Ajjamada B Devaiah

Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya, was born on 24 December 1932, at Coorg, Karnataka. He was the son of Dr. Bopayya. 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.

As a Squadron Leader he was part of an aircraft strike mission which went to Sargodha airfield in Pakistan. Devayya was the 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. The Starfighter went down while the pilot Hussain ejected from his seat and parachuted. It is not known what happened to Devayya. The IAF Mysteres were short on fuel and efficiency. The Mystere aircraft was destroyed and it is assumed that Devayya died on Pakistani soil. The IAF were not aware of what had happened to him. So they first recorded him missing and later declared 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. From his work, the IAF realised what had truly happened and in 1988 announced that the Maha Vir Chakra was to be awarded to Devayya posthumously. This is the only posthumous Maha Vir Chakra that the IAF has received.

What lead to his 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. Mrs. Devayya accepted the posthumous Maha Vir Chakra awarded to her husband in 1988, nearly 23 years after the war. On September 7 2009, the private bus stand circle in Madikeri in Kodagu was named after him.