Muhammad Mahmood Alam (6 July 1935 — 18 March 2013) best known as M. M. Alam and affectionately nicknamed Little Dragon and Peanut Alam, was a Pakistani flying ace, war hero, and a former one-star rank officer in the Pakistan Air Force.
Born in Calcutta, Alam became interested in aviation after witnessing RAF pilots defend his hometown during World War II. During the 1946 Bihar riots, he killed someone in act of self defence at the age of 11. He supported the Pakistan Movement and moved to East Bengal after the Partition in 1947. He joined the RPAF College in 1952 and was commissioned into the Air Force in 1953. Thereafter, he was attached to its first jet unit, the No. 11 Sqn, where he eventually became the top-scorer of the Air Force in air-to-air gunnery competitions.
Patrolling over Sargodha during the Indo-Pakistani air war of 1965 on 7 September, Squadron Leader Alam set a world combat record of shooting down five Indian Hawker Hunters with his F-86 Sabre in less than a minute which earned him the designation of 'ace in a day', making him the only known jet pilot to achieve such a feat.
However, the claim has been disputed by the official history of the PAF, former colleague Sajad Haider, and historians who attributed the account to the fog of war. Nonetheless, Haider and Indian historian Pushpindar Singh credit Alam with two confirmed kills on that day. By the end of the war, he was credited with 9 total air kills, two aircraft damaged, and was awarded the Sitara-i-Jurat & Bar.
Promoted to Wing Commander in 1967, he was appointed Officer Commanding No. 5 Sqn and oversaw the induction of newly acquired Dassault Mirage III aircraft, which he and his pilots ferried from France to Pakistan in 1968.
In the early 1970s, he was deputed to Syria at the request of the Syrian government to train their pilots. After the 1971 War broke out, resulting in the secession of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, he became depressed. He did not report for duty for months and refused to accept his salary, as he believed he hadn't earned it. He led a group of 16 PAF pilots and flew combat missions against the Israeli Air Force in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and then commanded a Syrian squadron of MiG-21s.
As a student at the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1980, officials issued a report comparing him to Field Marshal William Slim. In 1981, as Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Plans), he advocated for the acquisition of F-16 fighter jets in a briefing to President General Zia-ul-Haq, challenging the position of his own Air Chief, Anwar Shamim.
That year, concerned by damaging allegations to the PAF's integrity, including that Air Chief Anwar Shamim had reportedly purchased a ranch in the United States for $500,000, Alam advised him to investigate the rumors and lay them to rest. Described as the "blue-eyed boy" of the military regime, Shamim was offended that Alam even advised him and submitted a report to the Ministry of Defence, questioning his integrity instead. Alam petitioned President General Zia-ul-Haq, but with Zia firmly in Shamim's corner, his request was ignored, and he was prematurely retired in 1982. In protest, Alam refused his pension. In an attempt to appease him, General Zia offered him a diplomatic posting and the chairmanship of a thinktank, both of which he rejected.
Alam had gradually embraced religion in the later years of his career and adopted a nomadic lifestyle afterward. He disappeared and it was eventually discovered that he had joined the Afghan Mujahideen to fight against the occupying Soviet army in Afghanistan and became close to Ahmad Shah Massoud.
He later lived in a Mess and faced financial hardship as a result of refusing his pension. By 2002, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir had a guesthouse built for him in Chaklala and convinced him to finally accept his pension. He lived there until the mid-2000s, when he was advised to temporarily move to PAF Base Faisal, though he intended to return, repeated delays kept him there and he eventually settled in. At the age of 77, he died in early 2013 due to complications as a result of his smoking habits.
Early life Muhammad Mahmood Alam was born on 6 July 1935 in Calcutta in a Bihari family of civil servants that spoke Urdu. His father was Muhammad Masood Alam. According to banker Mohammad Badrul Ahsan, Mahmood Alam claimed that he was a Bengali at heart.
Alam supported the Pakistan Movement and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Following the Partition of British India in 1947, the family migrated to East Bengal, Pakistan. In the events leading up to partition, he said that he had killed someone in self defence at the age of 11 during the 1946 Bihar riots.
He became an aviation enthusiast after witnessing Japanese fighter planes attacking his hometown of Calcutta during World War II, forcing the Royal Air Force (RAF) to defend. He recalled seeing a celebratory banner raised by people in Calcutta in honour of RAF pilot Maurice Pring, who shot down three enemy planes. The banner read "Pring prongs 3," a phrase that Alam said "really caught my imagination". At the age of 14, he often built model airplanes out of wood.
He completed his secondary education at Government High School in Dacca, where he was a member of the Shaheen Air Training Corps (SATC) under the instruction of Polish pilot Flight Lieutenant Muchowski. As a student at the school, Alam trained with the SATC and earned his coveted glider wings during the graduation parade in Quetta.
Personal life His brothers include Professor Mohammad Shahid Alam, an economist at Northeastern University, and Dr. Mohammad Sajjad Alam, a particle physicist and former professor at the University at Albany, SUNY. The family moved from East Pakistan to Karachi after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
Muhammad Mahmood Alam remained a lifelong bachelor, as the responsibility of raising his younger siblings after his father's death left him with little opportunity to marry. According to his friend, Air Marshal (R) Riaz Uddin Shaikh, while Alam was in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, he became infatuated with the idea of marrying an Afghan woman he had met or encountered there, and he held onto the hope that she would eventually come to Pakistan. Another person, whose father was a friend of Alam, recalled asking him why he had chosen not to marry. Alam replied: "I'm not against marriage; it's just that when you are young you think that life is in your hands, but life is bigger. Someone once said all that is desirable is not attainable — indeed, all that is desirable is often not worth attaining."
