RAJ KAREGA RAJPUT

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With an eagle sweep and a tiger's spring

Here was a palace of dwelling king

Now to its turrets creeping plants clinge

The INS Rajput R-class was commissioned in 1949 and was the first destroyer class of the Indian Naval Forces transferred from the Royal Navy after WW2 in 1948.

The 3 old British R-class destroyers HMIS Rajput(ex HMS Rotherham), Rana (ex Redoubt) & Ranjit (ex Raider) were bought in 1948 and commissioned in 1949 as the 11 Destroyer Sqn. Their acquisition, refits/upgrades cost the Royal Indian Navy some £1.045mil .

INS Rajput (D209), WW2 era R-class escort destroyer during fleet exercises

It is also First Indian Naval Ship to be affiliated with Indian Army regiment the Rajput Regiment. INS Rajput is credited with sinking Pakistani submarine Ghazi during the 1971 war. He is the one spooked PNS Ghazi while she laying her mines..

PNS Ghazi, the best submarine enemy had at that time tried to destroy Indian Navy Aircraft Carrier INS Vikrant, but instead Indian Navy Destroyer INS Rajput dispatched the sub to hell.

"With the motto 'Raj Karega Rajput' firmly etched in their minds and indomitable spirit, the gallant crew of INS Rajput have remained ever vigilant and always 'on call' to protect the maritime interest and sovereignty of the nation,"

(The starboard propeller of the PNS Ghazi.)

Afaik, in post WW II, Indian Navy became the first Navy in the world to kill a sub successfully.

 In the finale, PNS Ghazi keeps hunting for Indian Navy Aircraft Carrier INS Vikrant, from Karachi to Chennai and now Vishakhpatnam. Pns Ghazi was already resupplied and refuelled, moved out of Trincomalee harbour on the evening of 23 November 1971. She was off Chennai from 25-27 November and then headed for Vishakhpatnam. She approached Vishakhpatnam harbour at 2200 hours on the night of 29 November and entered the navigation channel at 2345 hours on the night of 1 December. But the option for the Ghazi to enter a Vishakhpatnam harbour, and to target and destroy the Vikrant with her torpedoes at the outset of the war. This appeared to be the best option. The only problem was how long could the Ghazi remain undiscovered in a harbour where a lot of activity took place every day. Also, the depth of the navigational channel did not allow her to go closer than 2.1 nautical miles from the south breakwater of the harbour. She could not go further into the harbour because the minimum submergible depth for a submarine was 15 metres and the margin was too small for a big submarine like the Ghazi.

Indian Navy Aircraft Carrier Ins Vikrant.

So its Commander decided to let the Ghazi stay where she was and to destroy the Vikrant from her present position. The timing of the attack, the method to be used and the location from where she would destroy the Vikrant were finalised in their wardroom. The radar officer confirmed that the large blip on the radar was the Vikrant; the torpedo and gunnery officer confirmed that all drills had been rehearsed. But the medical officer declared that obnoxious fumes had polluted the air in the submarine to dangerous levels, posing a threat not only to the health if the crew but also to the submarine. The hydrogen content was far above accepted levels due to the batteries being old and decrepit. He recommended that the Ghazi should be surfaced to take in fresh air. his Commander knew the importance of surfacing and how much it was necessary to avoid the imminent danger of the Ghazi self-destructing. On 3 December, the advisories to mercantile shipping and civil sir traffic, issued two days earlier had made it clear that Pakistan was on the verge of going to war and that evening, at 5:45 p.m., the Pakistan Air Force would attack Indian Airfields. The earliest that the Ghazi could surface was after dark, when hopefully there would be no fishermen around. He decided to wait until dark. But at around 1700 hours, he was informed by the executive and medical officer that the air within the submarine in the engine room had got really bad and had crossed danger level, and that one if its sailors had been knocked unconscious. 

In fading light there would be fewer chances of the Ghazi being spotted. In the meanwhile, tensions within the crew of the Ghazi were on the rise. The air was getting fetid. Many were coughing, and their eyes were getting affected. At around 1800 hours, Captain gave orders for the Ghazi to surface to periscope level and decided to survey the area around before contemplating any further action. The Ghazi was brought up from the deep to 27 feet below the surface of the sea for an assessment of the scene. Zafar had planned to charge the batteries and bring in fresh air 9 meters below the surface, with a snorkel pipe raised to suck in air to run the diesel engines, charge the batteries and rejuvenate the air inside the boat. Orders were given by the Officer of the Watch for water to be pumped out of the ballast tanks. As the water got pumped out, the board would become lighter and would gradually make its way to the surface. The tanks on both sides of the Ghazi-  port and starboard had to empty simultaneously so that the Ghazi could surface on an even keel. The Ghazi was 15 fathoms beneath the Sea, and the Officer of the Watch was giving the countdown as the Ghazi gradually moved to the surface. But Officer of the Watch stopped when the periscope broke through the surface of the sea 9 meters below the surface, at 1.5 fathoms. It's Captain was looking through the eyepiece of the periscope- he noticed a large Indian naval patrol vessel heading in their direction.

