Honorific-Prefix: | Vice Admiral |
Hasan Hafeez Ahmed | |
Term Start: | 3 March 1972 |
Term End: | 9 March 1975 |
Birth Name: | Hasan Hafeez Ahmed |
Birth Date: | 1926[1] |
Birth Place: | Multan, Punjab, British Indian Empire |
Awards: | Hilal-i-Quaid-e-Azam Sitara-e-Pakistan Tamgha-e-Quaid-e-Azam (1965) |
Nickname: | H.H. Ahmed |
Serviceyears: | 1945–1975 |
Unit: | Navy Executive Branch |
Battles: |
|
Vice Admiral Hasan Hafeez Ahmed (Urdu:; b. 1926-8 March 1975[2]),, usually shortened to H.H. Ahmed, was a senior Pakistan Navy officer who served as the first Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) of Pakistan Navy from 1972 until his death from sickness in 1975.[2]
Despite appointed to the four-star appointment, he was retained at the three-star rank and took over the command of the Navy from its Commander-in-Chief Vice-Admiral Muzaffar Hassan who was dismissed from the military service.
Hassan Hafeez Ahmad was born in Multan, Punjab, British India, in 1926. He was educated in a local school in Multan and was a contemporary of Mansoor Shah who would later join the Pakistan Air Force in 1947.[3]
After his high school graduation in 1943, he joined the Royal Indian Navy as a petty officer and participated in World War II.[3] In 1945, he joined the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England where he graduated in 1947. Upon returning to British India, he joined the Pakistan Navy and was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant. He continued his training with the Royal Navy and specialized in technical naval courses from the United Kingdom in 1947-49.
In 1964, he attended the Joint Service Defence College in Latimer Buckinghamshire, England, and subsequently graduated with a joint staff degree in 1965. Upon his return, he was posted in Ministry of Defence as an undersecretary as a Director of Naval Operations and participated in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965. After the war, he was posted to the Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C. as a military attaché which he remained until 1966. In 1970, he was appointed as the first commandant of the Pakistan Naval Academy as a Commodore and was appointed as Commander Coast in 1971 as a Rear-Admiral. [4] [5]
After participating in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 he continued to serve as commander of the coastal defense command but demoted to Commodore in the Navy.[6] In 1972, he was elevated as the first Chief of Naval Staff after the dismissal of Muzaffar Hassan. He was the most junior officer and superseded five senior's including three Rear-Admirals and two Commodores.[7]
As a naval chief, his task was to reconstruct and rebuild the navy into a formidable force.[8] In a short spa of time, he transformed the Navy into three-dimensional force when he commissioned the naval aviation and commissioning the new Navy NHQ in Rawalpindi in the vicinity of Army GHQ in 1974.[8]
On 8 March 1975, he died from sickness unexpectedly while serving as naval chief and commanding the navy, at the age of 49.[9] He was the first of three chief's of staff who died in the office- the others being General Asif Nawaz and Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir.