The 12 aircraft from Mauripur destined for Sargodha, although ready and waiting to go since early morning, were not actually ordered to move till about 1250 hours that day and the first 8 were airborne at 1320.

With so much aircraft movement from Mauripur -which included moves of B-57s and T-33s as well-a certain degree of confusion prevailed which did not assist in getting the Sabres ready for the commitment. Moreover, Mauripur had been left with about a dozen Sabres, including those unserviceable, with which it had not only to maintain a round-the-clock air defence alert, but also keep 4 aircraft permanently earmarked for close support to the army. It was with these commitments in mind that theatre had ordered Mauripur a day or two earlier to remove all extra drop tanks, but without these, of course, Jamnagar could not be struck at low level!

It was not until about 1600 hours that the last Sabre landed back at Sargodha from the close support missions, and it became obvious that nowhere near the required number of aircraft would be ready in time. At about 1615 hours, the Sargodha station commander telephoned the C-i n-C at Theatre to inform him that only 4 F-86s were available for each of the three targets - Adampur, Halwara and Amritsar Radar and suggested that the whole airfield strikes operation be postponed by twenty four hours!

Adampur or Halwara? Whether or not Nur Khan entertained the idea of a postponement, the final decision to go was conveyed to Sargodha, where feverish activity was afoot to try and produce more aircraft. But when at only a few minutes before 1700 hours it was found that the maximum force the base could produce was just 8 F-86s, the station commander made a fervent appeal to the C-in-C at least to modify the task by sending these 8 to either Halwara or Adampur, whichever Theatre believed to be more important.

The Pathankot force was already on its way and would strike before the Sargodha aircraft, even took off. This would put the entire IAF force along the border on a 'Red' alert and the Sargodha force could certainly expect to be intercepted. In the station commander's view, if the 8 aircraft stayed as one formation they would at least constitute a viable force; split up into two fours, each in an environment infested with enemy interceptors, neither formation stood a reasonable chance of delivering a successful strike.