38. The Navy Bashes In
Valmiki Faleiro
38. The Navy Bashes In
The Indian Navy was tasked with blockading Goa, taking out the sole defending destroyer at Mormugao, taking over the port, and capturing Anjediva. The island became an all-Navy job because the Army said it had no resources to spare (a stance since questioned, more on this below).
The Navy deployed 16 warships and one oil tanker (Task Force 332) for the purposes. As already seen, there was false intelligence of the presence in Goa of four surface warships, three S class submarines and possible Pakistan and NATO intervention.
The INS Vikrant and her carrier group of five warships were deployed to resist any attempt of external intervention. Patrolling 50 miles or 80 kilometres seaward, the group blockaded Goa by gaining control of all seaward approaches. Carrier borne Alizé anti-submarine aircraft reconnoitered the seas and Sea Hawk fighter aircraft stood by to strike any Portuguese warship slipping out of Goa and reaching within gun range of Indian Territory, especially Bombay.
Minesweepers sanitised entry to Mormugao harbour (and would continue sanitising Panjim harbour at the end of hostilities). The support vessel, INS Dharini as well as the oil tanker of the fleet, INS Shakti stood by.
The Navy's assault squadron of three frigates – INS Betwa, INS Cauveri and INS Beas – positioned eight miles off the Goa coast, then bashed in to neutralise any coastal battery opening fire, blockade the port to ensure that no Portuguese ships entered or exited (non-Portuguese merchant vessels were allowed free egress), and then took on the lone Portuguese destroyer, NRP Afonso de Albuquerque, from the morning of 18 December 1961 (more on that naval battle another day).
Cruiser INS Mysore, the command ship for the surface action at Mormugao and Anjediva under Captain (later Rear Admiral) Douglas St. John Cameron, and frigate INS Trishul under Captain (later Vice Admiral) KL Kulkarni were tasked to capture the Anjediva Island.
Anjediva was a historic isle that provided refreshing water to discoverer Vasco da Gama in 1498 and shelter and water to conqueror Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510. It was celebrated as an "isle of love" by poet Luis Vaz de Camões in Os Lusíadas. Now was the turn of the two Indian warships to record some history on the island (today part of the Indian Navy's INS Kadamba, the largest integrated naval base in Asia, the brainchild of Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Oscar Stanley Dawson in the early 1980s).
The island was defended by some 36 Portuguese troops, at least one of them Goan.
While INS Mysore, positioned north east of Anjediva, would provide cover fire, INS Trishul, positioned close to Binge Bay near Karwar towards the south east, would land three assault parties on the island. Some 75-80 officers and sailors from the gunnery school at the naval station INS Venduruthy at Cochin were hurriedly trained for this novel duty. They were rushed through basic land-fighting training, like army-style firing, crawling with heavy loads of weapons and ammunition in hilly terrain resembling Anjediva.
Keeping a watch for opposition from the island with her 4.7 inch Bofors gun, INS Trishul would lower the boats. After a burst on the beaches with close range weapons (40 mm Bofors guns), the landing parties would be sent, one after the other, in a motorboat with a towing whaler and a LMG mounted on the bow. If the situation was favourable, INS Mysore would provide a motor cutter and a whaler to expedite the landings.
The operation began at 7.00 am on 18 December 1961. The first assault party, Rustum, led by Lieutenant (later Rear Admiral) Arun Auditto, later a submarine specialist, landed successfully at 7.15 am. It proceeded to the island's beach without any resistance.
As the second assault party led by Lieutenant (later Commander) Noel Kelman, a senior commissioned naval gunner, approached the island by 7.45 am, he saw a white flag going up near Lima beach (the Portuguese said that political prisoners detained at the fort hoisted the flag – though white flags went up from different points on the island, as seen from the Indian warships).
The white flags seemed to confirm the initial suspicion that the defenders wanted to surrender, as they had not resisted the first landing. The second landing party relaxed guard and continued towards the island.
The Portuguese Bateria de Artilharia 2 (B. Art. 2) suddenly opened machinegun fire. Lieutenant Kelman pressed ahead towards the beach, zigzagging his boat to avoid the gunfire. By the time the bullet-riddled boat beached, three of his men were killed and Lieutenant Kelman was wounded in both legs. Radio-telephony also failed.
Commander (later Captain) AF Collaco, a Goan with a smattering of the Portuguese language (he later interrogated the POWs), a specialist in Naval Communications, was the Fleet Operations Officer of the Indian Fleet aboard the INS Mysore. He volunteered to lead a team ashore to re-establish communications and aid the landing parties. He had not even used his personal handgun. The surface action Commander and skipper of the INS Mysore, Captain Douglas St. John Cameron, reluctantly allowed him to go.
Commander Collaco soon got a team with two wireless operators with backpack radios and two signals sailors with portable ‘Aldis’ signalling lamps. An IAF Squadron Leader, a liaison officer on board the INS Mysore, with a cameraman joined them. On landing safely, Cdr Collaco quickly re-established communications between the landing parties and the ships, and, taking Lt Kelman’s combat sailors, went in aid of the landing parties. When he and the party advanced to capture a wireless transmitter, they were fired upon from the church, killing one sailor.
