Allegiance Pakistan Service/branch Pakistan Air Force | Rank Unknown Unit No. 7 Squadron | |
 | ||
Battles/wars Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 Battles and wars Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 | ||
8-Pass Charlie was the codename of an unknown Pakistan Air Force B-57 bomber pilot who raided the Adampur airbase of the Indian Air Force in Indian Punjab a number of times during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 notably starting the series of raids on the base by a solo raid.
Contents
He was named "8-Pass Charlie" by his impressed Indian adversaries at the Adampur base as he used to make eight passes, one for each bomb, on selected targets with improving efficiency instead of safely dropping all his bomb load and exiting. He is also known to have expertise in disguising his attack run by confusing anti-aircraft gunners by cutting throttles before entering a dive.
B-57 raids
During the war, the bomber wing of the PAF was attacking the concentration of airfields in north India. In order to avoid enemy fighter-bombers, the B-57s operated from several different airbases, taking off and returning to different bases to hop and avoid being attacked. The B-57 bombers would arrive over their targets in a stream at intervals of about 15 minutes, which led to achieving a major disruption of the overall IAF effort.
Named by adversaries
The name was assigned to this unknown pilot by his impressed Indian adversaries at the Adampur base, and appears to be derived from his daring routine of making eight passes in bombing runs during every air raid over the alerted airbase to bomb selected targets with each 500 lb bomb in the moonlight, "and tried to carry out an effective attack each time", instead of dropping his entire bomb-load of 4,000 lbs during the first pass which would have allowed a safer exit for the aggressor aircraft over initial defences.
Kills
One of 8-Pass Charlie's confirmed kills is an Indian Air Force MiG 21s on Operational Readiness Platform (ORP) which were about to take off when he executed the first raid on the Adampur base at 2200 hours with his lone B-57 on 6 September, 1965.
Technique
In addition to his routine of making eight passes over Adampur, the unknown pilot also seemed to have had a second routine of conducting his raids thirty minutes after moonrise.
Paddy Earle, an IAF fighter pilot, paid tribute to the unknown ace by saying: