Hermes to Viraat

Indian Naval planners perceived the need for a second aircraft carrier to ensure force level stability based on the sound reasoning that the carrier would be the pivot of fleet operations with multifaceted attack capability in the form of fighters, air ASW and a mobile task force. In 1981, the Secretary for Defence, United Kingdom, John Nott, compelled by Britain’s financial crisis, produced a White Paper, which saw the RN as essentially an ASW force, built around destroyers and frigates. The carrier building programme was to be halted, the Hermes scrapped and the Invincible sold to Australia. The IN, which was on the lookout for a carrier, kept a close watch on these developments. Fate, in the form of the Falklands crisis, intervened and John Nott’s plans were put on hold, and both ships sailed in early April 1982 for the South Atlantic. On 24 Apr 1986 it was announced in the Parliament that India would be acquiring the British Carrier HMS Hermes. HMS Hermes had been laid up as reserve since Feb 85 and after pledging £63 million, HMS Hermes was towed to the Royal Dockyard, Devonport on 22 Apr 86 for a refit and dry docking. The work for making the ship operational again was set in motion at the dockyard with RN and IN officers and sailors working together towards training, refurbishment and complete handover of the mammoth.

Brief History of Harrier Induction

By 1980, the last of our trusty but tired old Sea Hawks had retired, and most fighter pilots in the Air Arm had been put out to graze, doing various odd jobs like flying
Super Constellations. But suddenly, the clarion call sounded, "The Sea Harriers are coming!", and evervone was headed for Dobolim, Goa.

In the spring of 1982 Cdr Arun Prakash the Squadron Commander (designate), and Lt Shekhar Sinha the QFI of the "White Tigers ", arrived at the RAF Station Brawdy, on the south-western tip of Wales. Teeth chattering in the cruel wind which blew steadily from the Irish Sea, they formed the advance guard of the re-incarnated INAS 300, reporting for the commencement of Harrier/Sea Harrier flying training in the UK. The weight of history was on their shoulders, like their predecessors exactly 22 years earlier; the original lNAS 300 had worked up with their shiny new Sea Hawks, in Brawdy, which was then the RN Air Station, HMS Goldcrest.

Life in Brawdy was not exactly a bed of roses for aviators brought up in GOA, with eternal blue skies and vast uncluttered airspace to fly in. Apart from the bitter cold, which required cumbersome flying clothing, including an immersion suit, there was the continuously changing weather with a rain squall virtually every hour- Old Brawdy hands proclaimed proudly that the station had 200 days of bad weather a year. Then there were the Brits, speaking on R/T, in Welsh, Scots, Cockney, Yorkshire and a hundred other barely comprehensible accents; anything but BBC English. Once the pilots got airborne, there was the ubiquitous and intrusive LONDON MIL (London Military) radar continuously badgering them with instructions, or asking for a new IFF squawk every couple of minutes while they were trying to cope with their jet in IMC!

From Brawdy, the pioneers, moved to RAF Wittering, proudly proclaimed as the "Home of the Harrier ". It was here, during May 1982 that they watched on TV, the Falkland drama unfold. Many of the RAF Harrier pilots from the station had ferried their GR Mk 3 versions of the aircraft to the two RN carriers at sea, in
order to fly alongside their Fleet Air Arm comrades in combat.

‘Our boys’ graduated from RAF Wittering, in August 1982, but it was only in December that they reported to RNAS Yeovilton to form the new IN Training Unit, with one RAF officer, three RN officers and a few sailors on loan.

By mid-1983, they had mastered the mysteries of the "Jump Jet" as well as the Blue Fox radar by day and by night, and were ready for DLQ. Yeovilton had the luxury of a shore ski-jump and they got to learn this "black art". After ten shore launches came the big day, and our boys were briefed to R/V the carrier off Plymouth for a ski-jump launch, followed by DLPs. The aircraft (TN 601 and 602) were flown on board by the RN staff pilots, and the Indian officers were to embark by the ship’s Wessex from RNAS Portland. The short embarkation on board that day started with briefings, a quick walk around the Air Department, a chat with the Captain, and then it was the familiar "Aircrew man aircraft". The day was spent shooting CCAs in the grim English weather, and all acquired their DLQs before departing for Yeovilton that evening. That marked the christening of ‘Harrier Boys’ into the Indian Navy.

