KOCHI: The Arabian Sea was silent, still as death, as three missile boats moved stealthily under the cover of darkness from Okha in Gujarat towards Karachi in Pakistan. It was a suicidal mission, almost! The sailors, however, had only one thought on their minds — strike the targets successfully.
These events of the night of December 4, 1971, replayed in retired Indian Navy officer Commodore A D Rao’s mind as reports poured in of the escalation of the confrontation between India and Pakistan after the Pahalgam attack. The mission carried out as part of Operation Trident proved a resounding success, that too at a time when technology was not as advanced as today.
“Everything was top secret,” Commodore Rao, who was 27 at the time and belonged to the 25th Missile Squadron, tells TNIE.
“Even the transportation of the boats, made by the Russians, was done in a very clandestine manner. India had bought eight boats of the OSA class fitted with the Styx missiles. Operation Trident was also the first time that India used the Indian Navy’s missile boats and anti-ship missiles in war.”
Living in Kochi for more than 30 years, Rao recalls how he found himself in the middle of a fierce war four years after getting commissioned into the Navy as an officer.
“It seemed as if the four years of training and related activities were a sort of preparation for the war,” he says.
Elaborating on the mission and the strategies adopted, Rao says, “The plan was to launch a quick attack on Karachi and then run. We were told to write letters to our families before leaving for the mission in the dead of the night from Mumbai on December 3.
Of the eight missile boats, the three that were sent for the mission were INS Nipat, INS Nirghat and INS Veer. I was on INS Veer, which was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Om Prakash Mehta, as the third officer.”
He was part of the team sent to the USSR in 1969 for training in using the missile boats and the Styx surface-to-surface missiles. It was not an easy mission to carry out. The target, Karachi, was more than 1,000km away while the operational radius of the missile boat was only 500km. Another important factor that made the mission tough was the range of the Styx missile.
“The missiles had a range of only 40km. So, for them to strike the target, we had to get very close,” Rao says.
However, as the boats — which were towed from Mumbai to Okha using survey class frigates and then escorted by Petya-class frigates INS Kiltan and INS Katchall — sailed towards Karachi in a broad formation, INS Veer developed engine trouble.
“One of our four engines stalled. Our speed dropped from 20-22 nautical miles per hour to 17. However, the other boats kept going and spotted two Pakistani warships doing crossover patrolling,” he recounts.
INS Nirghat fired two missiles at PNS Khaibar and sank it. INS Nipat fired missiles at a cargo vessel, MV Venus Challenger, and its escort PNS Shah Jahan, a C-class destroyer.
“PNS Shah Jahan suffered irreparable damage while the cargo ship that was carrying weapons for Pakistan sank. INS Veer was given the task of targeting ships coming in from the Karachi harbour. We fired a missile at PNS Muhafiz, which was a minesweeper, and sank it. INS Nipat continued to Karachi and fired missiles that struck the Kemari oil storage tanks,” Rao adds.
He remembers the commotion that was created after the IAF fighter planes too joined the attack.
“The Pakistanis were confused. They thought it was an aerial attack. There was total miscommunication among them. In the melee, they even forgot to use the codes for communication,” Rao says.
After carrying out the attack, done under total radio and radar silence, the boats fled to a designated port at Porbandar.
“We didn’t go to Okha since it was understood that Pakistan’s retaliatory strike would happen there. They didn’t disappoint us and struck Okha, which had been cleared of all ships,” he says.
From Porbandar, the boats refuelled and moved towards Mumbai. “We were told to hug the western coastline. We were welcomed by Admiral Sourendra Nath Kohli, who was the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command during the war, with a band,” Rao adds.