All assault parties were ordered to descend to the beaches. The two Indian warships then pounded the Portuguese positions with high explosive shells as well as 40 mm Bofors guns, taking care to avoid the two churches. In the words of Cdr Collaco, “…trees being uprooted by Trishul's firing, scenic beauty mixed with death and devastation. It was all over soon...”
Seven defenders were killed, four wounded. According to a report quoted by author Shrikant Ramani, Portuguese fatalities included Damuno Vassu Canencar [Damu Vassu Kanekar, a Goan] (Ramani, 2008, Page 342). Casualties on the Indian side were seven killed, two officers and 22 sailors wounded. Twenty-one defenders surrendered at about 4.30 pm.
Of four of the rest, two were smoked out the next day, one was stung by sea urchins to death while private Manuel Caetano managed to swim to the mainland. He was fed, sheltered and advised to turn himself in by a Karwar fisherman family. He surrendered to Karwar police on 22 December 1971. In all, 24 were taken POW. The Indian tricolour went up the flag mast at Anjediva at 2.25 pm, 19 December 1961, after the Indian naval forces were held at bay for some 30 hours.
For more on the naval operations and the role of Commander AF Collaco (he was awarded a M-in-D for the major role he played in mopping up remnants of the Portuguese garrison at Anjediva), see The Sun Sets on Protugal’s Asian Empire: Liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu, Page 336 of the account, Page 47 onwards of the PDF document available at:
https://www.indiannavy.nic.in/sites/default/themes/indiannavy/images/pdf/chapter12.pdf
When the INS Mysore returned to Mormugao, Captain HA Agate, Naval Officer-in-Charge for the Goa ops, gave Cdr Collaco the keys to a captured jeep. With Surg Cdr Frederick Nazareth of INS Mysore, they went visiting Cdr Collaco's relatives, reportedly at an aristocratic house in Margao. “Are the Indians coming to burn us all?” the relatives asked. “The only thing burning will be the two tongues of these Indians after eating your sorpotel and drinking your Johnnie Walker” Cdr Collaco said. “At least our relatives were reassured but it took quite a bit of Scotch to complete the job. They had much more reassurance and much less Scotch. They could hardly believe that they had become as much Indian as we were. They still felt they were Portuguese subjects,” Cdr Collaco is quoted as saying at Chapter 12 of the Indian Navy’s 1961 account.
Despite the injuries in both legs, Lieutenant Kelman continued to assist in the operations throughout the day. It was only at end of ops – after the National Flag was hoisted at Anjediva – that he went for medical attention.
Lieutenant Noel Kelman won the Indian Navy's first Kirti Chakra, India’s second highest peacetime gallantry award then called the Ashoka Chakra Class II. He was also the first Indian Naval Officer to win a gallantry award in post independent India. Lieutenant Arun Auditto, shot in the shoulder, was decorated with a peacetime award (Nao Sena Medal). Chief Petty Officer, Gunnery Instructor Ali Mohammed was awarded the Ashoka Chakra Class III (Shaurya Chakra) for his gallant role. Others were also decorated but none were given War Gallantry awards because, like Hyderabad, India dubbed this a 'police action'.
Commander Noel Kelman, who was decorated in World War II for his role in sinking a Japanese submarine, later was the Commanding Officer of Goa Naval Area and lived in Goa after retirement still coping with the consequences of the 1961 injury in his legs, until he passed away at 92 on 23 August 2019. The Navy built memorials at Anjediva and INS Gomantak at Vasco da Gama in memory of the fallen heroes.
The Navy’s capture of Anjediva on its own has been questioned. Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam (Veteran) writes, “A small amphibious force comprising trained army units of even a platoon or company strength may have done the job in a more professional manner. In a scathing critique of the operation, Major General D.K. Palit, then a brigadier and director of military operations, recounts how he had identified a platoon of Gorkhas from the 4th Battalion of the 9th Gorkha Rifles and had them positioned in Bombay. To his surprise the GOC-in-C, Lieutenant General Chaudhuri had no intentions of sharing any glory with the Indian Navy and decided that if the army had to assault Anjadiv, it would do so on its own despite having no expertise. Bravely, the navy attempted it, but succeeded against amateurish opposition only after suffering heavy casualties…” (Subramaniam, India’s Wars, 2016, Page 193).
Among the naval Goans who participated in Op Vijay-1 were Commander AF Collaco and Surgeon Commander Frederick Nazareth both aboard the INS Mysore (from Nachinola), Surgeon Commander Joseph G Rodrigues on the INS Rajput (from Piedade-Divar), Surgeon Commander Joel de Sa Cordeiro aboard the INS Vikrant (from Piedade-Divar), Lieutenant Commander John Eric Gomes on the assault frigate INS Cauvery (from Margao) and Lieutenant Jose Figueiredo Melo on the anti-submarine corvette INS Kirpan, initially deployed at Karwar from 28 November 1961 that was the first to enter Goan waters on 15 December 1961 (from Saligao).
-- 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:
1. Cdr Noel Kelman (courtesy: ANI News)
2. Rear Adm Arun Auditto (source unknown)
3. Frigate INS Trishul (press handout)