He immediately gave orders for the Ghazi to dive. She managed to get below just in the nick of time, so close that the patrol vessel passed over the Ghazi. They had no other option than wait. The medical officer, came once again to say that the situation was very bad and that it was imperative that the boat surface as early as possible but caprain informed him of the danger of being discovered and destroyed, and said that the earliest it would be safe to surface would be around midnight and so it was decided that the Ghazi would surface around the midnight of 3- 4 December 1971, charge the batteries, have the air pumped out of the submarine and fresh air inducted, and having carried out its maintenance task, go down once again at 0400 hours on 4 December to position itself to destroy the Vikrant.

Unbeknown to gahzi Captain, at 1745 hours on 3 December 1971, the Pakistan Air Force attacked Indian airfields in Ambala, Uttarlai, Jodhpur, Pathankot, Srinagar and Avantipur and so India and Pakistan were already at war! Ghazi was already late. Vice Admiral Muzzaffar Hassan, the Pakistani Naval Chief, was pacing up and down in his office in Karachi, waiting for news from Ghazi that he had destroyed the Vikrant, but there was no communication from the Ghazi. The moment for the Ghazi had arrived and there was no news from the Ghazi. 

Shortly before midnight, there was a tremendous explosion in the waters of Vishakhpatnam harbour. The explosion shattered the windowpanes of the houses that faced the harbour. However, it was not the Vikrant that had been blown up. Something else had happened. On the afternoon of 4 December, some fishermen brought objects from the sea that happened to be the debris of the Ghazi, which had surfaced from the bottom of the sea. Putting two and two together, the Commander of the naval station of Vishakhpatnam came to the conclusion that the Ghazi had come into the harbour of Vishakhpatnam and had self-destructed and the biggest twist in the story is that the Vikrant was never in Vishakhpatnam. She was in fact somewhere else. 

INS Rajput, an obsolete destroyer about to be decommissioned, was performing the role of a decoy ship, simulating signal traffic for rations, fuel for the aircraft aboard the Vikrant and fuel for the Vikrant itself, conveying to ‘all who were listening’ that the Vikrant was in Vishakhpatnam harbour, whereas she was in a secure harbour in the Andaman and Nicobar islands! These messages were in low-grade cipher, allowing the Pakistanis to break the code and be deceived as to the actual situation.

The engineers on the Vikrant, meanwhile, managed to do a great job in getting the recalcitrant boiler into reasonable shape, allowing the Vikrant to work up a reasonable speed that allowed its aircraft yo take off from its deck to support operations against the ports of Khulna and Chittagong and so, the Vikrant redeemed itself in carrying out its legitimate role in giving air cover for naval and ground operations in the eastern theatre.

Today, the Ghazi lies at 17 degrees, 41 minutes, 05.7 seconds north; and 83 degrees, 21 minutes, 04.7 seconds east; and is 2.1 nautical miles from the South Breakwater at a depth of 20.4 metres. Indian naval divers, who went down to the wreck that day after the sinking confirmed that it was in fact the Ghazi that lay at the bottom of the sea. They reported that the submarine had been ripped apart from the conning tower to the snub, indicating that she had self-destructed due to an internal explosion. The cause was not known, but indications were that this had happened due primarily to the detonation of combustible gas, as there had been similar instances with submarines of other navies worldwide around that time. If, as it had been reported, the Ghazi had been blown up on its own mines that it was laying, then the bottom of the submarine would have been ripped apart, which, according to the divers, was not the case. With hindsight, it can be presumed that at around the midnight of 3 December, as the Ghazi attempted to surface, a spark from one of the batteries ignited the volatile gas within the submarine, and the Ghazi blew up in an explosion the plan of the Commander-in-Chief, Pakistan Navy, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Muzzaffar Hassan, had backfired.

The bridge windshield of PNS Ghazi recovered by the Indian Navy after she went down along with her complement of officers and men.

The Americans offered to recover the Ghazi on grounds that it was an American submarine given to Pakistan on lease and that they therefore had the right to recover it. India refused permission stating that the Ghazi had entered the Indian territorial waters illegally and was destroyed after Pakistan had attacked India.

Admiral N Krishnan showing a clock recovered from PNS Ghazi to Hon President of India Shri VV Giri.

The Ghazi’s presence during the war in Vishakhapatnam harbour, India said, was an act of war, which made her a ‘war trophy’ and therefore the property of the Indian Government. So, the permission to recover her could not be given. The Pakistan Navy offered to recover the Ghazi on the basis that it was her vessel. This request was turned down for the same reasons that were given to the Americans.

Nation is Proud of the INS RAJPUT and the affiliated regiment to which it belong....he may become old and outdated yet can't be ignored as the punch remains as powerful as it was....Never mind the age....Shall continue to serve the motherland as hithertofore....