BENGALURU: Over 50 years later, two Indian Air Force (IAF) martyrs and former Josephites were honoured at St Joseph’s Boys High School on Friday, with their names etched on the school’s war memorial. Flight Lieutenant Babul Guha, who was killed in action in 1965, and Flight Lieutenant Krishna Kumar Mohan, who was killed in action in 1971, were honoured in Bengaluru by family and comrades as alumni of the university. According to the school’s alumni association, the Old Boys, who had organised the memorial, the two martyrs were only recently discovered to be alumni of the school.
Flight Lieutenant Guha, who had graduated from the 1952 batch of the school, had been KIA during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965. Flying the Mystere IV fighter-bomber aircraft, he was tasked with attacking Pakistan’s Sargodha base, alongside three others. His aircraft was shot down by a Sidewinder missile, after two of the four aircrafts in the formation had to turn back due to mechanical problems.
Flight Lieutenant Mohan had graduated from the 1959 batch of the school and had been KIA during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. He had been part of a close air support (CAS) mission at Nunkot and was outnumbered by enemy aircraft. According to research done by the the alumni association, it was likely that his aircraft, the Sukhoi Su-7, was hit by a missile.