Sharing an evocative obituary of a distinguished Navy Veteran written by Commodore Srikant B Kesnur (with permission of the author)
AN ENGINEER PAR EXCELLENCE – REMEMBERING BENOY ROY CHOWDHURY
The nation lost an illustrious son
and the Indian Navy an eminent veteran with the passing away of retired Vice
Admiral Benoy Roy Chowdhury AVSM, VrC a few days ago, on 28 Feb 20, at the CMRI
Hospital Kolkata. He was 90. Affectionately called Bilu (the moniker I will be
using in this piece) or Biloo, the Flag Officer had a distinguished career in
the Navy and was a hero of the 1971 war.
The bare details of his CV are
impressive enough. Born on 22 Jul 1929, he was commissioned into the Indian
Navy on 01 Sep 51 in the Engineering branch. Bilu was an apprentice at Railway
Workshop at Jamalpur (Bihar) before he passed the Navy exam and subsequently
went to UK for dagger course. (Note. Those days Bengalis largely went to engineering from Shivpur,
Jadavpur etc. and normally landed up topping the engineering courses in UK.
Dagger engineers’ courses were only for Royal Navy. But when they found Indians
topping they reluctantly allowed Indians to join those courses too.)
He moved up the professional ladder
tenanting many appointments ending in the very senior rank of Vice Admiral. He
was a recipient of the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) for distinguished service
of exceptional order and the Vir Chakra (VrC) for gallantry in the 1971 war,
becoming the first Engineering Officer to be honoured with a VrC. He also,
subsequently, became the first engineer to attend the prestigious RCDS course
in UK and this when the Navy used to get a vacancy only every alternate year
for the said course. Remembered fondly as a ‘good person’, he was also an avid
Golfer and Captained Naval Team as well as that of RCGC Kolkata. He took early
retirement in mid 1980s and moved to ONGC as Member Technical.
His near contemporary (five years
junior to him) and another eminent Engineer Officer, Vice Adm IC Rao (Retd) recollects that ‘He was an outstanding Naval
Engineer who brought glory to the Indian Navy as Engineer Officer of INS Vikrant during the war for liberation of
Bangladesh. He was a wonderful person and a great personality. We will all miss
him in the Naval fraternity’.
It is, therefore, fitting that his
contribution as Cdr E of Vikrant is recounted, especially for many of my
younger friends in the Navy and for those outside the Navy who may not be aware
of it. But, before that, a small
incident to describe the kind of man he was. In end 1970, a Greek Merchant ship
‘Ampuria’ ran aground off Porbandar. Cdr Chowdhury with 8 sailors was directed
to board the ship to try and remove the oil (fuel) before the ship broke up in
high seas. Due to sea state and bad condition of the ship, Ampuria’s Captain gave
the order to ‘abandon ship’. Bilu told his men to leave if they wished but ‘he
was staying behind’ to finish the task. Needless to say, his eight men stayed
with him till they could do the needful. This was leadership and courage of
high order. Bilu saved the country
several crores of rupees and prevented oil pollution of thousands of tons by
his derring-do in the salvage of the ship.
In 1971, in the months prior to the
war, the Naval headquarters had decide to deploy the aircraft carrier Vikrant,
in the Bay of Bengal, correctly estimating that the East would be the decisive
theatre of war. As war clouds loomed, some worries enveloped the Naval
planners. One of the boilers of Vikrant had become inoperative and the other three
boilers were playing truant. Being of British make, normal repairs would have
entailed getting expertise and replacements from Britain and elaborate time in
harbour, a luxury the planners did not have. The ideal solution was new water
drums for the boilers, something beyond indigenous capability at that time.
While the elaborate details of how
this was addressed is contained in the Navy’s official history for the period
1965 to 1975, titled ‘Transition to Triumph’ authored by the late VAdm GM
Hirananadani (incidentally Fleet Operations Officer, Western Fleet during the
war) and some other books of that period, suffice it to say that Bilu and his
team with some innovations ensured that other three boilers were restored to
near maximum efficiency. But with the A 1 boiler still down, the speed of
Vikrant was limited to only 14 knots. At this speed she would not only not be
able to operate her aircraft but also be very vulnerable to submarine attack.
