Intro
He seems to be the first ever Ahmadi pilot in history. Deputy Mian Muhammad Latif (1919-2002) was the son of Deputy Mian Muhammad Sharif. After receiving flight training from the Lahore Flying Club, he joined the Royal Indian Air Force at the beginning of the Second World War (1939) and served with distinction. During the conflict he was also captured as a Japanese prisoner of war. Later he was called by Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad to fly one of the planes of the Ahmadiyya Community in the years of the Partition (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023). Deputy Muhammad Latif belonged to a respectable Ahmadi family of Lahore. He was the second son of Deputy Muhammad Sharif, who was referred to as Deputy because he was in the civil service. In fact, the title preceded the names of all three of his sons. Latif joined the Royal Indian Air Force at the beginning of the Second World War. In 1943, he was taken as a POW by the Japanese and promptly joined the Indian National Army, which was a Japanese controlled organization that was promised high rank when the Japanese took over India. When the war was over (roughly 1945), he returned to British-India was court-martialed and kicked out of the British military, he was forced to do free lance work as a pilot for a company in Bombay.
In the below, we have a photo of him in 1942 at Qadian (you can see him wearing his Royal Air Force uniform), to his left is a 14-year old Mirza Tahir Ahmad and to his left is Syed Muhammad Ahmad who became the 2nd Ahmadi pilot of all time (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
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1919
He is born in British-India (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
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1939
WW-2 starts and he joined the British-Indian Military (Air Force)(See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
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1942
We have a photo of him in 1942 at Qadian (you can see him wearing his Royal Air Force uniform), to his left is a 14-year old Mirza Tahir Ahmad and to his left is Syed Muhammad Ahmad who became the 2nd Ahmadi pilot of all time (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
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1943
In 1943, while commanding a fighter squadron on the Burma front, his plane was shot down by the Japanese. He crash-landed and survived, but was captured and became a prisoner of war. Having endured many tribulations during his time in the camp, he returned home after the war ended only to face another ordeal (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
In 1943, he was taken as a POW by the Japanese and promptly joined the Indian National Army, which was a Japanese controlled organization that was promised high rank when the Japanese took over India. When the war was over (roughly 1945), he returned to British-India was court-martialed and kicked out of the British military, he was forced to do free lance work as a pilot for a company in Bombay.
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1947
The Ahmadiyya Community had purchased a small two-seater Stinson L-5 airplane. A few days earlier, Deputy Muhammad Latif had brought the plane to Qadian and landed it on the main road of Darul Anwar that was to the east of the Al-Nusrat residence. Deputy Muhammad Latif reports that the Ahmadiyya Community paid 5000 rupees for the plane.
Electricity poles and wires ran the length of this path, therefore, there was only a short unpaved stretch of about 250 yards in its eastern extension where a small light airplane could land. After this short trip, Deputy Muhammad Latif flew the L-5 to Walton Airport in Lahore and left it under the care of the CAA, while he returned to his job in Bombay (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
The Mirza family was able to steal another L-5 aircraft from an Indian man, it now had 2 identical L-5 airplanes and Deputy Muhammad Latif quit his job at Bombay and was now working full time for the Mirza family as a pilot (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
In early September, the East Punjab government issued orders to impound our planes. As the pilots landed, they hurriedly took off and went back to Lahore. Even after the police showed up as such and demanded that these aircraft be impounded, Syed Muhammad Ahmad brazenly kept flying surveillance missions and helping Ahmadi refugees from Qadian. However, soon thereafter, the police and military units at Qadian began firing at his plane. Even after this order,
Syed Muhammad Ahmad flew into India and dropped important messages/letters at Qadian. He kept flying these daring missions until he hit a cow in Sep-1947 on the runway at Walton Airport, Mirza Munir Ahmad almost died (a son of Mirza Bashir Ahmad), since the aircraft flipped over. This left the Ahmadiyya Community with only one airplane. Deputy Muhammad Latif also asked for leave to go and find a job, thus, the Ahmadiyya Community was only left with one pilot and one aircraft. This was roughly Sep-20th-1947.
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2002
He died (See “Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023).
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Links and Related Essay’s
“Wings of Duty A Memoir” by Syed Muhammad Ahmad, 2023
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