When the Country Calls (Experiences of Indian Fighter Pilots in the 1971 India-Pak/Bangladesh Liberation War)

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When the Country Calls is an inspiring saga of a patriotic soldier who left no stone unturned in serving mother India and the struggles of a prisoner-of-war and his fellow colleagues in enemy captivity, while upholding their pride in being Indians and representatives of a victorious nation.

Wing Commander Dhirendra Singh Jafa was commissioned into the Indian Air Force in 1954. During the 1965 Indo-Pak War he carried out 23 operational missions on Gnat aircraft into Pakistan and thereafter played a key role in equipping the Indian Air Force with the first squadron of the Sukhoi Su-7 Fighter Bomber, for which he was decorated with the Vayu Sena Medal.

After that he graduated from the Royal Air Force Staff College, Bracknell, United Kingdom in 1970 and was then selected to join as an aide-de-camp (ADC) to the Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force in January 1971 at Air Headquarters. However, when the war with Pakistan looked inevitable, as a soldier who placed duty before self, he took the personal decision in November 1971 to give up his stable and prestigious job at Air Headquarters in Delhi and volunteered to rejoin duties on the front-lines, as part of an operational squadron in the western sector of India during the operations against Pakistan in December 1971.

On 5th December 1971, when he was conducting an operation in an area in the west of Amritsar, his aircraft was hit by ground fire and as a result he had to eject at a very low altitude in Pakistani territory. He suffered serious spinal injuries, was captured by the Pakistani forces and spent an year as a prisoner-of-war (POW) during 1971-1972.