Commodore Gilbert Menezes, VSM (V)

[Valmiki Faleiro]

Commodore Gilbert Menezes, VSM (V, pioneer submariner)

 

 Commodore Gilbert Menezes, a son of Raia in Salcete who returned and settled in Goa after retirement, belongs to the first batch of submariners of the Indian Navy. The officers were sent to Vladivostok in the then USSR (now Russia) for training.

 

There was another Goan in this pioneer batch, brother of Vice Admiral John DeSilva (who retired as Vice Chief of the Indian Navy) and I cannot resist the temptation of an early digression. The other Goan fell in love and married the daughter of the Russian Base Commander in Vladivostok – without the Indian Navy’s prior permission to fall in love and marry a foreigner! (Guess by now the reader is accustomed to my devious comments.) On returning to India, this officer with about a decade of service was slowly eased out of the service. He worked as a pilot at the Mormugao anchorage, steering in foreign vessels into port.

 

Cmde. Menezes was wiser. He married a Goan – daughter of Justino Barreto who made Bank of India so popular in Margao that it had more deposits than the State Bank of India! Cmde. Menezes trained further with the Royal Navy at Greenwich in the UK, commanded the foxtrot class submarine INS Kalvari and the frigate INS Taragiri, was decorated for distinguished service, and retired as the Director of Submarine Operations at Naval HQ in New Delhi.

 

In 1961, Cmde. Menezes was a cadet at the Naval Dockyard in Bombay. He did a brief sea sortie to Goa in early 1962 on board the INS Beas, which was part of the naval battle at Mormugao with the Portuguese destroyer, NRP Afonso de Albuquerque – which Cmde. Menezes describes as a ‘junk’. After Albuquerque was refloated as the Sarasvati, she was towed to Bombay and moored alongside his training ship. He saw firsthand Salazar’s epitome of naval power in the defence of Goa!

 

Cmde. Menezes is aware of what exactly happened in the naval action in Goa in 1961 and has been quoted in Goa, 1961 – together with Lt Commander John Eric Gomes of Margao, now in Porvorim, the naval officer who was aboard the INS Cauvery (now Kaveri), whose 4-inch shell did the Albuquerque in (also quoted in the book).

 

Cmde. Menezes is the fifth (and last) of the veterans who graciously offered their comments on my forthcoming book, Goa, 1961.

 

It may interest the reader to note that seven out of twenty commissioned officers of Goan origin known to have taken part in Operation Vijay-1 came from the navy. They are:

 

*Captain Patrick Ivor Telles (a seasoned gunner of the Indian Navy who sailed aboard the INS Dharini with Captain H.A. Agate, Naval Officer-in-charge Goa, as his chief staff officer, later appointed Captain of Ports, Goa, and given Additional Goa Command of INS Angre until mid-1963),

*Captain A.F. Collaco (fleet operations officer of the then unified Indian Fleet who was aboard the surface action command ship, INS Mysore, but volunteered for action at Anjediva because of a communications emergency – he was a signals specialist),

*Surg. Commander Joseph G. Rodrigues (accompanied the naval Task Force to Goa on board the R Class destroyer INS Rajput),

*Surg. Commander Frederick Nazareth (accompanied the naval Task Force to Goa on board the surface action command ship, cruiser INS Mysore),

*Surg. Commander Joel de Sa Cordeiro (was onboard the carrier INS Vikrant from the time of the carrier’s arrival in India from the UK; Goa was her first op),

*Lt Commander John Eric Gomes (was onboard the Frigate No. 2, INS Cauvery, one of the three Indian assault warships that disabled the destroyer NRP Afonso de Albuquerque) and,

*Lieutenant Jose Figueiredo Melo (was on the anti-submarine frigate INS Kirpan, first deployed at Karwar on 28 November 1961 and was then part of the INS Vikrant carrier group).

 

There’s much more to be said about the nexus between the Indian Navy and Goans – but of that, another day, maybe another book! :-)

 

(CONCLUDES. Au revoir!)