Mystery of sunken Pak submarine

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, Jan 20, 2014: The mysterious sinking of the Pakistani submarine Ghazi during the 1971 war in the approach channel at Vizag harbour continous to pose many questions. While the Indian Navy claims to have intercepted it before it neared the harbour approach channel and exploded it using depth charges released by INS Rajput, the other version is that that the presence of the submarine under the sea was known only after an accidental explosion aboard the submarine while the Pak crew was laying mines to hit the Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and other key installations in Vizag.

According to a veteran eye witness, captain Lawrence Nathanieal, founder president of War Veteran’s Party (WVP),  who was working on a Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) crane MV Hanuman at the harbour channel at the time said that it was the local fishermen who had located the submarine as the navy personnel were not sure about its whereabouts.

“ The then Eastern Naval Command (ENC), chief, vice admiral Krishnan announced sops to the fishermen and also felicitated them at Jagadamba junction on a grand note for identifying the sunk submarine,” captain Lawrence told this correspondent. He worked on INS Vikrant as a sailor from 1962-64 and later joined merchant navy and started working as master mariner.

Explaining the incident, the captain said that at around midnight on Dec 3, 1971, people from night show cinema were returning home, when an earthquake like situation occurred. The window panes of the guest house they were residing opposite King George Hospital broke. “We all came running from first floor to ground floor and lots of people gathered at the junction, started talking about earth quake,” he said.

Captain Lawrence had to report Vizag Port Control (VPC) next day morning to collect shipping movements’ timings. “To my surprise VPC was fully taken over by Navy. Through reliable sources I came to know that there was an explosion out at sea and the Indian Navy was groping in dark. Vice admiral Krishnan alerted fishermen with good incentives to those who locate any suspicious object floating. Three lucky fishermen found the sunken submarine Gazi which was under buoyancy floating below water level in a submerged condition at a depth of around 30 meters. The admiral kept his promise and there was a function at Jagadamba theatre later to felicitate the fishermen,” he said.

PNS Ghazi (SS 479) was a United States-built submarine that was leased by Pakistan in 1963. It operated in the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan and was Pakistan's first submarine and remained the flagship submarine for Pakistan Navy until it sank in 1971.

The Pak submarine was capable of laying mines. The debris of the submarine is still lying at the sea bed close to harbour channel and shown on navigational maps to avoid that route while entering port.

Gazi sailed almost 1800kms from west coast to east coast of India via Colombo to sink Vikrant.

Retired Lt General JFR Jacob, who was considered as hero of the 1971 India Pakistan war, also in an earlier occasion said that in December first week he received a call from Vice Admiral Krishnan, who said that fishermen had found some floating wreckage, and that he had gone to the site where the wreckage was found. Krishnan said he had no doubt that the wreckage was that of the Ghazi and that the sinking of the submarine i was an act of god. He stated that the Navy was unaware that the Ghazi had sunk. He had rewarded the fishermen who had found the wreckage.