24. Mobilising the War Machine By Valmiki Faleiro valmi...@gmail.com Indian troop mobilisation began from 2 December 1961. The 50 Independent Parachute Brigade was shifted from Agra, Hyderabad and Madras to Belgaum. The 63 and 48 Infantry Brigades of 17 Infantry Division were moved from Ambala to Belgaum. (50 Para and 63 Infantry were the two operational brigades, while 48 Infantry was the reserve brigade. The third brigade of 17 Division, 64 Infantry, was left behind at Kasauli.)
Medium artillery regiments like 14 Para Field Regiment under Major Peter Mendonca (later Colonel, from Moira), 10 Field Regiment under Major DC Noronha, a heavy mortar 74 Mountain Battery were deployed with 63 Infantry Brigade and 17 Para Field Regiment under Major Arjinder Singh with 50 Para Brigade. Of the field and bridge engineer companies with the two brigades, 411 Para Field Company was led by Major Vitalio de Paula Ribeiro Lobo (later Lieutenant Colonel, from Camurlim-Bardez, who built the Bailey bridge at Borim). Likewise, two regiments of 1 Armored Division, 7 Cavalry under Major SS Sidhu (who later died in action at Aguada) and 8 Cavalry under Major Luis Fonseca (later Lieutenant Colonel, from Badem, Salvador do Mundo) were tasked with the 50 Para Brigade and 63 Infantry Brigade respectively. A 'Black Cat' motorised column of 63 Infantry Brigade was led by Captain Paul Fernandes (later Lieutenant Colonel, from Sarzora). [On 18 December 1961, Major Luis Fonseca was headed for Vasco da Gama. He knew it was a cakewalk. So, he harboured the tanks and crew at Verna church grounds for the night, and went to the Gama house of his aunt nearby... he pined for her Goan cuisine! Crossing the river at a fordable point at Quepem (the bridge had been blown), Captain Paul Fernandes was greeted in Hindi by a throng assembled at the town square. He replied in chaste Konkani. Never expecting a Goan, the crowd almost fainted ... before the cheering began!] The two brigades of 17 Infantry Division entrained from six railway stations in or near Ambala. 50 Para Brigade's 1 Para Battalion entrained at Agra. 2 Para Battalion which had earlier been moved to Begumpet in Hyderabad for exercises in an initially proposed airborne op (that was later dropped -- we will come to that later) was moved by rail from Hyderabad to Belgaum. Short of a battalion, 50 Para was allotted 2 Sikh Light Infantry, a regular infantry battalion on garrison duties in Madras that was moved by rail to Belgaum. Rail traffic in northern, western and southern India was disrupted as more than 100 passenger trains were diverted to transport the personnel of the brigades. Each brigade had its own HQ, infantry, artillery, armour, engineers, signals, supply corps, ordnance, medical, liaison and provost. Besides passenger trains, scores of goods trains were requisitioned for military use to shift material from various points across India to Belgaum. According to the New Statesman of 15 December 1961, "stranded passengers were more upset with the Indian Railways than with the alleged Portuguese atrocities in Goa". Nehru howled that the very ones who wanted him to take military action in Goa now became incensed about the inconvenience. Diversion of goods trains for military purpose so affected life that steel mills in Ahmedabad shut down for the lack of coal. Tactical HQ for 'Op. Vijay' was set up at the MES Inspection Bungalow in Belgaum. All ground forces reached the concentration area, Belgaum, by 9 December 1961. Supplies, ammunition, fuel and bridging equipment were moved from various locations by 12 December 1961. D-day was, as seen, 14 December 1961. On 10 December 1961, Nehru told parliament, "Continuance of Goa under Portuguese rule is an impossibility." Same day, Salazar formally invoked the Anglo-Portuguese alliance (the Treaty of Windsor of 14 October 1899), asking Britain to comply with her obligations and "frustrate the imminent aggression against Goa" -- an impossibility again. (Britain had told Portugal in 1954 that its aid could only be diplomatic and not military since India was a British Commonwealth nation.) Portugal, as seen, contacted China on 10 December 1961. The next day, 11 December 1961, Nehru declared that "India's patience is exhausted." Land forces were ordered to advance from Belgaum to the assembly points near the Goa border. On 12 December 1961, Portuguese women and children were evacuated by the ship, Índia. The Portuguese passenger ship, otherwise on the Lisbon-Timor run with halts in Portuguese Africa and Goa, was hurriedly converted into an evacuee ship and arrived at Mormugao from Lisbon on 9 December 1961. With a carrying capacity of 380 pax, the ship sailed from Goa with 650, some say with 700 passengers (women and children alone numbered around 400). The vessel was so packed that a passenger