At the
Partition of India in August 1947, he opted to serve with the
Pakistan Air Force (PAF), and later married Maureen Viegas, whose sister, Jeanne, would later marry
Mervyn Middlecoat, who went on to command the PAF's famed No. 9 Squadron and become a hero of the PAF. On 1 September 1951 a PAF two-seater
Fury aircraft caught fire.
Flight Lieutenant Callaghan was the second pilot on that flight. One of the pioneer officers of the PAF, Callaghan served for a number of the early years of the PAF as a flight instructor at
Risalpur, where he helped to train many of the PAF's future leaders and top fighter and bomber pilots (including his brother-in-law by marriage, Mervyn Middlecoat). During the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, although a "desk jockey" in Peshawar, he volunteered for and flew dangerous low, low-level, night-time strafing missions in old Harvards along the
Grand Trunk Road between
Lahore and
Amritsar harassing
Indian Army convoys. Years later, as a
group captain, he led the PAF team that investigated the crash of a PAF C-130 after it went missing while returning to Pakistan from
China. This investigation was conducted at high altitude in mountainous country and was particularly trying and hazardous. By 1969 he had risen through the ranks of squadron leader and wing commander, working in staff jobs in Kohat and
Peshawar, after earlier being based at
Mauripur. In 1971, during the
Bangladesh Liberation War, Air Commodore Callaghan was the PAF Chief Inspector in
West Pakistan. in charge of the verification of Pakistani claims of enemy aircraft kills. Working closely with him and assisting his team was the then-
United States air attache/adviser to the PAF, USAF
Brigadier General Charles "Chuck" Yeager (the first man to break the sound barrier). Callaghan was noted for his hardwork and dedication during this time. In the prelude to the
Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, Callaghan was promoted to the rank of
Air Vice Marshal and appointed as the
Deputy Chief of Air Staff of the
Pakistan Air Force. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, he was deployed to
East Pakistan, where he served as the
Chief of Staff of the Eastern Air Force Command. In this capacity, he oversaw air operations in the region. Notably, on 16 December 1971, Air Vice Marshal Callaghan was present at the
Ramna Race Course in
Dhaka and was one of the signatories of the
Pakistani Instrument of Surrender. After his repatriation to Pakistan, Callaghan retired from the PAF in 1976, Air Commodore Callaghan headed the Air Safety Branch of the Department of Civil Aviation and his internationally recognized expertise in investigating and solving the causes of air crashes led to his call out by a number of Arab countries to help them solve a number of crashes in their countries. Callaghan died in April 1992 at the age of 65. ==References==