An avid reader, he had a personal library of over 3,000 books.
Service years Alam trained at the Joint Services Pre-Cadet Training School in Quetta, alongside Ahmad Tasnim, who would later become a Vice Admiral in the Pakistan Navy. Following six months of training, Flight Cadet Alam joined the RPAF College in 1952.
He was commissioned into the Royal Pakistan Air Force on 2 October 1953, as part of the 15th GD(P) course. Soon after, he completed the Fighter Conversion Course at the PAF Station Mauripur, emerged as a top class fighter pilot, and was the top-scorer of the Air Force in air-to-air gunnery competitions. Sometime later, he had flown the Hawker Hunter while on attachment with the Royal Air Force.
On 27 October 1964, the PAF held an air show in Peshawar in honour of Indonesian Air Marshal Omar Dhani. Among those who performed were the F-86 Sabre formation of the "Sabres Nine – 1964" team, led by Wing Commander Anwar Shamim. The team consisted of Squadron Leaders M Arshad, Sarfraz Rafiqui, Mukhtar Ali, Muniruddin Ahmad, MM Alam, and Flight Lieutenants M Masud Khalid, Yusaf A Khan, and Yunus Hussain.
1965 War
Flying in a formation of three F-86 Sabres, Squadron Leader MM Alam shot down one Hawker Hunter of the Indian Air Force (IAF), flown by Squadron Leader AK Rawlley, over Halwara Air Force Station on 6 September 1965, in a dusk attack by the PAF. At 1715 hours, Squadron Leader Sarfraz Rafiqui led a formation of 3 F-86 Sabres with Yunus Hussain as his No. 2 and Cecil Chaudhry as No. 3. The formation took off from PAF Station Sargodha heading towards Halwara. On the way there, they met up with Alam's formation who was returning from an aborted raid on the Adampur Air Force Station of the IAF. Alam informed them about his encounter with four Indian Hawker Hunters over Tarn Taran.
On 7 September, while flying a Combat Air Patrol mission over Sargodha with his wingman Flying Officer Masud Akhtar, Squadron Leader Alam stated that they encountered five IAF Hawker Hunters who were part of the Strike No. 4 of that day. Alam and the PAF claimed that he had shot down all five.
The Indian pilots who were said to have been shot down by Alam were Squadron Leaders Onkar Nath Kacker and A B Devayya, Flight Lieutenant Guha, Flying Officer Brar, and Squadron Leader Bhagwat. However, this is incorrect, because all five pilots flew on separate strike missions against Sargodha at different times that day. Devayya was part of Strike No. 1 which was undertaken early in the morning; Kacker was in Strike No. 3; and Guha was part of Strike No. 6, which was later in the afternoon. Eventually, the PAF officially corrected their records and accepted that Devayya was actually shot down by Flight Lieutenant Amjad Hussain, and Guha was shot down by Flight Lieutenant A. H. Malik.
On 16 September, accompanied by his wingman Flying Officer Mohammad Shaukat-ul Islam, Squadron Leader MM Alam flew their F-86 Sabres into Indian airspace near Halwara. In response, IAF Flying Officers Prakash Sadhashivrao Pingale and Farokh Dara Bunsha immediately scrambled. Upon sighting the Sabres, the IAF pilots split their targets: Pingale pursued and shot down Shaukat, while Bunsha pursued Alam. He was able to manoeuver and out-turn Bunsha in a dogfight and shot down his Hunter aircraft. Flying Officer Bunsha was killed in action.
Disputed record Assessing the widely publicised claims of MM Alam in shooting down five Hawker Hunters in under 30 seconds on 7 September, his former colleague retired Air Commodore Sajad Haider called the claims into question. In his 2009 memoir, Haider wrote that it was "tactically and mathematically very difficult to resurrect the incident in which all 5 Hunters in a hard turn were claimed to have been shot down in a 270 degree turn in 23 seconds". He highlighted that both, "The Story of the Pakistan Air Force" (1988) and historian John Fricker, admit the difficulty of verifying the event, especially since only two wrecked aircraft were found near Sangla Hill. The aircraft belonged to Squadron Leader Sureshchandra Bhaksar Bhagwat and Flying Officer Jagdev Singh Brar, who were burnt beyond recognition. Indian aviation historian Pushpindar Singh Chopra and F-86 Sabre enthusiast Duncan Curtis agree with this account and credit Alam with these kills. Haider also referred to Alam as the "undisputed ace of PAF".
Referring to the other three claimed aircraft, Haider argued that if, in fact, five jets had been downed within 23 seconds during a tight manoeuver, they should have crashed in close proximity of each other. The suggestion that some might have flown for several more minutes before crashing is, in his view, "superfluous and unworthy of the official PAF history." Despite this, he highlighted that "MM Alam really did an excellent job of shooting down 2 Hunters," and noted that, despite having a "somewhat ineffective wing man," he managed to engage ten Hunters within just a few minutes of combat—an extraordinary feat in itself. Haider went on to credit Alam with a third air kill, that of Squadron Leader Rawlley, who crashed on 6 September shortly after engaging in air combat with Alam. The IAF also credits Alam with this kill.