India Special

The granting of independence to India by Great Britian, and the creation of Pakistan resulted in large number of people caught on what was now the wrong side of the border.

To assist in transporing these people between India and Pakistan, a number of (mainly) DC-3 transprts that were flown from the UK to India, using India Special as the callsign, or flight number.

The Shuttle begins

Date 30/8 Telegram, H.M. Ambassador Cairo No. 1635, H.M. Bagdad No. 728.

About ten Dakota aircraft belonging to different British charter companies will arrive Cairo during next few days in Bagdad transit for Delhi. These are special flights organised by B.O.A.C., for the Ministry of Civil Aviation for urgent use in India. Some of the aircraft and crews may be sufficiently documented owing to short notice and you should therefore be prepared to request local authorities to facilitate immediate onward journey.

2. First charter aircraft leaving London for Cairo 0100 hours GMT August 30th.

The following report had appeared in The Examiner newspaper dated 01.09.47.

The Pakistan Government is marshalling aircraft to carry 7000 officials and their families from New Delhi to Karachi to enable Government work to get under way.

Two British companies, Scottish, Airlines and B.O.A.C., were engaged on Friday. Eleven B.O.A.C. planes left for Karachi on Saturday, but the charter was cancelled, and the planes were radioed to return. This cancellation may have been prompted by the action of the R.A.F. at New Delhi in placing two squadrons at the disposal of each of the Indian and Pakistan Governments for evacuation work.

The "Daily Mail" says five Dakotas of the Scottish Airlines would participate in the evacuation. With aircraft would go spare crews, maintenance men, and operations personnel to enable a shuttle service between New Delhi and Karachi to begin immediately.

It was estimated that the evacuation would take about a fortnight.

A British enthusiast sent me the following information.

These were basically to transport those caught on the wrong side of the new border. From my Blackbushe point of view Westminster Airway Dakota G-AJAY departed for the Indo-Pakistan refugee airlift on 2 September 1947. This was via Malta-Cairo-Sharjah-Karachi-Delhi. It then flew flights Karachi-Delhi and was joined by G-AJAZ by 08.09.47. G-AJAY departed on 19.09.47 for home Karachi-Bahrain-Cairo-Malta-Croydon. The Dakotas were allowed to carry 52 people and 117 by Bristol 170s, but a Westminster Dak carried 89 on one trip after the crowd rushed on board.

Malta Connection

The aircraft known to have passed through Malta are being listed below, both in chronological order, and in alphabetical order by registration.

Where multiple aircraft arrived on the same day, these have been listed in order of landing time.

Some aircraft spent an additional 24-hours, i.e. spending two full nights at Luqa, irrespective of whether they were travelling to, or returning from, India. The reason, or causes, for these delays is unknown, but likely to have been of a technical nature or weather related.

Although commonly referred to as DC-3s (or Dakotas by the British), many of the aircraft were in fact the military version of the civilian DC-3. The actual military designations have been used.

This page created on 07.02.23.