India's First Param Vir Chakra Award holder the Great Flying officer Nirmal jit Singh Sekhon
Flying officer Nirmal jit Singh Sekhon is the only member of IAF to have been awarded the Param Vir Chakra (PVC), India's highest military decoration. Flying officer Nirmal jit singh sekhon was a pilot of Folland Gnat Detachment based at Srinagar for the air defence. Flying officer Sekhon was therefore, unfamiliar with the terrain and was not acclimatised to the altitude of Srinagar especially wi th the bitter cold and biting winds of the kashmir winter. Nevertheless, from the setout of the war, he and his colleagues fought successive waves of intruding pakistani aircraft with valour and determination, maintaining the high reputation of the Folland Gnat aircraft. On 14 december 1971, Srinagar airfield was attacked by a wave of six enemy sabre aircraft. Flying officer Sekhon was on readiness duty at the time.However, he could not take off at once because of the cloud of dust raised by another aircraft which had just taken off. By the time the runway was fit for take-of