Air Marshal (Retd) Denzil Keelor: Then and now! (Images from Twitter)
In early March 1978, I reached TACDE AF in Jamnagar from 101 Squadron, then based in Adampur, to undergo the 12 FCL Course. I was a senior Flight Lieutenant by then and had been on MiG- 21M/Type 96 from September 1975 when I had joined 17 Squadron in Halwara as an instructor from Air Force Academy, Dindigul for conversion on MiG-21s. In December 1976, just after attaining operational status on MiG-21Ms, I was posted to 101 Squadron for instructional duties on the aircraft since 101 had been designated as a type training squadron and we got regular batches of young pilots for conversion training on type. By March 1978, I had about 330 hours on MiG-21Ms. As a matter of fact, I had been detailed for the 11 FCL starting in December 1977 but had been removed from this course due to a rather mundane reason due to a problem in the co-located 1 Squadron for a short conversion to the MiG-21FL/Type 77. Quite naturally, I was pretty upset with this turn of events on a minor issue and submitted a long application for redress and resignation since I had not even been given a hearing or an opportunity to explain the alleged lapse. Long story short, when my CO, then Wg Cdr VM “Rondy” Raina, came back from leave a few days later, he heard the whole story, went to the AOC, and asked me to go on annual leave to cool off and then decide on my future course of action. I describe this incident in brief to give the reader a background on my fi rst ever meeting with then Group Captain Denzil Keelor of the 1965 fame as the Sabre-Slayer. I took Rondy Sir’s counsel and left on six week’s annual leave to cool off , as advised. While passing through Delhi on my way to Indore, I bumped in to then Group Captain Dilip S Jog, under whose command I had converted onto Su-7s in 1972 in Bareilly when he was commanding 221 Squadron there. Dilip Sir asked me to come a have a drink with him the next evening in Central Vista Mess where he was staying. At the given time the next evening, when I landed up in his room I found a stranger, that I had never seen before but obviously a senior officer, with him talking animatedly and pacing up and down. Dilip Sir indicated to me with a wave of his hand to sit down and asked the other senior officer if he knew who I was by way of introduction. All this stranger senior officer said in reply was, “Must be Harish Masand”. I was kind of surprised and dumbstruck as to how he knew me or about me, kept absolutely quiet and sat down in a chair in the far corner next to the door. Dilip Sir and this senior officer kept talking about some stuff that did not concern me, and did not pay attention to, while sitting there trying to make myself invisible. After about 10-15 minutes, this senior officer left and while passing me by the door just said, “See you in March”. Dilip Sir then told me that that was Group Captain Denzil Keelor, then Commandant of TACDE. I had heard of the Keelor brothers of 1965 War fame, with both brothers having been awarded a Vir Chakra for shooting down a Sabre each. I had also briefl y met the elder brother, Trevor, when he was in Bagdogra and I was in 37 Squadron next door in Hasimara but had never crossed Group Captain Denzil Keelor’s path before. Dilip Sir and I talked for a while over a drink about various things including how I had got into trouble about the FCL course. He obviously knew about the issue and had probably told Denzil Sir about it but I didn’t ask and he didn’t clarify.
Close to March 1978 and this time Command attached me to 3 Squadron in Pathankot to do my short conversion on Type 77s. Everyone there including the CO, then Wing Commander DR Nadkarni whom I knew from before, wondered why I had come to Pathankot when we had a Type 77 squadron right there in Adampur. Most just smiled while some made fun of this issue when they got the opportunity. However, one benefit of going to Pathankot was that I met then Squadron Leader Phillip Rajkumar in 3 Squadron who was also coming for the same course though way senior to me and we struck up a good friendship which has lasted till date. In a way, the delay in going for the course helped me because after being heavily involved in training and instructional sorties for young pilots, I used this break and my time to make out a notebook on each exercise of group combat with my briefing guide and all variations in the evolving combat that I could think of with pictorial situational drawings for understanding and recapitulation at a glance. These came in very handy when we did the course and my notebooks were frequently borrowed by all course mates when preparing for the briefings on those exercises. When we reached TACDE in Jamnagar for the course in early March 1978, I found that most of the other course mates were known and we formed a great group with lots of team work during the course. The other course mates that I knew from before included BM “Manoj” Bali whom I knew from Su-7 days, “Vicky” Bhatia, and “Goofy” Gupte who had done the instructors’ course with me in FIS Tambaram in 1974, Rajan Wahi who was with Goofy and me in Air Force Academy, Dindigul in 1974-75, RP Singh from 108 Squadron, our sister Squadron in Adampur and only KP “Buddy” Srikant whom I had not met earlier. Unfortunately, RP Singh met with a scooter accident before he even commenced flying and left the course while Rajan Wahi was soon suspended from the course. A course photograph of the remaining is attached.
Due to the team spirit and cooperation amongst each other, all of us, except Rajan who had left us early, passed out having done reasonably well. Apart from the professional front, we were also one team socially wives some latest group dances, like Slosh etc, that I had picked up from my wife, Malini, who was pretty good at such stuff. Soon, the whole lot in TACDE used to get into such group dances enthusiastically in parties, including Groupie Keelor and Mrs Marie Keelor, with everyone having a lot of fun. We were just like one big family and the course passed off so quickly that we didn’t even realise we had finished the 10-11 weeks together. However, personally I had a strange feeling all through the course of being watched all the time with eyes boring into my back. About 10 days to go for the passing out and graduation dinner, ‘Groupie’ , as he was called by all, caught me somewhere and asked where Malini was. I told him that she was with her parents in Darjeeling at that time. Those familiar with Groupie would recall the way he spoke and he almost ordered me to get Malini across to Jamnagar for the graduation. I politely declined saying that Darjeeling was a long and used to have some great parties, sometimes teaching the staff pilots and their way off, almost across the country from the East to the West, and involved three flights from Bagdogra to Calcutta to Bombay to Jamnagar. Groupie retorted with “Get her across, we will pay the fare”. I very politely thanked him for the offer but stuck to my stand saying that it was not a question of money but that it did not make any sense to come all the way just for a couple of days and the graduation dinner. During the graduation dinner, after I received the Jam Sattaji Sword of Honour for topping the course, Groupie told me that he had been asked to raise a special report on me. I kept quiet since there was not much I could say about this issue. However, it did confirm my suspicion that I was being watched all the time for such a report. Groupie then said, “I am going to write just one line, I want you back on the staff and soon”. Well, that called for a good drink and I had more than one good one that evening. The next day, a little later in the morning that I had planned, I rode out a very happy man on my younger brother’s bike to Ahmedabad and then headed back to Adampur after meeting up with Malini in Delhi.
With Jam Saheb TACDE Sword of Honour June 1978
professional and capable staff in TACDE. Most of the staff in the unit were essentially the same when I had done the course just a few months before as shown in the course photograph, the only addition being of Squadron Leader Jeff and Betty D’Souza and subtraction of Wing Commander Tushar Sen, the latter having been posted out to command 1 Squadron. Just to recapitulate, there were Mike & Linda McMahon, Teju & Kiran Asthana, MS “Melly” & Minna Grewal, KC “Philly” & Radha Phillipose, MS “Count” & Sat Brar, CD & Meena Chandrasekhar, DDS & Suhail Kumar, “Prabs” & Renu Prabhakaran, MP “Sammy” & Kunda Samant and “Nana” & Amu Menon with “Damu” & Gurdip Damodaran. Damu was the stalwart Senior Technical Officer who kept the overstressed machines of the unit in flying condition with a lot of hard work and innovation. I would qualify overstressed by just one example when Melly Grewal came back with his pitot head bent in a Su-7 after a combat sortie without having been in physical contact with any other aircraft or obstruction. It was just the “g” he hauled that sortie. Those who have flown the Su-7 and know how strong it is would know how much we are talking of. When I converted on the Su-7 in mid-1972 in Bareilly, Hemu Khatu, a course mate of Melly gave us a walk around and did a chinup on the nose pitot tube to demonstrate how strongly built the Su-7 was. When I reported to Groupie the very first day, he told me to quickly settle down in the two-room accommodation allotted to me in “Honeymoon Quarters” since Malini and I had no children by then and also gen-up on the Su-7 since I would be mostly flying the Su-7 despite the fact that I barely had a 100 hours on type of 1972- 73 vintage. Mike Sir gave me a quick dual check and after a single handling sortie and a 1 Vs 1 against a Type -77, I was flying as the staff with the ongoing FCL course. Flying a Su-7 with such a short familiarisation after a break of almost five years, apart from many other things that Groupie asked me to do as I would describe later, did wonders to my self-confidence and I actually enjoyed flying the Su-7 against the MiG-21s in combat through my tenure in TACDE. Soon, Groupie asked me to convert more of the staff on the Su-7 once we lost some of the Su-7 staff on different assignments. Nana Menon left with Ajit and Prabs for Iraq in a couple of months around November, Sammy also left soon and Mike left for Jaguars in early 1978 along with “Goofy” Gupte who had joined us for a brief while. Before leaving, Mike gave me a few rear cockpit checks and cleared me as a trainer captain with barely 150 hours on type. Groupie himself converted on the Su-7 and started flying it for various exercises. I still remember a naval exercise when we had to fly really low to evade detection by ship radars almost a 100 km into the sea. Quite frankly, as the lead for a couple of these missions with Groupie flying the Su-7, I was amazed at the way he flew the Su-7 at those ultra low levels with so little experience on type. TACDE was really like one big family and though I was the junior most in the hierarchy except for Goofy for a brief while, they all treated Malini and me like the youngest in the family. Professionally, there was no quarter given but on the social front everyone was an equal and treated in that manner, including the course pilots who joined in regularly in all the fun and merry-making after working hours. To be honest, Mike made a jocular comment one day with tongue in cheek that Groupie and him were the only two unfit for TACDE since both of them were non-drinkers while the rest would let their hair down particularly over the weekends. Groupie himself, despite being a non-drinker, never hesitated in entertaining us in his house with the bar open to everyone. As a matter of fact, I think he enjoyed seeing his flock loosening up and speaking freely, under the influence sometime, to get a true feedback on how things were and the problems, if any. Certainly, TACDE parties were the noisiest in Jamnagar and lasted till late into the night on weekends. In those evenings, Malini earned the sobriquet of ‘Ma Baker’ from Groupie.
