Flying Officer Kartar Singh Saund, No.2 Squadron
Early Life
Kartar Singh Saund was one of the six children of Jagat Singh, a Public
Works Inspector in the Western Railways. Jagat Singh had six
children, Kartar was the fourth oldest and the first son. He had another
younger brother Satnam Singh Saund. He studied at the Khalsa College in
Amritsar, completing his Fellow of Science (F.Sc) around 1939-1940.
Immediately after graduation, Kartar was married off - and soon after Kartar
joined Medical College to pursue a medical degree. However the call of adventure
beckoned him in the form of the Second World War and the call for young men in
India to join the fledgling Indian Air Force. Kartar answered the call and
applied for a commission in the IAF.
Training in the IAF
Kartar Singh cleared the interview, however failed to clear the medical due
to pyorriah - an infection of the gums. This was overturned by the RAF
Officer who was the chairman of the interview board. The interviewing officer,
fully impressed by the tall smart Sikh youngster keen on joining the IAF
insisted that Kartar Singh's selection be cleared at any costs. And in due
course, Kartar was accepted into the Indian Air Force.
Karrtar
Singh was commissioned in the Indian Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 6th
January 1941 (IND/1664),
. He was part of the No.6
Pilot's Course which
reported to the Initial Training School at ITS Lahore on the very
day they got their commisisons. The course pilots were there till May 1941,
before passing out.
The
6th course commenced flying training at the No.1 Flying Training School, Ambala
on 26th May 1941. The Course consisted of 14 Pilots, but two were
dropped during training. Apart from Kartar Singh Saund, the course
consisted of Mohammad Akhtar, Mohan Dev Suri, Padam Singh Gill, M M A
Cheema, Malik
Nur Khan, F
P Amber, M S Aulakh, D N Prakash, S K Bakshi, and J S Bolarya.
The
Flying training was carried out in two parts, the first three months with the
Initial Training Squadron, and the subsequent three months with the Advanced
Training Squadron (ATS). Most of the flying was carried out on Harts and
Audax aircraft, with a few pilots flying the Wapiti from time to time.
Kartar Singh Saund's name finds mention in many movement orders as part of the
ATS.
When
the training finished, Most of them were posted to Squadrons in December
1941. Nur Khan, Cheema and Akhtar were posted to No.3 Squadron. Suri and
Gill were sent to No.1 Squadron. F P Amber and Saund were posted to No.2
Squadron (though no paper trial exists that proves Saund was posted to No.2
Squadron, the posting patterns and existing documentation supports that he was
directly posted to No.2).
With No.2 Squadron
But
before joining No.2 Squadron, Kartar had a family commitment to take care
of. Kartar had one younger sister, younger to his brother Satnam
Singh. - and she married Asa Singh Hunjan, a class mate of his younger
brother Satnam, hailing from the same college that Kartar graduated. Kartar took
leave after his SFTS training to attend the marraige sometime in February 1942,
and returned to No.2 Squadron soon after. No.2 Squadron had just then started
converting to the Westland Lysander, the second such unit in the Indian Air
Force. Saund had been posted right in time to gain expertise in the relatively
modern aircraft. Saund took part in various exercises and flights with
No.2 Squadron and finds frequent mention in their diaries.
On
one occasion he went to collect an aircraft from Madras and was detained on
suspicion of being the enemy. There must be some interesting story behind this
but the bare details are all we know! No.2 Squadron started giving up its
Lysander aircraft towards the end of 1942. On 17 Sept 1942, he led a
ground party to Risalpur - a percussor to training on the Hawker Hurricane
fighter. The Conversion course was completed by 1 Dec 1942 and the
Squadron moved to Ranchi to undergo training in advanced fighter tactics. In the
first week of February 1943, the Squadron moved to Bhopal to undergo a course in
armament training, which ended on 16th March 1943, at which time they moved back
to Ranchi.
On the frontlines at Imphal
The
War diary of No.2 Squadron is missing a considerable period from the conversion
day and upto September 1943. The Diary has missed recording an important portion
of the Squadron's history - the posting of a small detachment of six pilots
under Flight Lieutenant Edwin Nazirullah to Imphal. As narrated in the Official
History of the IAF:
"In April 1943, a detachment
of the squadron, under F/Lt. Nazirullah went to Imphal for operations,
returning on 25 May. It was when increasing difficulty was being
experienced in following the movements of the various withdrawing units that a
detachment of No. 2 Squadron I.A.F. was sent from Ranchi to Imphal. Seven
Hurricanes reached Imphal by 13 April and commenced operations on the 15th.
