Two Indian Air Force officers who laid down their lives for the country — Flt Lt Krishna Kumar Mohan and Flt Lt Babul Guha — were honoured by Old Boys’ Association (OBA) and St Joseph’s Boys’ High School in the city on Friday.
Their names were added to the war memorial at the school and a wreath laying ceremony was conducted to commemorate their service. Guha’s son Justice Arindam Sinha, judge, High Court of Odisha, was present on the occasion. He spoke about his father’s journey in the Indian Air Force with pride.
Guha was trained in the 68th pilot course and was attached to Squadron 1, based in Adampur. In 1965, after completing an attack on a bombing strike on an ammunition dump in Sargodha, Pakistan, he was shot by a Sidewinder missile. “My father participated in the last strike of the day. Initially, the strike was planned with four aircrafts, but due to a malfunction there were only two aircrafts. There is reason to believe that my father’s aircraft was the first Indian aircraft lost to a missile during the 1965 War. My father was initially said to be missing, presumed dead,” Justice Sinha recalled the incident.
Air Marshal Rajkumar, a close associate and fellow officer of Guha and Mohan, shared fond memories of the two fallen warriors. He recalled fond memories of sharing a room with Mohan, who was fondly called ‘Kichu’ by his fellow officers. “Today there is much spoken about Tom Cruise’s movie ‘Top Gun’, but Kichu was the original Top Gun. He was awarded the Top Gun trophy in 1965,” he said. Mohan was also stationed at Adampur with Squadron 26 when war broke out in December 1971, during which it is believed that he was hit by an enemy missile. His wife Kavitha Mohan, son were present.
The school has 15 alumni serving in the Armed Forces. Guha belonged to the Class of 1952 and Mohan to Class of 1959. The war memorial holds the names of all the lost warriors who were school alumnus.