By Valmiki Faleiro A few minutes past 8 am of 18 December 1961, or about one hour after the bombing of the radio centre at Bambolim and the airport at Dabolim, the Portuguese Governor General / C-in-C left the capital city and headed for the last redoubt of Mormugao.
(Of the many cock-and-bull stories floating at the time, one story said that he went to Mormugao because he wanted to flee from Goa by air. If that was so, he would have easily travelled aboard any of the two civilian aircraft that escaped from Dabolim -- with his permission -- later that night, as seen last week.) (Another fantastic story was that Air Vice Marshal Erhlich Pinto came snooping into Goa some days before the ops. Only the thoroughly unlettered could produce such stories. Air Vice Mshl Pinto was India's AOC-in-C Operational Command, Indian Air Force -- and the most likely next Air Chief but for an unfortunate helicopter accident in J&K on 22 November 1963 that killed him together with some top Indian Army officers like Lt Gen Daulat Singh GOC-in-C Western Command, Lt Gen Bikram Singh GOC XV Corps, Maj Gen NKD Nanavati GOC 25 Division, Brig RM Uberoi commander 93 Brigade and the chopper pilot Flt Lt SS Sodhi. Air Vice Mshl Pinto was way too big to be a snooper!) The Governor General/C-in-C issued no fresh orders now that the assault had begun. This meant that the defence plan, Plano Sentinela would remain in force -- delay the enemy at the borders with conventional or guerilla tactics, fall back to the riverfronts when no longer possible to halt the enemy advance and explode the bridges, hold back the enemy on the other bank of the river for as long as possible, and when that too was difficult, gradually fall back to the last redoubt, Mormugao, and defend it at any cost -- until UN intervention arrived. By 10:30 am, 18 December 1961, Captain (later General) Carlos de Azeredo, appointed as the Coordinating Officer of the security forces in Goa only days before, took command of around 500 troops retreating from other positions, to form the second line of defence -- from St. Jacinto Island to Issorcim, across the isthmus of the Mormugao peninsula. He had trenches dug rapidly, fortified with coconut trunks to fend off enemy artillery ... and for weapons, an equally ridiculous duo of Lewis light machine guns and ancient rifles. Recall that Capt Azeredo believed the Plano Sentinela was "totally unrealistic and unachievable". Yet, one could say foolhardily, Portuguese defenders staged three acts of resistance in Goa. The first as seen was at the Anjediva Island, where they held Indian naval forces at bay for some 30 hours, with a comparatively high loss of lives. There were two other notable acts of resistance in Goa proper. One was a skirmish at Verna staged by Portuguese troops retreating from Margao to the last redoubt at Mormugao. The other was the resistance put up by the lone naval destroyer in Goa against three Indian frigates at Mormugao. Oddly, both incidents heralding the Portuguese exit evoked history of their entry into Goa 451 years before -- and the name of the man who had conquered Goa in 1510! Let us consider only the Verna incident of 19 December 1961 today, and the naval battle at Mormugao that occurred a day earlier on 18 December 1961 (together with the historical significance of the two events) next week. The skirmish in Verna: 2 Bihar Battalion of the 63 Infantry Brigade was pressing from Margao towards Vasco da Gama. When it reached Verna at around 2.00 pm, it was told of the presence of 450+ Portuguese soldiers of the Agrupamento Afonso de Albuquerque, an undersized battalion retreating from the military camp at Rawanfond, Aquem Baixo, near Margao. They were in a fallback to the last redoubt at Mormugao and had halted at Verna. 'C' Company of 2 Bihar under Captain NK Bhandari was ordered on the left flank to cut off the road behind the enemy position. 