Indian Navy's golden hour

new delhi: on december 3, 1971, india awoke to the fact that it was at war - its third with pakistan. the day was to unfold a series of events, the most spectacular being the indian navy's bold attack on a well-defended karachi harbour by a small flotilla of missile boats being towed across the high seas. on the same day, since celebrated as navy day, the navy declared a blockade of the coast of what was then east pakistan.less than four hours earlier, eight seahawks had taken off from the aircraft carrier ins vikrant and carried out comprehensive attacks on cox's bazar airfield without facing any aerial opposition. the attack on karachi that night had been preceded by the accidental sinking of the formidable pakistani submarine pns ghazi off vishakhapatnam. this was to mark the beginning of sustained attacks and blockade as brought out in the official history of the 1971 war. if the army ``failed to win'' on the western front, the navy was able to maintain complete supremacy over the pakistani navy and merchant shipping in both the bay of bengal and the northern stretch of the arabian sea and effectively carry out a virtual blitz on pakistani defence installations in east pakistan and a blanket blockade of karachi. the war was, of course, not without the navy's moments of tragedy, anxiety and limitations. in the east, the navy was faced with the possibility of a confrontation with the us seventh fleet headed by the aircraft carrier uss enterprise; the presence of a mystery submarine; a fratricidal attack by indian air force aircraft on indian vessels; a near failure of the amphibious landing in cox's bazar; and of course the accidental sinking of pns ghazi - a us-made submarine supplied free of cost. while the official history remains somewhat non-committal on the cause of ghazi's sinking, the myth that the navy sunk the ghazi has already been exploded by lt-gen j f r jacob, who was then chief of staff of eastern command, in his book surrender at dacca. jacob quotes then eastern naval command chief vice-admiral krishnan informing him that ``the blowing up of the ghazi whilst laying mines was an act of god''. this explanation is similarly reinforced by vice-admiral m k roy in his book wars in the indian ocean. on december 10 - by when aircraft from ins vikrant had strafed, bombed and rocketed all major ports and other shore-based assets of east pakistan and also sunk or damaged a large number of ships - had come the news that the us seventh fleet was on its way. the official history observes that the circumstantial evidence of the possible linkage between the uss enterprise and rk 623 - a convoy of specially assembled pakistani ships seeking to escape east pakistan - was all too telling to be ignored. in the arabian sea, the navy lost its solitary warship ins khukri, an anti-submarine frigate, to a pakistani submarine attack on the night of december 9/10 - a night after the navy struck karachi harbour for a second time, blowing up and setting fire to the kiamari oil installation which raged for seven days and nights. the navy's efforts to locate the submarine that sank the khukri remained elusive and the search was abandoned on december 13 although, as the official history points out, ``relentless attack on every underwater contact kept the pak submarines at bay''. all in all, no same-sized navy in the world could have achieved more, the history concludes.