Today (Monday) marks the 11th death anniversary of Muhammad Mahmood Alam, a renowned combat hero of the 1965 war, commonly known as M.M Alam.

Alam is revered as a national hero in Pakistan, mostly due to his exceptional display of intelligence and skill during the 1965 Pak-India conflict while stationed in Sargodha. Throughout the course of this conflict, he actively engaged in multiple aerial combat encounters, known as dogfights, while piloting his F-86 Sabre fighter aircraft. He successfully shot down nine Indian Hawker Hunter fighters during the aerial combat and caused damage to two further aircraft.

During a single flight on September 7, 1965, Alam successfully shot down five Indian aircraft in less than a minute, with the last four being destroyed within a remarkable 30-second timeframe. This extraordinary feat not only set a world record but also brought his overall number of downed aircraft in the war to nine.

Alam was born on July 6, 1935 in Calcutta, British India, to a highly educated family. He was the eldest of his 11 siblings. The family relocated from Calcutta to eastern Bengal, which subsequently became East Pakistan with the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. In 1952, he became a member of the RPAF (now known as PAF) and was officially appointed on October 2, 1953.

Following the independence of East Pakistan, his family relocated to West Pakistan in approximately 1971.

Alam retired from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in 1982 with the rank of air commodore and relocated to Karachi. Alam passed away in Karachi on March 18, 2013 at the age of 77.