(Note. For the completely uninitiated launching and
recovery of aircraft on the Carrier requires certain amount of wind on deck –
relative wind – which is a function of the true wind conditions and the ship’s
speed. Axiomatically, therefore, a ship needs to steam at higher speeds,
usually more than 20 knots, to generate the winds that enable flying in all
conditions.)
Also, with only three boilers there would have been no supply
of steam to the catapult which enabled flying operations.
This speed restriction naturally
worried everyone from the Navy Chief, Admiral SM (Charles) Nanda, to the FOCinC
Eastern Command VAdm N Krishnan, the ship’s Captain Capt Swaraj Parkash and the
Squadron Commanders of the Carrier borne aircraft Lt Cdr Gigi Gupta (Sea Hawk
Squadron, also called the White Tigers) and Lt Cdr Ravi Dhir (Alize squadron,
also called the Cobras). That’s when Bilu and his men showed their mettle. With
some backing from the CNS, CinC and the Captain, they decided to make the
boiler operational notwithstanding some risks associated with it. Cracks on the
surface of the water drum of the boiler was one of their big worries – if they
had burst, superheated steam would have engulfed the boiler room and other
machinery spaces resulting in catastrophic consequences.
To digress a little here, having
commanded two ships with steam turbine propulsion or steam ships as they are
called in the Navy, I can confidently state, without disrespect to other
branches, that the Engineering sailors who serve on them are a class apart. The engineering spaces on these ships offer
just about the toughest working conditions and yet the spirit, camaraderie and
the josh that these guys bring to the table is unbelievable. I remember an
incident where a Brigadier fresh from Siachen, undergoing NDC, had embarked INS
Vindhyagiri, the ship I commanded for a sea sortie. After a walk around of the
Engine and Boiler rooms he declared “I will any day prefer to be in Siachen
then here… hats off to your guys”. Indeed, Stokers (navy phrase for these
blokes) are a class apart and can be said to be in frontlines of combat every
day at work.
Thus, Bilu and his Engineering team
(ably led by his Senior Engineer, Lt Cdr B Bhushan, who also rose to be VAdm
later) carried out several innovations and repairs at sea and away from base
port without falling back to the original manufacturers – the Brits, to keep
the other boilers going at full load (which would have enabled aircraft
operations under marginal conditions) and to repair the A1 boiler. This
included putting a steel strops (bands) around the boiler, adjusting the safety
valves to accept greater risk, leaving the boiler room unmanned (or sparsely
manned) but monitored at all times, adjusting the oil flow to the boilers from a
control valve near upper deck and
numerous other technical measures. These not only required supreme technical
skill and competence, but also leadership, ability to convince your men and in
turn faith in their ability to do the job without flinching and the gumption to
take calculated risks anchored in self-belief.
Bilu was the perfect man for the job.
He had immense experience having done two stints earlier on Vikrant - as the
Senior Engineer and the Flight Deck Engineer Officer - and knew exactly what
was entailed As Swaraj Parkash, his
Captain, recollected later “With his past experience and professional
competence, Bilu’s contribution to decision-making at this crucial juncture was
important”. Vice Adm Krishnan, put it succinctly, when he remarked “My worry
about the condition of machinery was mitigated by the fact that the Engineer
Officer of the ship was Bilu Chowdhury.….I had seen him close at work…. and was
aware of his professional competence….whereas
so many technical officers were against, it Bilu exuded confidence and never
baulked at the idea of steaming Vikrant’. In the words of the Naval Chief
Nanda, ‘Bilu went about his job in his customary, professional, enthusiastic
and thorough manner’. In fact, it is
Charles Nanda’s description of Bilu as ‘an Engineer par excellence’ that
provides the title for this obit.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The Seahawks and Alizes embarked in August ‘71 and from then on carried out
extensive work up. All the boilers were flashed up and Vikrant was able to
steam at more than 20 knots. They were kept under the eagle’s eye of the
Engineering department and issues and situations attended to promptly. Vikrant
turned out to the decisive factor in the war and the lynchpin of the maritime
operations of the Eastern Front which resulted, through Air Strikes, in heavy bombardment of east Pakistan cities
and ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar, Khulna, Chalna, Mongla, destruction of
their airfields, power house, wireless stations, fuel tanks, port and other
infrastructure, interdiction of their Navy and merchant marine ships including
smaller gun boats and tugs, control of contraband and virtual throttling of the
then East Pakistan from sea. This, in
turn, led to the eventual dénouement of surrender and more than 90000 prisoners
of war as there was no escape from the sea for them. As Hiranandani states
‘In retrospect Vikrant's contribution to naval operations were beyond anyone's
expectations. Vikrant stretched
everything and everybody to the limit to launch and recover aircraft In
addition to the achievements of the air strikes, Vikrant's assistance in
contraband control was invaluable. Without Vikrant, the limited number of ships
that constituted the Eastern Fleet could not have coped with the task.”