12 FCL
TACDE graduation with Mascy and Deshu
While Groupie kept us hard at work, sometime late in the evenings, for the debriefs and all the other work required to keep the courses going on schedule while also refining and improving tactics, he himself donned the mantle of the administrator and the father figure to keep our hearth burning and organising the needs of the families. As just one example, one day I finished work a little earlier than usual, perhaps it was the weekend approaching, and got home at about 1500h, had a quick bite that Malini had been waiting for and dozed off, dead tired as I was. At about 1530h, there was loud banging on the door and when I opened the door, I found Groupie there, with me looking all blearyeyed from the short nap I had taken. In his typical rapid-fire manner, Groupie asked, “sleeping?” I mumbled some incoherent stuff but he cut me short by saying, “this is no time to sleep, come on, let’s go for a gad”. I put on my clothes in a jiffy while he chatted with Malini and got into his car while he drove. He took me to the market in the city to buy meat and vegetables for all the families hinting that this way, he could extract more work from us while he looked after our home needs. Thereafter, whenever he went out like this, Malini and I were ready and waiting to go with him and even drove him so that he would not have to drive us around. Every time Groupie came back from Delhi or wherever, he had a whole load of frozen stuff, which was not available in Jamnagar markets, in a huge container like a camper with ice for preservation. Groupie’s reputation in and around Jamnagar was such that even Indian Airlines never charged him for the extra cabin baggage since he was a well-known war hero and because of his charming ways with everyone. He would then go around distributing the stuff to each house himself, depending on what had been asked for by the wives and sometimes giving them some good stuff even when they had not asked for anything.
Air Marshal (Retd) Denzil Keelor (Image Twitter)
At work, I must admit that the team of that period was excellent, largely due to Groupie’s leadership and example and we all worked in a very harmonious manner doing whatever was required to conduct the courses as also review the tactics being taught with a view to develop them further to keep pace with technological advances. Here I must mention people like Teju Asthana, Jeff DeSouza and Mike McMahon who were the thinkers of our little family and who encouraged everyone to try out new stuff. We also let the course students try their own new tactics that they may have thought of and developed and looked at all these with an open mind to test them theoretically on the ground by changing the attackers’ methods as well as in the air by actually flying such missions. I still recall one particular incident when a visiting ex-TACDE senior officer attempted to ridicule some of the profiles and missions we were flying, without actually having the equipment on our old MiGs and Su-7s. As a junior staff, I was sitting in the back itching to respond but before I could open my mouth, Groupie beautifully put the whole argument and monologue of almost 30 minutes at rest in one short sentence by saying that equipment would come in its own time once Air HQ and Plans branch can procure it. TACDE’s job was to recommend it after assessing its requirement and value but, in the meantime, we had to keep flying those profiles and missions simulating the equipment so that the art was not lost till the equipment came. The meaning was clear including that while technology was essential, we had to think beyond mere technology and keep finding ways to employ it more effectively. That shut the argument right there and then. Groupie and the entire team also encouraged building of confidence in individuals without going overboard with over-confidence. I have already mentioned how quickly I was made a trainer captain on the Su-7 and asked to convert other seniors onto the aircraft including himself. As just another example, when night flying was planned in dark phase after I commenced flying in TACDE, I was programmed for a handling sortie on the Su-7 since I had not done any night flying on type and had come with just Day Ops status. Just before we were about to proceed to our aircraft, Groupie came by for his own authorisation, saw the programme and scratched out handling and put low-level navigation in its place after telling me that I was wasting flying effort. Because of such trust placed in us, all of us made extra efforts to make sure we didn’t let the unit and Groupie down by doing something silly. Quite obviously, I took about half an hour planning the route and checking all obstructions around and then flew the sortie, fortunately without any mishap, and really enjoyed the challenge and the thrill of flying my first low-level navigation sortie by night on any aircraft. Delegation was routine at all levels in the unit, following Groupie’s example, and I am glad to say that everyone took the responsibility seriously and performed par excellence. On another personal note about Groupie handling his staff, soon after I arrived, there were some holidays for Dusserha/Diwali in October or November that year. I had applied for a couple of days casual leave and combined it with a long weekend so that I could go across and visit my youngest brother, Mahesh, for a few days in Ahmedabad. Those days, Groupie and Mrs Keelor used to pick Malini and me up for the Sunday morning English movie in town. Groupie normally used to drive the car himself