'B' Company under Major MM Bose charged from the right flank. The Portuguese opened up with small arms fire. The brief but fierce encounter accounted for the largest number of casualties on both sides in Goa. On the Portuguese side, 27 officers, 23 sergeants and 398 soldiers surrendered (448 in all, the rest perished), and 14 armoured cars, 21 jeeps and a large quantity of arms and equipment were seized. "There were about 450 prisoners [Portuguese POWs at Verna]," recalls freedom fighter Dr. Suresh Kanekar, who, together with Purushottam Kakodkar and Ronald Coutinho of Margao, was proceeding to Vasco da Gama in Coutinho's car. Kanekar says he "naturally thought of the number matching closely the years of Portuguese colonial rule imposed on Goa" (Kanekar, 2011, Pages 146-147). As the encounter progressed, 4 Sikh LI reached Verna and, as seen before, was ordered to pass through 2 Bihar and race to Dabolim and Vasco da Gama. A tiny force of the unit in two vehicles led by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Earl William ("Bill") Carvalho reached Alpalqueiros Hill in Vasco da Gama early afternoon, confined the Portuguese Governor/C-in-C to his house, got scores of soldiers present there to lay down arms and remain within the barracks. CO of 4 Sikh LI, Lieutenant Colonel RB Nanda, arrived later in the evening, accepted the surrender of the Governor and of the Portuguese garrison and organised a formal surrender ceremony later that night (19 December 1961). 2 Bihar was ordered to halt some 5 kms beyond Cortalim. And a quick-thinking act of non-resistance: Second Lieutenant Manuel José Marques da Silva had arrived in Goa by the evacuee ship Índia just two weeks before to take over command of the NRP Sírius and her 11-member crew. As seen, the Portuguese patrol vessel was armed with a lone 20-mm Oerlikon gun. Of this author's two mentors in journalism, BG Koshy edited Bombay's The Current Weekly (while DM Silveira of Goltim-Divar, now no more, edited the Onlooker). Koshy later joined the corporate world and was long with Oerlikon in Zurich, Switzerland. Now himself a big gun in Bangalore, he recalls the 20-mm Oerlikon gun -- an ubiquitous weapon fitted to patrol boats, warships and aircraft of all the major militaries in the world -- was sold to Portugal ("at excellent prices") by Dr. Emile Buhrle, father of his boss Dr. Dieter Buhrle, chairman of Oerlikon. Oerlikon's 20-mm gun was a bestseller in the 1930s. At Mormugao on 18 December 1961, 2/Lt Marques da Silva saw the rapid and superior enemy firepower when the naval battle began. His 20-mm Oerlikon gun was like a lame chicken before rampaging elephants. The destroyer NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was armed with four 120-mm cannons that alone could respond to the enemy fire. 2/Lt Marques da Silva decided to follow the rule book and scuttle the vessel. He evacuated the crew at Mormugao and tried to sink the vessel by opening the bottom hatches. Finding them rusty, he smashed the vessel against the rocks near Mormugao harbour. Some Portuguese records, however, say that the patrol boat was abandoned with its engines running at Dona Paula. It is rather implausible to think that 2/Lt Marques da Silva would go to Dona Paula in the thick of action to abandon the boat and then swim back from Dona Paula to Mormugao under the crossfire of the battling warships -- when the patrol boat could well be abandoned without any effort at Mormugao itself. Boarding the MV Olga Minakoulis, a Greek freighter at Mormugao, with his crew, 2/Lt Marques da Silva escaped to Pakistan. Arriving in Karachi on 25 December 1961, he and the crew -- believed dead in Portugal -- took a flight and arrived in Lisbon 30 December 1961. The PIDE took them into custody upon arrival. Despite observing instructions -- avoid capture and destroy equipment before it falls in enemy hands -- 2/Lt Marques da Silva, in a bizarre twist, was accused of treachery and expelled from the armed forces. Portuguese authorities insisted that India attacked on 19 December 1961 and that 2/Lt Marques da Silva had cowardly sunk the vessel a day sooner on 18 December 1961! Nonplussed even after four-and-half decades, he wrote a book on the goofy episode titled 'NRP Sírius' in 2007. -- 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. Photos follow (not included here): 1.NRP Sírius (source: unknown) 2.BG Koshy with his boss Dr.Dieter Buhrle, chairman of Oerlikon (source: self collection) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 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/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-