BBC News recently ran a series to mark 25 years since Israeli bombers destroyed Osirak, Iraq's main nuclear reactor. A contributor to our anniversary Have Your Say alerted us to the untold story of an Indian pilot who also found himself in the air above Baghdad on 7 June 1981. Here Gp Capt (Retd) Anant Bewoor, who trained Iraqi pilots on transport planes, tells BBC News about his experiences, beginning with the start of Iraq's war with Iran in 1980, and what appears to have been an Iranian air attack on Osirak early in 1981:"I was in Iraq from April 1980 to April 1982 under a government agreement to provide flying instructors to the Iraqi air force which went back to the late 1950s. We had instructors there during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, and the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. It was much appreciated by the Iraqis that the Indians did not want to go back home because of a hot shooting war in Iraq. In September 1980 I was with 23 Sqn Iraqi Air Force on An-12s and one afternoon I was told to "take a rest" and not come to work for a few days. Shortly afterwards, [Iraqi leader] Saddam [Hussein] attacked Iran with a midday strike contrary to all strategic and tactical doctrines.
Squadron Leader Panicker put me on to An-24s in January 1981 and all the flying was done at an airstrip 37km [23 miles] west of Habbaniya, a former Royal Air Force base. One late morning in January or February my family and that of Panicker were on a day trip outside Baghdad, very close to the city. Suddenly we heard a couple of loud bangs and a huge column of thick black smoke rose menacingly from the city. It appeared that the Iranians had hit the Baghdad oil refinery. By the evening a thick blanket of smoke covered Baghdad with a strong smell of oil. Later, the gossip in the mess was that Iranian Phantom jets had failed to hit Osirak.