On 6 September, both countries openly went to war following a series of minor skirmishes that preceded the 6th, when Pakistan was attacked by India from the Lahore-Burki sector during the dead of night (at 5 am). The war began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was designed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to precipitate an insurgency against rule by India. The five-week war caused thousands of casualties on both sides. It ended in a United Nations (UN) mandated ceasefire and the subsequent issuance of the Tashkent Declaration.
Pakistan Air Force gained a lot of credibility and reliability among Pakistan military and international war writers for successful defence of Lahore and other important areas of Pakistan and heavy retaliation to India on the next day. The alertness of the air force was also related to the fact that some pilots were scrambled six times in less than an hour on indication of Indian air raids.[6][7]
^Fricker, John (1979). Battle for Pakistan: the air war of 1965. I. Allan. pp. 15–17. ISBN9780711009295. before we had completed more than of about 270 degree of the turn, at around 12 degree per second, all four hunters had been shot down." -- "My fifth victim of this sortie started spewing smoke and then rolled on to his back at about 1000 feet.
^Polmar, Norman; Dana Bell (2003). One hundred years of world military aircraft. Naval Institute Press. p. 354. ISBN978-1-59114-686-5. Mohammed Mahmood Alam claimed five victories against Indian Air Force Hawker Hunters, four of them in less than one minute! Alam, who ended the conflict with 1 1 kills, became history's only jet "ace-in-a-day."