with Malini and me in the back. That Sunday, while driving to town, Groupie, in his usual brusque manner, asked me where I intended to go in this period knowing fully well that I had given an Ahmedabad address on the leave application. He then asked who I had in Ahmedabad. When I told him about my brother, he suddenly said, “Okay, we will also come with you.” My immediate thoughts went to the small bachelor’s tenement that my brother was staying in and how we had planned to spend the nights sleeping on the floor together. On top of that, as a Flight Lieutenant, I was wondering how we would manage with a Group Captain and Commandant of the unit. Due to all these thoughts running through my mind, there was a pause before I could respond. Immediately, Groupie said, “You don’t want us to come”. I naturally muttered a reply that it was nothing like that and that I was just trying to figure out the logistics and accommodation due to my brother’s student status and bare accommodation. Groupie then said, “Don’t worry about accommodation, we will stay in the MES Bungalow. The only requirement for Marie is that she likes to take a nap in the afternoons”. I then told him that if we were going together and would move around together, it would be cumbersome if we were far apart in different accommodation. As it is, Malini also liked her afternoon snooze and we hadn’t planned on running around Ahmedabad from morning to night without a break. Groupie had obviously already booked two rooms in the MES Bungalow because he immediately responded that then we would all stay in the MES Bungalow. Groupie then asked me how we were planning to go. I told him we had planned to drive down in our good old Ambassador. He retorted by saying that we would take his service car. I firmly refused explaining that I didn’t want to hear later that we were involved in any misuse of the service car. Groupie then said, “Okay, we will go in your car but I will keep the accounts and we would split the expenses”. I couldn’t argue with that logic. So, it came to be that the four of us drove to Ahmedabad together with me driving. All my initial reservations disappeared in the first few miles because Groupie and Mrs Keelor behaved like young people on a vacation, doing all the crazy things that youngsters do on the road like stopping at Dhabas for snacks and tea, finding bushes and culverts to relieve ourselves since those days there were few decent toilets for public use on the way. Throughout the trip, they never behaved like a senior officer and wife or the Commandant and we went to all kinds of places including fashion shows, discos and different restaurants for meals. Even Mahesh, whenever he joined us from his college commitments, was amazed at how the Keelors were so much at ease the whole time. Next time, Mahesh came to Jamnagar, he was specially invited by the Keelors and even cooked some dishes for them since he was a great cook and a master chef in his own rights without a formal ‘Cordon Bleu’.
We also caught Groupie in some funny situations in this trip and took pictures and he always said in his peculiar funny way, “I am the Commandant, don’t make fun of me” which only got Mrs Keelor and Malini more into splits. He would also regularly ‘order’ Malini to behave like a good Hindu wife as per ‘parampara’. His Hindi got us into splits even more. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of those photographs to white ants while our stuff was packed and we were on different assignments for many long years. All in all, we had a wonderful time and I learned a lot from the Keelors on how to be at ease with younger folks and subordinates and to put them at ease while evoking their loyalty to do everything in the best possible manner. Everyone in TACDE, in the AF Station and even those who came in contact with him from the Army/Navy units around simply worshipped Groupie. The airmen just adored him because of the humane way he treated everyone. While I can continue in this vein about almost everyone, this loyalty and commitment came to fore when three of us, Teju, Melly Grewal and self were soon selected to go on deputation to Iraq. The signal came on 23 April 1979, I remember the date clearly because it was my birthday, with a scheduled departure from Delhi in early-July. Groupie advised all of us, perhaps to test us, to take our annual leave, visit our parents/families and stop flying just in case there was even a minor incident and the resultant inquiry stopped us from going. All of us refused to do so since the FCL course was mid-way and the extra load would have come on the remaining staff including Groupie himself. Our reply was similar in that if we had to have an accident/incident or worried about such things, we would have stopped flying a long time ago. We flew with the course till its end reporting to Air HQ almost on the last possible day for briefings, clearances and departure. I don’t think any of us went home to see our parents or anything like that; such was the loyalty and dedication to the unit run by an extremely able commander and manned by a great team. My only regret was that I got to spend so little time in TACDE in which we learned as much as the student pilots perhaps did from us, apart from learning so much on human relations from Groupie. I had actually told Groupie that I did not want to go to Iraq at that time since I wanted to spend more time in the unit and was also preparing for staff college entrance examination. I leave it to your imagination how Groupie ‘eased’ me out of his office and told me to quietly go to Iraq.
