Rewinding to 1965 war

In September 1965 when the aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant was undergoing a refit, the Seahawk Naval Air Squadron 300, to which Cmde Medioma Bhada (Retd) was then attached, was based at INS Hansa, Dabolim, Goa. On September 1, 1965 Naval Headquarters sent the squadron on a detachment to the Jamnagar Air Force Station for an armament work up as the Navy did not have its own firing range facility at that time, writes Bhada in an email to Parsiana. A couple of years earlier the squadron had been sent on a similar detachment to Gorakhpur from Sulur, Coimbatore.
Recalling the incident 50 years later, Bhada writes "as young pilots we were oblivious of the ‘winds of war’ that were blowing across our frontiers… We took our armament work up seriously until on the afternoon of September 6, 1965 we were briefed to carry out a bombing attack on the Pakistani Radar Station at Badin, just across the border. That is when it dawned on us that war was imminent.”

Cmde Medioma Bhada (retd): reliving memories

While awaiting orders from Headquarters regarding the attack scheduled for the following morning, September 7, "we returned to the Officers Mess later in the evening and were having a cup of tea on the lawns… when ‘Tubba’ Bahadur noticed Canberras flying low on the horizon. His immediate reaction was ‘Here comes the Indian Air Force.’ Soon the aircraft went into a steep climb and did a wingover to get into a dive, aiming directly at us… Tunna’s reaction once again was ‘They are showing off to the Navy’ abruptly followed by ‘Oh, no! They are bombing us!’ That’s when we realized we were actually under an attack by the Pakistan Air Force!” Bhada recounts.
"The sirens went off and we rushed to the temporary trenches that were dug all along the air base and spent the rest of the night there.” After the initial 15-minute attack, waves of fighter aircraft strafed the base at regular intervals through the night. A flare would be dropped to light up the base and the bombers followed. "All sorts of rumors spread through the trenches, some even claimed to have seen paratroopers being dropped,” recalls Bhada. "Fortunately no damage was done to the aircraft or the hangars, though the runway did take a beating. It was rumored that the Paki pilots thought the Seahawks, with their wings folded, were tents!”
Since nothing lethal was stationed at Jamnagar, Air Headquarters assumed that this attack was primarily aimed at the Naval Squadron and ordered them to be moved out at the earliest. "In between the air raids we rushed to the Officers’ Mess and packed whatever we could in our little carry bags and were ready to fly out from the air base at the earliest opportunity. Under cover of the early morning darkness, we were cautioned about the various craters on the runway and escorted by the follow-me jeep for take-off,” Bhada relives the experience. It was with relief that each of the pilots independently set course for Santa Cruz airport in Bombay.