Dattatreya Laxman Patwardhan

Dattatreya Laxman Patwardhan was the first Indian pilot. He was born on 10 July 1883 and died on 18 October 1943.

Early life

He started his career in the Central Railway yard in Parel, Bombay, under the name D. Lakman Pat. As a young boy, his father had chastised him for failing 5th grade twice, and had told him that he would not be good for anything but washing buffaloes (which in Marathi sounds like "mashi") - so he expressed his desire to work with machines, not buffaloes, to his German foreman Peter Joedel. The foreman's brother Heinrich Joedel, who was the chief petty officer on the freighter Stansfels, smuggled him on board in the coal bin on a trip to Hamburg, Germany. When he was discovered, he was put to work by the ship's captain Schmidt instead of being tossed overboard. In Hamburg, he attended a naval school that qualified him to become a marine engineer. At the recommendation of his boss, he attended another naval school in Glasgow and Dundee in Scotland, and then worked on steamers plying between Liverpool and New York.

First World War

During the First World War, he joined the British Army as a paramedic, and then became a machine gunner in a tank regiment. He was wounded in the field, and opted to join the British Army Air Wing as a mechanic when he left the hospital. They were short on pilots, and so he became a bomber pilot. He flew a mission to Berlin, ordered to reconnoiter, but actually dropped bombs on the Kaiser's palace. For this he was commended by King George V on 24 April 1919. At the ceremony he revealed that he was an Indian, and gave his real name. This was covered by the English monthly "Graphic", which published a biographical sketch with a photo. On 13 May 1919 the Marathi daily newspaper Kesari published an article on him and his appointment as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force.

Later life

He retired on a pension from the British Army to Bombay, India, where he had received land and a bungalow as part of his award. He also lived in Ratnagiri, where the road to the airport is named after him.

In 1943, he fell down on the road in Girgaum, Bombay, and was recognized and picked up by Vikram Savarkar of the All India Hindu Mahasaba and admitted to St. George's Hospital,Bombay. He died on 18 October 1943 of stomach cancer. An article in his memory was published in 1944 in a Marathi fortnightly in Sangli called "Vikram".

Interestingly, the research on this uncovered verbal accounts (that could have written verification) of a very early test flight in the 19th century of a plane built to specs from some ancient Indian book (see Vimana). This flight occurred on Chowpatty beach in Bombay, and was witnessed by the British governor.

References

• Pahila Bharatiya Vymanik (First Indian pilot) (a Marathi book) by Ratnakar Shivram Vashikar and Ananth Ramchandra Marathe published 18 October 2003.
• The London Gazette 25 March 1919 - mentions the temporary honorary commission as a 2nd Lieutenant.
• The London Gazette 25 January 1937 - mentions the withdrawal of his commission.

Persondata
Name	Patwardhan, Dattatreya Laxman
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1883
Place of birth
Date of death	1943
Place of death