31. Advance of 50 Parachute Brigade By Valmiki Faleiro
The diversionary thrust from the North assigned to 50 Para was perpendicular to the east-west flow of Goa's rivers. The route was longer and the riverine obstacles more difficult to cross. Due to this difficult terrain, the Portuguese did not expect an attack from the North but only from the East (i.e. from Anmod, the easier route that was allotted to the main task force, 17 Infantry Division). 50 Para was pressed from the North to divide the defenders and facilitate the work of the main task force. When the Portuguese heard of an airborne brigade (50 Para) being deployed, they began to worry about air security, expecting the brigade to be airdropped... only to learn from All India Radio a little past midnight 17/18 December 1961 that Indian troops had entered Goa -- all from land, none from the air, and from the North as well. At a brainstorming at Army HQ in Delhi on 29 November 1961, it was decided to airdrop the 2 Para Battalion of 50 Para Brigade to capture vital bridges before the enemy could destroy them. Brigadier Sagat Singh was happy that a unit of his brigade would have an airborne role. He suggested that the battalion be dropped by night near Ponda, so that river obstacles at Sanquelim, Bicholim, Usgao and Khandepar could be bypassed. 2 Para was shifted to Begumpet-Hyderabad for exercises. The airdrop idea was later dropped and all three battalions of 50 Para moved in overland. The 50 Para Brigade entered Goa by two approaches from Dodamarg in the North: Sanquelim/Usgao/Ponda (the eastern approach allotted to 2 Para Maratha and 1 Para Punjab) and Assonora/Tivim/Betim (western approach allotted to 2 Sikh Light Infantry). Later, when Brig Sagat Singh saw feeble opposition from the Portuguese defenders, he ordered 1 Para Punjab to change course and take the Bicholim/Pilgao/Amona/Banastari middle approach. All three approaches -- eastern, western and middle -- were longer and more difficult to negotiate than the route from the East. The shortest of the three approaches was the western one allotted to 2 Sikh Light Infantry. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Cherian, 2 Sikh LI was provided with 7 Cavalry less one squadron of Stuart armoured vehicles and 'B' Squadron ex-8 Cavalry of AMX tanks, P Battery of 24 Medium Regiment and 135 Heavy Mortar Battery (artillery), 64/45 Light Anti Aircraft Battery, 380 Field Company (engineers) and a few Nissan one-tonne trucks. 50 Para had a Signals Company under Major (later Colonel) RR Chatterji with normal communications equipment that was unreliable and an added truck-mounted SCR 399 set that would be useless on Goa's narrow roads. Brigadier Sagat Singh got this enhanced with a section of newly inducted UK-made C41/R22 radio relay sets of 1 Medium Radio Relay Section under Captain George A Newton (more on this later). Despite starting on time, 2 Sikh LI was delayed two hours with obstacles inside the border and crossed the start point only at 9.00 am on 18 December 1961. On the way, bridges at Assonora and Tivim besides culverts were blown up to slow its advance. But the unit rapidly crossed minefields, roadblocks and river obstacles to make stunningly swift progress. Its leading element -- 'A' Squadron of 7 Cavalry’s Stuart armoured vehicles and 'B' Squadron of 8 Cavalry's AMX tanks -- under Major Shivdev Singh Sidhu reached the Betim riverfront (northern bank of the River Mandovi) by 6.00 pm and the entire unit by about 6.45 pm, 18 December 1961. Artillery of 2 Sikh LI was stationed at the Betim hilltop, while the armour (Stuart armoured vehicles and the troop of AMX tanks) were lined along the northern bank of the Mandovi, their cannons trained at Panjim. IAF fighter jets menacingly zoomed over Panjim. Artillery fired two shells. One landed near the then Escola Médica-Cirúrgica de Goa (later the Goa Medical College and now HQ of the International Film Festival of India) and the other near the road leading to Altinho. Senior officers of the small garrison defending Panjim (part of the Agrupamento D. João de Castro), in a hopeless situation without human or material means to resist the Indian troops, artillery, armour or the air force, were aided by Archbishop D. José Vieira Alvernaz to declare a ceasefire in order to save Panjim and its inhabitants. The Portuguese hoisted a white flag atop a riverfront tree on the southern bank of River Mandovi. Past dusk, a Goan priest, Msgr. Gregorio Magno Antão, carried a ceasefire letter from Major Acácio Tenreiro, military commander of Panjim, in a rowboat across the Mandovi. He gave it to Major SS Sidhu of 7 Cavalry at Betim, who took the letter to Lt Col Thomas Cherian, CO 2 Sikh LI, on the Betim hilltop. The CO could not get through to the Brigade HQ or Brigadier Sagat Singh. The priest was verbally assured that there would be no firing until 10 the next morning. The Portuguese crumble had begun. In Lisbon, the censored Portuguese press would be fed with fictitious and fantastic stories. Newspapers would report imaginary scenes of "heroic resistance" put up by Portuguese troops in Goa, of hand-to-hand combat in many places including Panjim and Vasco da Gama, even of Indian troops being taken POW by Portuguese forces! Salazar's shocked nation was blatantly fed fantasies. Newspapers were not provided with even a semblance of the reality: that the Portuguese forces in Goa were so completely minuscule and pathetically equipped that even if there was any will to stage a token resistance to the invasion, there were no means to do so. The Portuguese press instead reported 'fierce battles fought in the streets and fields of Goa, resulting in 1,500 dead'. "The [Salazarian] regime deceived its own sympathizers. An entire people were led to believe a horrible fiction," said the Portuguese author-journalist, Maria Manuel Stocker in the Preface of Xeque-Mate a Goa: O Principio do Fim do Império Português (Checkmate Goa: The Beginning of the End of the Portuguese Empire, 2005, Pages 9-10). -- Excerpted from revised text of the book, Patriotism In Action: Goans in India’s Defence Services by Valmiki Faleiro, first published in 2010 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/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-