said, "Some occupied even the toilets". Tactical HQ Southern Command began full operations from 13 December 1961, the eve of D-day. COAS General Pran Nath Thapar, GOC-in-C Southern Command Lt Gen JN Chaudhuri, GOC 17 Infantry Division Maj Gen KP Candeth, staff officers, and heads of arms and services converged at Belgaum. They would be joined by AOC-in-C of the then unified Air Ops Command Air Vice Marshal Ehrlich Pinto from Poona to make it a combined HQ of the Army and IAF at Belgaum, Chief Civic Advisor RCVP Noronha, a Goan ICS Officer of the Madhya Pradesh Cadre, Special Advisor GK Handoo, a Kashmiri Pandit IPS Officer of the J&K Cadre who was the CRP chief, BN Mullik, Director of Intelligence Bureau, and the Goa IGP-designate NR Nagoo, IPS. On 13 December 1961, George Vaz, Divakar Kakodkar, António Furtado and Berta Menezes Bragança for Goan People's Party addressed an Open Letter to the Goa governor from Belgaum. It recalled that the regime had, over the previous 35 years, deprived Goans of their fundamental freedoms and subjected protestors to long prison sentences and deportation, and for the past 14 years, ignored India's calls for peaceful negotiations. So for the last time, "we ask you to choose between going as a friend or a foe. Whichever path you choose, quit you must and you shall -- with all your bag and baggage: your army, your PIDE, your tortures, your arbitrariness, your rule by decrees, your mercenaries and even your Goan traitors and stooges if they will go with you. The hour has sounded. Quit India! Jai Hind!" On 14 December 1961, Prof. Aloysius Soares, Prof. Francisco Correia Afonso, Prof. Velingkar, (Prof. Armando Menezes was outstation), JN Heredia, JM Pinto, LJ de Souza and Nicolau Menezes for Goa Liberation Council wrote from Bombay that the people of Goa recalled that the people of Portugal were also fighting for freedom and justice against the common enemy -- Portuguese fascism. The liberation of 451 years of Portuguese domination will "inflict the final defeat on Salazarism... Regards the future, people of Goa would solidly defend the Portuguese people in their struggle against the cruel dictatorship of Salazar that has crushed and destroyed the best intellectual, moral and political minds of Portugal in prisons and concentration camps. The struggle of Goan people was not against the Portuguese people but against colonialism and fascism. May our Victory be your Victory!" D-day of 14 December 1961 was twice postponed, as we shall see later. On 15 December 1961, General Pran Nath Thapar [father of TV anchor/journalist Karan Thapar] with Lieutenant General PP Kumaramangalam, Adjutant General [the man who, recognising the potential of Brigadier Sagat Singh, a non-paratrooper, had given him command of a Para Brigade], and Lieutenant General JN Chaudhuri, the Southern Army Commander, visited the 50 Para Brigade at Sawantwadi. Brigadier Sagat Singh presented his battle plan. The Army Commander thought the brigadier's time frames were 'too optimistic'. Brigadier Sagat Singh then gave his timings in writing, having kept a reserve of four hours. The party left after wishing the brigade good luck (Major General VK Singh, History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, Chapter 3). Back at Tactical HQ in Belgaum, the Army Commander discussed his reservations of Brigadier Sagat Singh's battle plan. Chief of Staff, Major General (later Lieutenant General and Corps Commander) Patrick O Dunn and Air Vice Marshal Ehrlich W Pinto, who knew the brigadier well, were supportive. Brig Sagat Singh was allowed to proceed with his plan (Singh, History of the Corps of Signals, Vol III, Chap 3). The GOC-in-C Lt Gen Chaudhuri was so apprehensive about the brigadier's timeline that he placed three bets on the eve of ops that Brig Sagat Singh would not make it at the planned timings -- and lost all three bets and 500 Rupees to Air Vice Marshal Ehrlich W Pinto ( https://www.sify.com/news/remembering-lt-gen-sagat-singh-on-his-birth-centenary-news-columns-thprpwhjbhbdg.html ). Brigadier Sagat Singh was so confident not only of his timings but that he would be the first to enter Panjim that he promised his friend Major General DK ("Monty") Palit, the Director Military Operations at Army HQ, a drink at Hotel Mandovi -- and Maj Gen Palit later did fly down to Goa to keep his part of the deal (Major General Randhir Sinh, A Talent For War, 2015, Page 54 and Footnote No. 31). This was the Indian Army mobilisation. It was a comparatively huge force against a diminutive, ill-armed enemy. -- Excerpted from revised text of the book, Patriotism In Action: Goans in India’s Defence Services by Valmiki Faleiro, first published in 2010 by Goa,1556 (ISBN: 978-93-80739-06-9). Revised edition awaits publication. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-