SKY FORCE
Film Review
I am inherently sceptic about Indian war movies, for their lack of realism and overdose of jingoism and misplaced melodrama. Therefore, when a friend recommended insistently that I watch the recently released Hindi movie “Sky Force”, I did so reluctantly. The initial part of the movie with its make-believe dialogues and even a traditional Bollywood-style dance sequence, only reinforced my conviction that Indian films cannot really depict a military theme in a convincingly realistic manner. However, as the screenplay unfolded further, the film seemed to pick up a fair amount of realistic touch. Here was someone making a serious effort to tell a military story as it should be. Watching the second half, I had to grudgingly admit that the director (s) of the movie was generally getting it right. Indeed, being a fictionalized version of a heroic tale, certain amount of melodrama was bound to creep in, which is acceptable as part of the cinematic freedom.
The real story: To counter the Pakistani aggression in Kashmir during 1965, which was stalemated, the Indian Army opened a new front on the Punjab border on 6 September, targeting Lahore and Kasur. The same evening, the Pakistan Air Force launched preemptive strikes against several frontline Indian Air Force bases across northern and western India to cripple its capability to support the Indian Army or strike Pakistani airfields. None of these strikes made any great impact, except the one at Pathankot, and the PAF ended up losing two of its aircraft shot down at Halwara.
The same night IAF Command ordered counterstrikes against PAF bases. The strike force consisted of five squadrons based at Agra, Adampur and Halwara, flying Canberra Bombers, Mystere IV Fighter-Bombers and Hunter Jet Fighters. The primary target set was Sargodha airbase deep inside Pakistani Punjab, near Kirana Hills across the river Chenab. The base had almost eight squadrons of PAF stationed there, some of them with fleets of newly acquired F86F Sabre Jets and Lockheed F104 Starfighters. The complex also housed the PAF’s Central Command. While it made an ideal strategic target for IAF with the largest concentration of enemy’s combat assets, it was a formidable one to take on for its advanced early warning and multi-layered defence capability. Bar some bases in the Soviet Union, Sargodha was probably the best-defended military target in the whole of Asia at that time and it would take more than the best of the IAF pilots to mount a successful attack on it, what with their aircraft far inferior to those of the enemy.
The Canberras of No.5 Squadron struck first, the night of 6 September itself. The raid however did not have much of an impact. Alerted of the impending IAF attack, the enemy was ready when the rest of the formations flew in at first light the next day, 7 December, one after the other. 1 Squadron Mysteres were the first in followed by 8 Squadron Mysteres, 27 Squadron Hunters and 7 Squadron Hunters, all in less than 20 minutes. Later in the day, 1 Squadron Mysteres struck again, twice, once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon. The IAF’s Mysteres and Hunters flew a total of 31 sorties against Sargodha Complex on 7 September, causing extensive damage to installations and a loss of 10 aircraft, including Sabres and Starfighters, of the PAF. Handicapped by the inferiority of their aircraft, they paid heavily for this heroic feat. Losing five aircraft, four in aerial combat and one to ground fire. Four pilots were killed in action. Incredibly, one Starfighter was shot down by a Mystere, in a legendary feat of arms by its pilot, Squadron Leader A B ‘Tubby’ Devayya, who made the supreme sacrifice in his valiant effort.
It is the extraordinary story of Devayya in that deadly combat and thereafter that the makers of ‘Sky Force’ has based their movie on. The officer’s whereabouts unknown, he was reported missing in action initially and later believed dead. Then in 1979, Pakistan published its official history of the 1965 air war by a British historian, John Fricker, whom they had commissioned for the job. The book told the story of the lone Indian Mystere that had shot down a Pak Starfighter, in an outstanding demonstration of flying skill. The pilot of the stricken Starfighter, Flight Lieutenant Amjad Hussain, ejected to safety and parachuted down near the village of Kott Naka. The Mystere, damaged in the dogfight and running out of fuel, crashed in a nearby village called Hinduana, Dervayya, presumably unable to eject for system failure. The villagers, who found his body thrown off the burning wreckage, buried him in a nearby field. Devayya’s Mystere was flying tail of a 3-aircraft formation that opened the dawn attack and was exiting, when the Starfighter dived on them. By turning to intercept it, he ensured the safe exit of his two comrades.
Amjad Hussain, who was decorated for his air-to-air kill, was shot down in India during the 1971 War and, during his interrogation as a POW, had admitted his encounter with a Mystere in 1965. Group Captain O P Taneja (who as a Wing Commander was the Strike Leader of Devayya’s fatal mission and had retired by the time the book was released), emboldened by the documentary confirmation of the officer’s gallant end from the book, which he had inkling of from Hussain’s interrogation, represented the case with the Air Headquarters and, 23 years after his heroic feat, in 1988, Devayya was posthumously awarded Maha Vir Chakra. Mrs. Sundari Devayya, his widow, graciously accepted the belated award from the President of India.
While the screenplay generally sticks to the real story, except the names being changed for it being a fictional version, there are some cinematic variations for melodramatic effect. Even with that much melodrama the movie did not hit off well at the box office is indicative of the inherent malady among the larger Indian viewership, of its shallow intellect in appreciating genuine war movies. It also explains the constraints the movie makers in India, who venture making war movies, work under. That said, the producers of the movie deserve to be complimented for their brave attempt to tell a war story realistically, a healthy trend of steering away from Bollywood extravaganza and jingoism, which has been gaining ground among Indian movie makers in the recent past, as demonstrated by movies like Shershaah, Sam Bahadur and Amaran. The movie gives us reason to harbour hope that the day may not be far off when we could enjoy world class war movies on Indian armed forces.