The Rebirth

Captain Vinod Pasricha, NM, the Commanding Officer designate of INS Viraat had the task cut out ahead of him. He was entrusted with the responsibility of getting the ship up to standards with regards to Hull, Engineering and Electrical equipment, getting his men trained from the RN personnel and getting all the spares that would be required to maintain Viraat. After carrying out major repairs, the ship’s boilers were flashed up after the traditional ‘breaking of a coconut’ ceremony on 28 Jan 87. The ship was finally ready to be rechristened INS Viraat in May 1987.

She was formally commissioned on 12 May 87 at the HM Naval base in Plymouth, UK by Mrs Ackama Alexander, wife of Dr PC Alexander, the High Commissioner to UK. With the ringing of the ship’s bell, HMS Hermes was reborn as INS Viraat. The invocation, an excerpt from the Atharva Veda in praise of Aditi, the spirit of the earth, space and the heavens was recited at the handing over ceremony. (Chanting of the Vedas can be played as the background score with the visuals of commissioning).

Captain Pasricha (later VAdm Pasricha) reminisced about the crew’s camaraderie during the refit prior to commissioning and said, “Navies believe that all ships have a spirit and that when the keel is laid some ships are just born to be ‘Happy’. HMS Hermes had enjoyed this reputation in the Royal Navy and we soon realised that it was no myth. Everywhere we went we met people who recalled her history with nostalgia, and this ‘Happy Hermes’ spirit was what we had the daunting task of maintaining and nurturing.”

Thus Hermes was reborn as INS Viraat.

SECOND INNINGS

Operation Jupiter

Induction of Viraat into the Indian Navy heralded a new era of power projection. Now the country had two aircraft carriers, one on each coast and the Navy was prepared for any contingency in the Indian Ocean. Barely two months into the new commission under Captain Madhavendra Singh (later Adm Madhavendra Singh), on 15 Feb 89, President R Venkatraman reviewed the Indian Naval ships. Viraat was privileged to be the flagship for the supreme commander of our armed forces. The veteran of Falkland war was called into her first operation for the Indian Navy in Jul 89 for ‘Operation Jupiter’. During the monsoon months of 1989, the ship lay at anchor in Mumbai eagerly waiting to get her orders to do what ships are meant to do… Sail… As the crew went through the motions to keep her oiled and ready, fate intervened and on the evening of the 17^th July the Commanding Officer was verbally informed that he may have to sail at short notice to Cochin. A Heads of Department meeting was immediately scheduled and all departments were asked to provide a list of items, stores, spares and armaments urgently required and shore organizations were informed of Viraat’s requirements by telephones/signals that night.

On 18^th July 1989 , the ships company came onboard expecting it to be a normal day and anticipating no delay in going back home on completion of the day’s work . The Commanding Officer’s announcement at 0930 h that the ship may have to sail at short notice for a long deployment came as pleasant surprise. Throughout 18^th July, the ship hummed with activity. The logistics department geared themselves to demand and receive extra fresh provision and dry rations. The gunnery department prepared the list of bombs, missiles, rockets, depth charges required and asked NAD(MB) to provide them at the earliest . The air department which had loaned some of its workshop facilities, most equipments and tractors to Vikrant got into actions to get everything back and commenced preparation to embark INAS 300, 330, five Seaking 42 C and four Chetaks. The engineers already busy with harbour steaming topped up with fuel and lub oil.

In the afternoon the ship was informed that she would sail from Mumbai to arrive at Kochi by 20 Jul 1989. The married sailors who had come onboard, leaving their cycles in the dockyard and had not informed their families were granted liberty to tie up all loose ends at home before proceedings on this long unscheduled deployment. Throughout that afternoon and early evening, ammunition barges, ration boats, aircraft launches, fuelling barges continued to supply the Viraat all that she had asked for and needed. It was truly a remarkable effort and the monsoon weather did not make it any easier.

