13a – Pakistan and India – Grandfather’s Ali Jinnah 1947-48 photos and logbook entries

My paternal grandfather was in India in the Royal Air Force for a good 6 years during and after WW2. It turned out that he had been Ali Jinnah’s VIP escort at Partition time! Unfortunately I only found this out a week before he died unexpectedly. Nevertheless, a few years later I was given his log book and a couple of photo albums from this period of his life. I never tired of telling people in Pakistan about my grandfather’s connection with Qaid-e-Azam, and so now I have finally been able to share the relevant pages from his photo album and flying log books.

As with the front page of this site, if you click on the pages and hit the ‘ALL SIZES’ icon, you will be able to see them properly.

The first two are about a holiday he went on to Srinagar in 1944. Kashmir didn’t have the same connotations then that it does now, and it is strange to see how free they obviously were to take pictures of Shankaracharya Temple, complete with graffiti of all their names. Just try doing that today!

The next 2 relate to one of the 3 times Grandad was shot down in WW2. This one was when they were delivering a transport plane to Burma and got chased by a Japanese Zero fighter. The Indian Navy tried to shoot at the Jap but missed and hit the tail of Grandad’s plane instead, forcing them to land.

Self-explanatory. Probably taken at Karachi

And here is the picture that proves the Ali Jinnah connection. Grandad is second from the right in the top photo.

Not sure which Pakistan border point this was

The next 1 is of Peshawar.

Note the picture at the top of this Peshawar/Lahore page! The log book shows that on at least 1 occasion, they transported refugees during the Partition exodus. Not reflected in the photos or logbook is Grandad’s story of how they witnessed the aftermath of one of the infamous train massacres.

And the last photo album page is street scenes from Karachi

And so, on to the logbook pages. Not all of these will be that interesting to all readers, but I will try to highlight the ones most likely to be interesting.

This first one proves who Grandad is

…and this is the first (few) legs of Grandad’s trip towards his new tour of duty in India

Here’swhere they carried some refugees….one would assume well-heeled ones. The reference to ‘Dum Dum’ means Calcutta

More of the same

And here’s the first reference to the Pak PM

More of same

AHA! The smoking gun

Here’s where Ali Jinnah got taken on a tour of East Pakistan

More of same

This time in West Pakistan

And this is the last of his Pakistan tour – on the way back to the UK through the Middle East