According to a handout accompanying an excellent stamp taken out by the Pakistan Post Office (PPO) commemorating the re-naming of PAF Base Mianwali, MM Alam was “Top Gun of his own class, war hero, a committed professional, scholar par excellence, a patriotic Pakistani, an icon and a role model not only for the PAF airmen but for aviators across the globe.” Born on July 6, 1935 in a well-educated family of Calcutta, his father was a senior civil servant posted in Bihar. The family migrated to Dhaka, East Pakistan after 1947.
During his schooling in Dhaka, MM Alam joined “Shaheen Air Scouts” soon after it was established. Joining the Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF) in 1952, he got his commission on Oct 2, 1953, being initially posted to 9 Squadron in 1954 and later to 14 Squadron. Having served as Air Gunnery & Tactical Instructor at Fighter Leader School in 1963, MM Alam has commanded 11, 5 and 26 Squadrons of the PAF.
Most fighter pilots tend to be dedicated to talking, thinking, living and dreaming of aerial combat, MM Alam stood out as the perfect symbol of a band of the most gallant combat pilots ever in the world. This PAF pilot had psyched himself so much into aerial combat that while commanding 11 Squadron in Sargodha when the actual day of reckoning came on Sep 7, 1965 (he had already shot down one enemy aircraft a day earlier on Sep 6), MM Alam was a honed fighting machine that functioned like clockwork, bringing down several enemy aircraft in one adrenaline-pumping sortie that is now a part of not only PAF folklore but of the history of aerial warfare. To quote MM Alam,“We were fighting with a passion founded on faith……. (Battle for Pakistan by John Fricker). For his exceptional flying skills and valour, he was awarded Sitara-i-Jurat (SJ) and Bar. One word of caution of the PAF, MM Alam is a legend, do not turn him into a myth by “overkill”, pun deliberately intended (read “Alam’s Speed-shooting Classic” by Air Commodore (Retd) Kaiser Tufail, Defence Journal Sep 2001).
While his fighting abilities created an unbeatable world record, it was an infliching belief in his ideals that made him a giant among men. When decorating the “Little Dragon” personally in Sargodha after the 1965 war, FM Ayub Khan physically towered over him, but the diminutive personality of MM Alam clearly showed him to be the bigger man.
In 1982 “the man who married the sky” retired from the PAF as an Air Commodore (commanding Masroor PAF Air Base, Karachi), and then led a simple life in Karachi surrounded by books stacked around him for the last 32 years. Give credit to the PAF that after the retirement of Anwar Shamim, successive PAF Chiefs arranged for MM Alam to stay in PAF officers messes till the day he died. Alam gave all his savings in the cause of Jihad for the Afghan Mujahideen. Dedicating his life to the PAF heart and soul, he refused to take a pension considering himself to be as still serving. Air Marshal (Retd) Masood Akhtar, another great PAF officer and a superb intellectual par excellence in his own right, recounts how when he was Commandant PAF Air War College, MM Alam, then well into his retirement, would tell him he was looking forward to one final round with India.
I am grateful to the PAF for inviting me to Mianwali on the historic occasion, the ceremony itself was effective because it was deliberately kept short. The PAF maintained its pristine standards of hospitality and event management like clockwork, at least till the VIP left. It was disappointing to see all the organisation than disintegrate into organized chaos but that is common in Pakistan. This is the first time I have ever seen this in the Armed Forces.
Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail, one of the finest chroniclers of aerial combat in the world (Great Air Battles of the PAF) and formerly Commandant PAF Air War College, has compiled over 32 positives about MM Alam from his Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs), to recount some in bullet points, (1) Possesses determination (2) Spirited and Above average flier (3) Exceptionally gifted officer (4) Proud of his uniform (5) High level of intellectual ability (6) Mad keen about flying and dashing fighter pilot (7) Very aggressive in air and on ground (8) Above average expression (9) Has independent views and can deliver an argument with assertion and conviction, and last but not the least (10) devout muslim.
In Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail’s words, “MM Alam was an enigmatic personality, dedicated to his profession and extremely inspiring to his subordinates. An honest man given to speaking the blunt truth, he was a simple soul and not given to any airs or protocol. Careerism did not exist for him, only flying did. He was professional to the core, his total existence was the PAF.”
MM Alam was a genuine hero in all senses of the word. The PAF has tremendous pilots, for MM Alam to stand out among this magnificent lot amounts to something.
Courtesy: The News