The passage to Goa was done at 20 knots to maintain ETA and the first two Sea Harriers of the 300 Sqdn were picked up that morning and the ship proceeded south to be at Kochi by evening on 20 Jul. On the morning of 20 Jul when the ship was off Mangalore, the two more Sea Harriers flew in to complete the UE of four Sea Harriers for the mission. Helicopters were assembled from all over the country and one Sea King 42C and two Chetaks were embarked at Mumbai; two Sea King Mk 42 and two Chetaks from Cochin and one Sea King 42C each from Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and INS Taragiri. A fifth Sea King 42C was embarked later in addition to three Officers and fifty four sailors of the Indian Marine Special Forces, as the ‘Marcos’ were then called.

It was at Cochin that the ship was told what the mission would be. The situation in Sri Lanka had been rapidly deteriorating and the Government of India and Sri Lanka had reached a dangerous deadlock on the question of withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force. As a precautionary measure it had been decided to sail India’s strategic asset, the INS Viraat, closer to the scene of action. Her mission was to evacuate Indian Navy nationals from Colombo, particularly the High Commission staff, if such a need arose.

While the Viraat was proceeding south, the 7^th Battalion of the Garhwal Rifles which was at Pithoragarh in the Kumaon hills was ordered to get ready for the mission. On the 24^th Jul, they moved by road from Pithoragarh to Bareilly and on the morning of the 26^th they were air lifted by IL-76 Aircraft to Trivandrum where they arrived in the dead of night. They were immediately put into state transport corporation buses and moved during the night to INS Garuda, Cochin where they arrived early morning of 27^th July. Viraat’s readiness was put to the test that morning when she got a signal to carry out the combat embarkation of the 7th Battalion Garhwal Rifles with her helicopters.

It was quite a task - because when an Army battalion moves, it moves with everything to sustain itself. Besides the men and their equipment, arms and ammunition, this included rations, jeeps, chairs, tables, tents and even cupboards! It was a wet and windy day. Regardless of the weather, the men of the Viraat worked tirelessly for the next six hours to complete the combat embarkation of the 7th Battalion Garhwal Rifles by the afternoon. With rotors running, 4 to 7 helicopters at a time were on deck being unloaded, refueled when required and quickly launched for the next load. A total of 71 Helo sorties of Seakings and Chetaks were carried out that day for embarkation of the battalion and another five for liaison work, thus making a total of 76 launches and recoveries during the day - it was at that time a record for Viraat. A total of 366 personnel, 36 tons of stores, 2 jeeps and a motorcycle were embarked with Viraat remaining 8 to 10 miles from the coast. The next morning, Col Mohan Bhandari, the Commanding Officer of the Garhwal Rifles addressed his troops in the hangar of Viraat. For the first time the Garhwali war cry "Jai Badri Vishal" echoed through the hangar of the Viraat.

The Viraat and her task group continued to operate at/off Cochin for another two weeks, ready to execute the mission if ordered. On the 9th August, VAdm Ramdas arrived on board and the Viraat became the flag ship of the commander TF 52. The operation ended on 12 Aug 89 with the disembarkation of the helicopters and Army personnel. The ship had demonstrated her power and flexibility and for the first time been used as a commando carrier capable of carrying up to 400 troops with ease. With her deployment to the Southern seas, India had also come of age in the art of naval diplomacy. For both the Garhwali’s and Viraat it had been a very happy and educative association. Both were richer experience and both will, for a long time, look back with pride and nostalgia on a mission executed.

In view of this operational association, Col Mahan Bhandari, Commanding Officer of 7th Garhwal Regiment suggested to the Colonel of the Garhwal Regiment, Maj Gen Ramesh Kulkarni that the Regiment be affiliated to Viraat and this affiliation ceremony took place on 02 Feb 1990 and the Garhwal - Viraat association remains as strong to this day.

Captain Arun Prakash (later Admiral Arun Prakash) the ‘Grey Eagle of the harriers’ has fond memories of the transition from transition from cockpit to bridge, “the transition from cockpit to bridge was not too difficult, except that sitting in the Captain’s chair, my throttle hand would itch unbearably at every launch. I also had to restrain myself frequently, from trying to do the jobs of Squadron Commander, Commander Air, FDO, "D ", and sometimes even the Captain of the Flight Deck!”