July 12, 1999
New Delhi

The Indian Air Force's offensive in Operation Vijay commenced on 26 May 99 - after a gap of nearly 28 years since it fired the last shot in a war. In the last 48 days we have flown over 1400 missions against the enemy - mainly by fighter aircraft. The results of our air power employment are beginning to show now.

In an effort to preclude the possibility of escalation, we had to impose constraints. The favoured Air Force operation of striking the enemy at its source - where it would hurt him the most, could not be exercised in keeping with the national policy of not crossing the LoC. Over the years the emphasis of our training for strike Operationerations has been on targets much bigger and more discernable than we had to contend with, located at much lower altitudes, in a markedly different terrain. So we - the planners and the pilots had to retrain and adapt to a very different scenario. And adapt we did.

Western Air Command was given the responsibility of execution of air operations in Operation Vijay. The task entailed extensive reconnaissance, locating of targets - barely visible to the naked eye - at speeds of 1000 km/h and attacking them. The targets varied from gun positions, dug in bunkers and defences on mountaintops and slopes and as importantly, enemy supply camps and distribution centers. Our initial attacks were on the forward tier of targets. The attacks were successful even though we lost a fighter aircraft and a helicopter to enemy fire. Armed with the knowledge of enemy defences we revised our tactics and despite over a 100 SAMs and innumerable rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition fired, we have hit them wherever we wanted. Every target of importance to the army has been successfully attacked. The cooperation between the Army and the Air Force has been excellent. In a terrain, such as this, victory is surely measured by the foot. The groundwork for that victory, however, is laid by degrading his offensive capability, locating and softening his defences and denying him essential supplies. This is a task best performed by the Air Force. We did just that. Behind every victory on ground and every life NOT lost were the pilots of Indian Air Force. We are proud of them. The clip shown on TV where a Laser Guided bomb completely destroyed a camp on the eastern spur of Tiger Hill is just one example. A low casualty figure during the assault on a fortified area such as Tiger Hill owes as much to excellent execution of a meticulously planned assault by the army as it does to similarly planned and executed air operation.

Operation Vijay has been important and significant for us and we are in the process of imbibing the lessons. It has nevertheless been a relatively small operation for WAC. Only 25% of forces at the disposal of Western Air Command were used and far fewer sorties flown than a full-scale war would entail. We are aware of the Pakistani mobilisation in the J&K region and elsewhere. We have adapted to change of circumstances now and, if necessary, we shall do so in future. The lessons of Operation Vijay will stand us in good stead. We are indeed ready.

The results achieved may not be spectacular but were achieved with plodding effort, detailed analysis, commitment and an uncompromising attitude to achieve the objective within the laid down constraints. We have reasons to be proud of the team here in HQ WAC and elsewhere in the field.