Air Marshal (Retd) Denzil Keelor seen here in September 2015 (Photo: From the Vayu archives)
I next met ‘Groupie’ in 1984 when I was Flt Cdr 1 Sqn in Gorakhpur and he was the AOC Gwalior preparing the base to receive the new Mirages for the IAF. I was sent there in a Canberra in late April 1984 to assess whether we could operate from there for an Army Co-Op exercise since the runway shoulders and undershoots/overruns were dug up and a lot of work was going on all over. ‘Groupie” was on the tarmac to receive me when we switched off and motioned for me to get in to his Jeep. When I tried to put the sleeping bag, that I had carried for the return journey by train to Gorakhpur, he looked at it distastefully and just threw it on the tarmac with an expression indicating that I should’ve known better than to bring a sleeping bag to Gwalior. Sure enough, without a word being said on this issue, he put me in an AOP helicopter for the return journey to Gorakhpur the next day. In his office, he had called all three branch heads and told them to meet 1 Sqn’s requirements by hook or crook and told me to go with them to check out the facilities. I told him that that we would operate from Gwalior regardless since he was there but, for formality’s sake, I went and spent the next couple of hours with his staff. He then took me home in town for lunch. After lunch, he asked me to take a nap while he went back to the base to sort out a few things for the Mirages. I refused the offer of the afternoon nap and insisted I went back with him to learn how such inductions were organised. Groupie took me around the whole base that afternoon showing me all the works in progress and talking to the engineers/ labour/men at work while I soaked in the way he handled such varied people. Across the runway, Groupie also had a meeting with the villagers who had parted with their land to accommodate the Mirage requirements. The meeting was truly eye-opening for me. All he villagers addressed Groupie as ‘Raja Saheb” and obviously adored him. I later found out that he had not only got them good compensation for their land but also employed one member of each family somewhere on the Station. As we started back from this meeting, in one of the small nallahs, his Jeep had a flat. I offered to change the wheel for him but the Jeep neither had a spare wheel nor the tools. With no communication with anyone, we trudged back to his office, a distance of about 2-3 km in the Gwalior heat with the temperature close to 48 Celsius. What a sight Groupie made, receiving salutes from the DSC guards along the way closer to the runway in his dusty and sweaty overall and what a laugh we had once we made it to his air-conditioned office. During the subsequent detachment of about 10 days in May 1984, Groupie looked after us all so well that even the youngsters from the squadron started adoring him and Mrs Keelor. Fortunately also, we didn’t have a single incident of any kind to mar the detachment’s performance despite all the dug-up areas close to the operating surfaces. Groupie was ACAS (Ops) at Air HQ when I converted on to the MiG-29. I had the honour and pleasure of familiarising him the 29 in two trainer rides in June 1988. He also looked after us when we took the MiG- 29s for displays in Delhi. I recall how well he organised the events and the after-display parties in his house for all the participants. Once again, the care, warmth and hospitality of the Keelors’ stole everyone’s heart. I can go on and on about ‘Groupie’ in further senior ranks and his style of command and leadership that I learnt so much from. His reputation in Gwalior and, later, in DGCA and in special olympics, is talked of by the civil pilots that I know and is now being written about even by a senior bureaucrat who came across Denzil Keelor. While I tried to imbibe as much as I could, the fact remains that nobody can ever truly emulate or replace Denzil Keelor who always had a positive outlook on life and a smile. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with him and the last time was when I spent a lovely winter morning with him in Gurgaon in December 2021. That is one small way I try and pay the huge debt I owe them for all that the Keelors taught me.
The author of this piece and series, Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand, seen here at Aero India 2009, Yelahanka, Bangalore (left and centre) and (right) at the Vayu Aerospace Review office in September 2015. (Photos: From the Vayu archives)