Operation Dwarka

Operation Dwarka was a naval operation by the Pakistan Navy to attack the Indian coastal town of Dwarka on 7 September 1965. This was the first use of Pakistan Navy in any of the Indo-Pakistan Wars. It was one of the significant naval events of the 1965 Indo-Pak war, and Pakistan celebrates 8 September as "Victory Day" for Pakistan Navy. As the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 broke out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, armies and air forces of both nations were involved in intense fighting in the Punjab region and in Kashmir. To relieve pressure on the southern front, Pakistan decided to use its navy in the war by launching a quick strike on Indian coast. The primary objective of the attack ostensibly was to destroy the radar station at Dwarka which Pakistani Naval intelligence believed had a Huff-Duff beacon to guide Indian bombers. Pakistani high command also hoped to divert the operations of the Indian Air Force away from the north.

Objectives
The mission objectives of Pakistan Navy are listed below:

To draw heavy enemy units out of Bombay for the submarine PNS Ghazi to attack.
To destroy the radar installation at Dwarka.
To lower Indian morale.
To divert Indian Air Force effort away from the north.

Operation Dwarka was a significant naval operation of the 1965 war, considered by some as a nuisance raid or of little strategic value. The Ministry of Defence had issued written instructions which ordered the Indian Navy "not to proceed two hundred miles beyond Bombay nor North of the parallel of Porbander". The lack of response by the Indian Navy to the attack on Dwarka led to questions being asked in Indian parliament and was considered a humiliation by Indian citizens and Navy personnel and a challenge to be answered by others. The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral B.S. Soman was restrained from retaliation for the Dwarka raid by the Defence Minister. Of the Indian Navy's 23 ships, ten were under refit in Bombay, including the Vikrant, the cruiser Delhi, three destroyers and two frigates. An Indian source explained this by saying that the Indian Government did not want to get into a naval conflict with Pakistan, but wished to restrict the war to a land-based conflict. The failure of INS Talwar to retaliate, then undergoing repairs to her condensers in Okha, has been lamented by Indian Vice Admiral N. Krishnan who said that no Government would blame a warship going into action, if attacked. PNS Ghazi continued to patrol Kachhh and Bombay coasts spotting aircraft positions when snorkeling. 

The Dwarka raid is considered by Pakistani sources as being a prime reason for the Indian Navy's subsequent post-war modernization and expansion, with an increase in budget from ₹35 crore (equivalent to ₹17 billion or US$240 million in 2017) to ₹115 crore (equivalent to ₹40 billion or US$590 million in 2017). The Dwarka raid, as per an Indian historian G. M Hiranandani, led to the procurement of missile boats by the Indian Navy from the Soviet Union for the Defense of Kutch. These were subsequently used by India in Operation Trident in the 1971 war. However, he attributes the expansion of the Indian Navy in the period 1965 to 1975 to the post-1962 planned expansion of the Indian Navy with many ships being negotiated and purchased from the Soviet Union prior to the war.