Pakistani civil war emergency relief: the Dutch contribution
On 12 July 1971, an F-27 Troopship belonging to 224 Squadron took the medical supplies from Soesterberg to India. The round trip of nearly 17.000 kilometres, under the command of Warrant Officer W. Koster, was the longest flight that 334 Squadron had flown until then in its 27-year history.
To Pakistan via Turkey
The Troopship left Soesterberg on the Monday morning and, after refuelling in Nice and Brindisi, arrived in Istanbul at 17.00 hours. The RNLAF personnel stayed in a hotel that night, then flew on to Teheran via the Turkish town of Diyarbakir the next day. Remarkably, personnel stayed overnight in the (West) Pakistani city of Karachi the following day
Medical relief supplies
The Troopship, travelling via Nagpur, reached its final destination of Calcutta in India at 15.00 hrs on Thursday 15 July 1971, where the airmen were met by Dr H. Scheer of Terre des Hommes. The medical supplies were taken to his practice in Salt Lake City Camp which, having been originally planned by the local authorities as a new residential district of Calcutta, provided shelter for 300,000 Bengali refugees. The Dutch military personnel stayed for 2 nights. On 17 July, they flew the same route back and arrived at Soesterberg air base on 20 July.