In fact,
even as the war raged and the Vikrant was leading the assault, Bilu was
handling machinery problems such as what frequently obtain on board ships. One
of the more prominent ones which again caused some worry was the flooding of the
forward machinery space which occurred when one of the condensers of the turbo
generator needed repairs. In peacetime, this would only have been attempted in
harbour after shutting down machinery. This repair was attempted at sea despite
the inlet and outlet valves being 20 feet below the waterline and operated by
rod gearing. The danger of water gushing past the loosened plate of the turbo
generator suction filter was real if some of the valves malfunctioned and this
is what happened. Again, the situation was resolved by some deft leadership
allied with excellent technical skills and smart use of 1000 ton pump in the
machinery space to pump out water and carry out repairs.
Vikrant's Air Operations would not
happened but for Bilu and his brave men. Often, in
the heat of war and the dust of the aftermath we forget the contribution of the
silent many – the ones who operate behind the scenes. In the Navy, the nature
of our job is such that we all fight together from the ship; hence the saying
that we swim or sink together. Bilu illustrated this wonderfully well and the
Vir Chakra that he was awarded and the encomiums showered on him was richly
deserved.
VAdm Benoy Roy Chowdhury is survived
by his wife Mrs Mina Chowdhury and nephew Mr Pradipta Bose. In fact Meena and
Bilu eloped to get married. His mortal remains were consigned to the flames on
29 Feb 20. However, the memory of his heroic exploits will remain forever. His spirit will hover as a guardian angel
at Kochi where the new Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC 1) to be called Vikrant
is slowly taking shape. Unlike the earlier incarnation, this Vikrant will be a
proud “Made in India’ product showcasing our indigenous prowess and our mettle
in shipbuilding, assiduously built over the years. However, the traditions that
this ship will imbibe will be from its predecessor and her gallant crew – people
like Swaraj Parkash, Gigi Gupta (both MVC) and Ravi Dhir and Bilu Chowdhury
(both VrC) and several other magnificent men who flew from its deck or toiled
below decks to show the world and our countrymen the difference that the
Aircraft Carrier makes to the outcome of war.
RIP Bilu Sir. And Salute.
15 Mar 20. Some Photographs below
PS. The
author wishes to acknowledge some inputs and information given by Navy Foundation
Mumbai Chapter (NFMC) and, more importantly, Shri Probir Roy who has an
encyclopaedic knowledge of matters Navy. In fact, the book written by his
father and another illustrious Navy officer late Vice Admiral MK Roy “War in
the Indian Ocean’ brings out that Bilu Chowdhury while being in the senior
echelons of Marine Engineering at Naval Headquarters in the early eighties had
accompanied Dr Raja Ramanna and VAdm Roy to the erstwhile Soviet Union twice
for discussions on leasing nuclear submarine from that nation. That possibly is
the subject for some more research.
PS 2. All quotations and much information has been taken from the
official History book of the Navy referred in the article as well as the
autobiographies of Adm SM Nanda and Vice Adm N Krishnan.
(Author : Commodore Srikant B Kesnur)
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