Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya-Squadron Leader-Indian Air Force

A prominent Airforce Officer Ajjamada Bopayya Devayya was born on December 24, 1932, at Coorg, Karnataka.

Family

Father

Dr. Bopayya

Wife

Mrs. Sundari (Keethiyanda)

Career

• In 1954 he was commissioned into the Indian Air Force as a pilot.
• During the outbreak of the 1965 war, he was an instructor at the Air Force Flying College.
• He was posted to No.1 ‘Tigers’ Squadron and flew the Mystere IVa fighter bomber.
• During the 1965 India-Pakistan War, Sqn Ldr A B Devayya (called ‘Wings of Fire’), as a senior flying instructor, was part of a strike mission (on the Pakistani airbase Sargodha). Despite actually being a standby, in case one of the first 12 aircraft dropped out, he joined the air battle.
• Devayya was intercepted by an enemy F-104 Starfighter flown by Pakistani pilot Flt. Lt. Amjad Hussain. Devayya successfully evaded the Starfighter’s attacks. But the faster aircraft caught up with him and damaged his plane. Yet Devayya attacked the Starfighter and struck it down. The Starfighter went down while the pilot, Hussain ejected from his seat and parachuted. The Mystere aircraft was destroyed and it was assumed that Devayya died on Pakistani soil.
• The IAF was not aware of what had happened to Devayya, first recording him missing and later declaring him dead.
• Later, a British writer, John Fricker, was commissioned by the Pakistani Air Force to write an account of the war derived from Pakistani sources in 1979. What leads to Devayya’s actual death still remains a mystery. It was revealed much later by Pakistan that Devayya’s body was found almost intact by villagers not very far from Sargodha and buried.
• For this feat in the 1965 conflict, 23 years later, in 1988 he was posthumously awarded the retrospective Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) award.
• He is the only Air Force Officer to have been awarded the MVC posthumously so far.

Awards

• In 1988, nearly 23 years after the war, Maha Vir Chakra was awarded to Sqn Ldr A B Devayya posthumously. Mrs. Sundari Devayya accepted the posthumous Maha Vir Chakra awarded to her husband.
• On September 7, 2009, the private Bus Stand Circle in Madikeri in Kodagu was named after him.