The "1965 War Hero" Muhammad Mahmood Alam, popularly known as MM Alam, is being remembered today on his seventh death anniversary.
Alam was the eldest son of 11 siblings who was born in Calcutta on July 6 1935. He was brought up in Bengal, India but after Indo-Pak separation in 1947 his family migrated to the then called East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Alam was granted commission in PAF (then RPAF) on October 2 1953.
Alam is considered a national hero for Pakistan, most significantly, for his remarkable show of brilliance in the 1965 Pak-India war when he was posted at Sargodha. During this war, he was involved in various dogfights while flying his F-86 Sabre fighter. He downed as many as nine Indian aircraft including six Hawker Hunters in the aerial fighting, and damaged two others.
In one mission on 7 September 1965, Alam downed five Indian aircraft in less than a minute, the last four within 30 seconds, establishing a world record, with total of nine aircraft downed in the war.
In 1982, Alam retired from PAF as an Air commodore and took up residence in Karachi. Muhammad Mahmood Alam died in Karachi on March 18, 2013 at age 77.
