last aircraft being retired from 31 Squadron in 1990.  These HF 24 Marut aircrafts, that were phased out from the IAF, are now spread across the country and are seen as monuments on display in some of the public places and one such HF 24 Marut aircraft is displayed in our science park.

The HF 24 Marut fighter aircraft displayed at our centre was donated by the IAF in the year 1978-79. This aircraft, most unfortunately, over the past four decades developed very high corrosion and most parts of the aircraft’s were severely damaged. Mumbai sultry weather also played its role in the vast deterioration of our aircraft. The photographs show the severity of the deterioration that had crept into this aircraft. Moreover our centre is open to the public on 363 days in a year and therefore taking up the restoration was also a challenge. The Covid 19 pandemic provided us an opportunity to attempt a major restoration of this aircraft. But then we were also facing  severe fund crunch and there was no way that we would get the requisite funds to take up the major restoration of this aircraft. Therefore the only option left for us was to make an emotional appeal to the CMD of HAL and request him to please consider taking up,the major restoration of the aircraft free of cost or at a very cost. Fortunately for us our efforts to contact the CMD yielded positive results. The CMD of HAL very kindly passed on our request to the HAL office in Nashik. We contacted the HAL Nashik office and it so happened that the officer to whom the mail of CMD, HAL was marked turned out to be an engineer from Karnataka - Mr Muthalick Desai. During the course of our telephonic conversation Desai and I soon realised that we had many common friends and some of them were very close friends. Thus the professional relationship that Mr Desai and I had ended up as a close friendship that too when we have never met personally. Desai was very helpful and he deputed three of his team to survey the badly damaged HF 24 Marut aircraft displayed at our centre. We helped this team to make a thorough inspection of the damages caused to the aircraft. The team went back and reported the damage and what was necessary to try and carry out the best possible major restoration. Under the Covid situation we had some constraints. But then finally Mr Desai ji finally managed to get all approvals for taking up the major restoration of our aircraft and deputed a large contingent of his team - 9 people, for the restoration. The team reached our centre with all the required materials that they brought from HAL Nashik including the paint which too was sourced from USSR. The HAL, Nashik team deputed by Mr Desai stayed put inside our campus for nearly two weeks and worked extraordinarily hard in the restoration of the aircraft including its painting. The outcome is here for everyone to see in the accompanying photographs of the restored aircraft. Although the Marut aircraft has been restored its pristine elegance of yesteryears, unfortunately the garage or the shed under which this is displayed also needs a major makeover. Unfortunately due to the paucity of funds we are not in a position to take up the major make over of the shed this financial year. However we have made provisions to carry out the major make over of the shed next year and I am very certain that our restored Marut Aircraft will look more majestic once the shed receives a makeover. 

We have also taken up the major restoration of all our other outdoor locomotives which we hope to complete by January and we also have plans to do a major make over of the sheds of these locomotives, which we had acquired in 1979. Hopefully by middle of next year each of our outdoor precious locomotive artefacts will not only be completely restored but will also be housed in a better ambience and I am certain that these restored locomotives will turn out to be a major attraction for our centre.