The chief task of the pilots was reconnaissance over the scattered groups of
Chindits. It consisted mainly in pinpointing their positions and then
returning to the base to lead the supply dropping Dakotas to the appointed
spot. It often involved flying just above ground level, as otherwise
observation was impossible in the dense jungle, especially as the Chindits
dared not show themselves too openly for fear of being discovered by the
Japanese patrols which were never far off. The Hurricane was not a long
distance flier and the Chindit groups were beyond its range. The Hurricanes
were therefore fitted with extra fuel tanks to enable them to stay longer in
the air. The average duration of the sorties flown by them varied from 3 to 31
hours. The detachment remained in operation until 26 May after which it was
withdrawn. In the course of these 41 days the pilots flew a total of 148
sorties out of which 70 were contact, 60 tactical, 15 photographic, 2
offensive, and 1 escort reconnaissances. It will thus be seen that though
contact reconnaissance was their main task, the pilots carried out other jobs
also. They strafed river craft and traffic on the Chindwin and Irrawaddy
rivers, and trains on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway and attacked Japanese
ground troops and motor transport on the Kabaw Valley road. In the course of
one of these sorties, a pilot flying over the Chindwin successfully attacked a
small Japanese patrol and saved a wounded Gurkha soldier who was lying
helpless on the river bank nearby. On 26 May the detachment left Imphal after
being relieved by a detachment of No. 28 Squadron R.A.F."
Another
book "The Eagle Strikes" offers just a little bit more detail - it
says that the six most experienced pilots of the squadron were hand picked to go
to Imphal - Apart from Nazirullah, this included Kartar Singh Saund, and
the six were sent in to support he famous "Chindits" operation.
The Accident
Unfortunately
No.2 Squadron had a couple of losses during this period. Kartar Singh Saund,
happened to be one of them. On 8th April 1943, he was taking off in a Hurricane
IIB (BW931) from Imphal, when the aircraft swung on takeoff resulting in an
undercarraige collapse. The aircraft caught fire. Kartar is said to have
initially got out of the aircraft safely, but made the fatal error of going back
to retrieve his service pistol and some papers. He suffered severe burns
to his chest and his legs. He was evacuated to a field hospital immediately. His
condition was too severe to evacuate him out of the war zone.
Hearing about the accident, Kartar's father - Jagat Singh rushed from
Punjab to the hospital in Imphal. He was at Kartar's bedside throughout the time
Kartar was recovering. However Kartar's body was raging a war with infection. A
few weeks into his recovery, the doctors came to the elder Jagat Singh and told
him that Kartar's chances of survival were bleak - unless they took a decision
to amputate both his legs in which infection has set in. The decision bore
down hard on Jagat Singh - he could not visualise his son remaining invalid for
the rest of his life - and perhaps in a decision that is debatable with today's
world values, told the doctors that he didnt want Kartar to undergo the
surgery. It was a painful decison for both father and son - and ultimately
Kartar lost the battle with the infection on 5th May 1943, when he succumbed to
his injuries. Jagat Singh was heart broken. Kartar Singh was cremated on the
battlefield.
Family legacy
It
so happened that Kartar's brother in law, Asa Singh Hunjan and his wife,
Kartar's
younger sister were living in Jorhat, Asa Singh working as a supervisor in a Tea
Garden. They received constant updates on Kartar's conditions. At one point they
were told that the accident may have happened due to sabotage by nationalists
(though this was quite unlikely to happen in wartime Imphal). Two years
after Kartar's death, Asa Singh found himself in Imphal working as a manager of
a war time disposal dump. He visited the site of Kartar's accident
and had a marker constructed at the spot where the crash occurred. (The
photographs on the right show Asa Singh in a jeep at the marker).
Kartar Singh's loss was just one of the blows to his father Jagat Singh's
life. His younger brother Satnam Singh married twice without any children. Jagat
Singh passed away in 1955. Satnam Singh went on to work in the Burma Shell
Company but passed away in the 1980s after a road accident during a morning walk
in Bombay left him in a coma..
The details of Kartar's family are shared by his nephew - Dharampal
Singh (Asa Singh's son). Dharampal notes:
"I was shocked and amazed at my grandfather's courage and will power
(in taking that decision) The agony of my grand father who unilaterally taken
the
decision to let him die peacefully without going through a handicapped
life for the rest of his life on the mercy of others ."
Kartar Singh's demise is noted in a war time news paper clipping (shown
right). There is no record of his loss in No.2 Squadron's Operational Record
Books - as the period dealing with the Imphal detachment is mysteriously
missing. Thus the account provided by Kartar Singh's family and told via
generations is an invaluable record of history.
Does the memorial built by Kartar's brother-in-law still survive in Imphal
today? We do not know - but if it does, it is a silent tribute to young
handsome Sikh warrior who preferred to follow the spirit of adventure rather
than a traditional medical career - and to his father who took that stoic
and bold decision on that fateful day in the summer of 1943.
Photos Courtesy : Mr. Dharampal Singh
Thanks go out to Henk Welting of the RAF Commands forum for providing details on the Hurricane crash
External Links:
Commemorative
Page on the CWGC Website
Service Record Page in the IAF Officer's Database
Date: 03/19/2012
Owner: Webmaster
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