Dear Sir,

I chanced up on the SP’s Land Forces issue which carried the text of an interview with ADG Army Aviation. It was natural to cite the deposition of General J.N. Chaudhary (the then COAS) to the National Aviation Commission in the mid 1960s as the seeding thought for the Army Aviation Corps (AAC). To the best of my recollection, the inception of AAC lay with a DO letter (the first on the subject) by General P.P. Kumaramanlam, to the Raksha Mantri/Secretary Ministry of Defence (MoD), soon after he assumed office. It was a cogently reasoned, persuasively worded and the first formal statement of its kind.

In the normal course, the MoD sought the views of the CAS. Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh’s response was vituperous to say the least, debunking the idea per se, as also its initiator.

The next landmark was the visit of Major General M.L. Chibber, the DMO, in mid-1970 to the US Army establishments. He returned fire with in idea of AAC and TRADOC (now our ARTRAC). He pushed the cases vigorously with both General T.P. Raina, MVC and General O.P. Malhotra both of whom made presentations to the Defence Minister. Little was achieved as the IAF batted on the pitch laid by their grand old Marshal which apparently was also the favoured recourse of the MoD, i.e. status quo.

As the COAS designate, General K. Sunderji took a 10 day sabbatical to Panjim and prepared his Vision 2000 statement. Among other changes/restructuring, they proposed the AAC for the first time in a full bodied form; concept, application in war/peace, equipping, manpower, maintenance and training modules, and ground infrastructure.

More than any other contributing factor to the birth of AAC was a conjunction of lucky stars; a Minister of State (Arun Singh) at the MOD with amiable personality, an open mind with new ideas, quick to see the grain from the chaff and a CAS (Air Chief Marshal D.A. La Fontaine) and CNS Admiral R. Tehaliani (also an aviator) and all of whom had no inhibitions about the Army being the bigger Service and bludgeoning its point of view. And as they say, the rest is history which can unfortunately be awfully tedious and boring when divorced from personalities who shape policies. Let us give the credit where it is due, especially in the history of the AAC whenever published.

Lt General (Retd) Baljit Singh
House - 219
Sector 16-A, Chandigarh-160015

Editor’s Note

Your remarks are most appropriate and enlightening and will add lustre to our work.

I hope you have not forgotten me. I was your Col GS in HQ 18 Infantry Division.