Verma’s Victory
As set out in an earlier article, on 8th February 1944 four Hawker Hurricane fighters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) clashed with Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa fighters of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) over Burma. That dogfight resulted in two IAF losses, though it may also conceal one victory, possibly their first over the Burma Front. The next couple of weeks were to be equally eventful.
Launched three days earlier, the Japanese HA-GO or “Operation Z” offensive was making some gains, and the Allies were under pressure. The Imperial Japanese Army’s attacking force, designated Sakurai Force for its commander, had surrounded 7th Indian Division around their administrative base at Sinzweya in the Arakan (now Rakhine State in modern Myanmar). For the three weeks’ duration of this battle, the Division was sustained entirely by supplies air-dropped by RAF and USAAF Dakotas.
In that situation, the Army needed frequent tactical reconnaissance (Tac/R) and close air support. No 6 Squadron of the IAF was the only Tac/R specialised unit, out of about a dozen Allied squadrons in the area. It responded well to the pressure. In the first fortnight of February the squadron flew 193 sorties, many pilots flying multiple sorties in a day. Tactical reconnaissance, to determine Japanese movements and locate their gun positions, was their main task.
But No 6 Squadron had also taken heavy losses. Against a sanctioned establishment of 17 pilots, its strength fluctuated between a maximum of 13 pilots and a minimum as low as eight, during the battle. As on 15th February, it had lost six aircraft destroyed, and five pilots killed or missing (one had survived and was a PoW in Japanese hands, but this was not known at the time), in the previous six weeks. A detachment of 28 Squadron RAF was hurriedly moved nearby in support. Unfortunately, at the same time, the situation on the Imphal front, 300 miles north, was also deteriorating, in the face of another Japanese offensive, Operation U-GO. U-GO attracted attention, partly because the Japanese had dubbed it “the March on Delhi”. As the situation at Imphal worsened, the reinforcing detachment had to return in a hurry.
From contemporary accounts, No 6 Squadron was not unhappy to resume sole Tac/R responsibility. They were known to take particular pride in meeting their targets, even while under strength. And happier results were soon evident.
On 15 February another of their Tac/Rs was intercepted by Japanese fighters, leading to another extraordinarily long-running combat. The formation, a tactical pair on this occasion, was again led by Flying Officer JC Verma, who had also been the leader during the 8th February dogfight. He was on his third sortie of the day, with Pilot Officer Indar Battacharji as Weaver, on an offensive reconnaissance again over Taung Bazaar. Sighting a force of over 200 Japanese trying to build a bridge, they pulled up to attack. As Fg Off Verma was about to roll in, he saw a Japanese fighter diving towards his Weaver.
There are several versions of his operations report, in various coffee table books and anniversary souvenirs. One of them reads:
“I broke off the attack, at the same time warning my No 2. I gave the attacking Oscar a burst but on looking around found two other Oscars diving on me.
“I skidded, slipped and went as low as I possibly could and steered north, but they followed me on and on without giving me a chance to cross the hills on the left to get home. I had now been chased for five minutes. During the chase, I was pulling up, skidding, and doing steep turns to avoid the Oscars but they kept pursuing me relentlessly. Finally I flew straight and throttled back completely. Both Oscars, coming on at great speed, overshot me and one came right within my gunsight at about 20 yards. I gave a long burst and noticed direct hits on the wings and fuselage. The Oscars rolled away. But I had no time to see any more of him since the other Oscar was turning in for me. The chase carried on for another ten minutes.”
Plt Off Battacharji, in HW428, was shot down, but Fg Off Verma eventually made it home. He knew he had at least damaged one of the enemy fighters, during his fifteen-minute running battle at low-level among the trees; he had seen pieces flying off his adversary’s aircraft as he fired. The Operations Record Book (ORB) says, “Attacked by O’s / Damaged one”. Incidentally, the ORB page also shows that as soon as Verma returned, his CO, Squadron Leader Mehar Singh, and one of the Flight Commanders, Flight Lieutenant MS Pujji, the two seniormost and most experienced pilots in the unit, took off to search for Plt Off Battacharji.
A day later Army observers confirmed that Verma’s victim had been seen to crash. In 2002 this author corresponded with Japanese aviation historian Hiroshi Umemoto, whose monumental Japanese-language book, Burma Air War, suggests that Verma’s victim may have been Corporal Tsuneo Nabeta of the 204thSentai. It is hard to be certain, because the records of most IJAAF units in the theatre were destroyed later in the War.
From the squadron ORB, Fg Off Verma’s aircraft on this sortie was serial number BG852. This very aircraft had flown the squadron’s first sortie of its tour. That sortie had spotted a Japanese troop concentration. BG852 was clearly a lucky aircraft!
Flying Officer Hoshang K “Pat” Patel, who like Flying Officer Ramunny was happily still with us till relatively recently, helped to debrief Fg Off Verma that day. He recalls that an Indian Army patrol found Plt Off Battacharji in the wreckage of his crashed Hurricane, so badly injured and burnt that they did not think he would live. Maggots had infected his wounds, and the Armymen who found him thought that an ominous sign. In fact, we now know that maggots can in some circumstances be beneficial. They eat dead flesh, but do not eat living — effectively, carrying out the medical process now known as debridement. So they sometimes actually save a wound from festering.
Luckily for Battacharji, the Army patrol was not observing triage, the cold-blooded but practical approach by military medics to prioritise medical treatment in pressure situations to those most likely to benefit. Despite their grim prognosis, they put unstinted effort into trying to evacuate him. With only the tools they were carrying, they hacked a kutcha airstrip out of the jungle. A small air ambulance aircraft, probably either a de Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth or a Stinson L-5 Sentinel, slipped into that improvised strip to evacuate Battacharji, manhandling his still-unconscious form into a space modified to carry a single stretcher behind the pilot. He was still hovering on the edge of a coma, when his ambulance aircraft landed at a larger airfield, probably Ramu.
From there a Dakota, possibly of 31 Squadron RAF (which was doing supply drops to the surrounded Allied troops, and occasional casualty evacuations on the return legs) carried Battacharji further to the rear. The Dakota was itself bounced by IJAAF Oscars as it headed back, and Plt Off Battacharji came to briefly just as the aircraft was jinking to evade its attackers — it must have seemed like a continuing nightmare to him! Mercifully, he lapsed back into unconsciousness almost immediately. The Dakota did escape, and Plt Off Battacharji went into intensive care at the Military Hospital at Jorhat. He did not recover for months, but did survive, although he did not fly again.
On the ground, 26th Indian Division came up in support of the surrounded Allied troops, and 5th Indian Division outflanked Sakurai Force with a landing from the sea. By the end of February Ha-Go had clearly failed. This was the first failure of a Japanese overland offensive in the theatre, and a significant turning-point, though it was masked at the time by the larger battles unfolding around Imphal and Kohima.
And as a tiny footnote to this battle — now known as the Battle of the Admin Box — Fg Off Verma was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), partly for this victory. More than twenty IAF aircrew received DFCs during the Second World War, but Verma’s was the first since the First World War for a confirmed victory in air combat.
So ended the eventful February of 1944, for this young squadron of the IAF. There was much more to come, for them and their colleagues in the rest of the war. To be continued!!
