THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A fighter aircraft which once bombed the Chittagong Port and played a role in the liberation of Bangladesh in the 1971 war and now kept on display is now languishing in the midst of trash in the city.
Faced with this insult is the Hawker Sea Hawk of the Indian Navy displayed at the Jawahar Balabhavan, Vellayambalam.
On December 4, 1971, this was one of the fighters that roared off the decks of aircraft carrier INS Vikrant to bomb Chittagong in modern-day Bangladesh. Several years after the war, the Navy donated the aircraft as a display piece to the Jawahar Balbhavan, which has been maintaining it since.
A small board in front of the small plane reads; ‘In 1971 Indo-Pak War the A/C was launched from INS Vikrant for attack on Chittagong Port.’ Chittagong was where the naval power of Pakistan was concentrated in the Eastern theatre of the war.
In its heyday, this Sea Hawk was fitted with four 40 mm guns, and bore two 1,000-pound and four 500- pound bombs and 24 rockets. It was a sub-sonic aircraft, which means it flew below the speed of sound. It could reach a maximum height of 40,000 feet.