After an aeon, shortly after dawn on December 4th 1971, Maruts, the spirits of tempest and thunder in Indian mythology, struck again but their weapons comprised contemporary 30 m.m. cannon, 68 m.m. rockets and 1000 lb. bombs. These Maruts were no figments of folk-lore but progeny of the Bangalore assembly line of HAL: India’s first indigenous combat aircraft being blooded in action and forming an integral part of the Indian Air Force’s strike force of the seventies.
