Lt. Gen. Walter Anthony Gustavo (“WAG”) Pinto, PVSM (Veteran)

[Valmiki Faleiro]

Lt. Gen. Walter Anthony Gustavo (“WAG”) Pinto, PVSM (Veteran)

 

Scion of the well-known ‘Gustavo Pinto’ family of Santa Cruz/Kalapur (which descended from a ‘Nayak’ who owned vast property from Campal, Gaspar Dias, Santa Inez, Taleigao, Caranzalem, Vainguinim, Bambolim to St Cruz, “a mighty fortune and also a misfortune”), Lieutenant General Walter Pinto was born 01 Jul 1924 in Pune. He studied at St. Aloysius Boys High School and Robertson College, both in Jabalpur, before passing out from the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun in 1943.

 

He was one of only four cadets commissioned into the much sought-after Infantry Branch among 200-odd cadets in the course. He was allotted his first choice of regiment, the 13 Frontier Force Rifles (“Piffers”), then considered the most elite branch of the Indian Army, now in Pakistan. The Piffers rifle regimental centre was in Abbottabad, where US Seals finally got Osama bin Laden in 2011.

 

He saw active World War II action in Burma with 7 Infantry Division and after V-day, in Thailand, disarming and accepting surrender of the Imperial Japanese Army.

 

During Partition, he opted for secular India. In August 1949, General KM Cariappa, Chief of the Indian Army, raised the Brigade of Guards. Four of the oldest battalions of the Indian Army (1 RajRif, 1 Rajput, 1 Grenadiers and 2/2 Punjab) were converted to Guards. Then a Major, he was selected to the first batch of officers in the Brigade of Guards and posted to its 3 Battalion (1 RajRif) at Rashtrapati Bhavan – one of the units to march past in the historic first Republic Day Parade held at Irwin Stadium on 26 Jan 1950.

 

Promoted to Brigadier in Sept 1967 and posted to the 66 Mountain Brigade, this tenure offered a preview of the soldier’s brilliance at strategy. As commander of 66 (double six) at Binaguri, he checked the feasibility, with full-scale exercises, of his operational plans to capture large chunks of Pakistan in the event of a war. The exercises gave his Brigade its motto and nickname, Bash On Regardless Brigade, Double Six – closest to filmdom’s James Bond Brigade, Double Zero Seven.

 

Those out-of-the-box operational ideas soon came to the test in the 1971 war. As a Major General, he commanded the 54 Infantry Division, now added with the Poona Horse and the Hodson Horse, both tank regiments of the 16 Independent Armoured Brigade under Brigadier AS Vaidya, MVC, AVSM, 41 Independent Artillery Brigade under Brigadier Arjinder Singh and 9 Engineer Regiment under then Lieutenant Colonel (later Lieutenant General and Adjutant General of the Indian Army) BT Pandit.

 

(Note: Maj Gen Pinto is the first of the three Divisional Commanders of Goan origin in the 1971 war, the other two – Major General Benjamin Gonsalves and Major General Eustace D’Souza – we shall come to at a later date. Lt Gen Eric Vas and Lt Gen Stan Menezes, as already seen, played a role equivalent to Divisional Commanders during the 1971 war.)

 

The formation was one of the three infantry divisions of I Corps at the Shakargarh Bulge, strategically vital to both India and Pakistan. From here, Pakistan could capture Pathankot, isolate J&K and endanger North Punjab, while from the same place India could threaten the heartland of West Pakistan. Hence, I Corps – India's then only strike corps – was deployed here to meet anticipated Pak offensives. (As already seen, Chief of Staff of I Corps at this time was Maj Gen (later Lt Gen) Stanley Menezes, ex GOC 14 Infantry Division.)

 

Instead of waiting for a Pak offensive, Maj Gen Pinto crossed into Pakistan at 20.00 hours on 6 Dec 1971. He had the backing of his Corps Commander, Lt Gen KK Singh. At border crossings, he had boards put up for his troops that read, You are now entering Pakistan; No passports required; So Bash On Regardless!

 

Pakistan had prepared well to defend the route to its interiors, with extensive anti-tank ditches and very deep minefields. 54 Division crossed three minefields of unprecedented depth located from the border right up to the Basantar River deep inside Pakistan with such incredible speed that it is unlikely to be surpassed in the annals of Indian military history. At successive minefield safe lanes, Maj Gen Pinto had boards reading, Pak Mines Only; Bash On Regardless!  

 

He established a bridgehead across the Basantar River in the Zaffarwal Sector of West Pakistan after last light of 15 Dec 1971. Seeing the sheer audacity of the planned move, someone higher up radioed him, "WAG, don't stick your neck out." Replied the intrepid GOC from the battlefront, "Don't worry, it's my neck, not yours".

 

He daringly crossed the river during the night intervening 15-16 Dec 1971. Moment the bridgehead was established, 9 Engineer Regiment cleared the minefield and Poona Horse with 18 Rajputana Rifles (Rajrif) and the Mechanised Infantry Battalion expanded the bridgehead and broke out with artillery fire support, audacity and sheer daring.

 

In an ingenuously bold move, Maj Gen Pinto caught the Pakistanis by complete surprise, attacked the enemy firmly fixed at Supwal across the river from behind (Jarpal and Lohal), thus forcing the enemy to react and commit its theatre reserves at the place and time of his choosing.

 

Pakistan counter-attacked massively, not once but five times. In a desperate do-or-die, Pak rushed 8 Armoured Brigade (13 Lancers, 27 Cavalry and 31 Cavalry) together with 124 Infantry Brigade and 33 Infantry Brigade from Sind as reinforcements.

 

Maj Gen Pinto led the Battle of Basantar morning of 16 Dec 1971, fighting with an adverse ratio of three to six (or an enemy double in size, both in tanks and men). Then Captain with 9 Maratha Light Infantry in action at Basantar, Lieutenant Colonel Rosario D'Souza (now a Margao-based veteran) recalls Maj Gen Pinto moved around the area of action in an open jeep with just one escort jeep carrying his ADC and his Rover (jeep fitted with wireless sets) throughout the ensuing battle.

 

The historic Battle of Basantar was the biggest tank battle ever fought by the Indian Army, the biggest 1971 battle in the western front, and the last major battle of the 1971 Indo-Pak war – it actually catalysed the ceasefire as an alarmed USA moved the UN Security Council for the third time (two earlier attempts were vetoed by the USSR).

 

Had Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger played cool a few more days that ‘hot’ mid-Dec 1971 week in the Indian subcontinent, their successors would probably not have to chase Osama bin Laden near Lt Gen Pinto’s old Regimental Centre at Abbottabad! Pakistan had already lost more than a third of its Army, more than a third of its Navy and a quarter of its Air Force. It was in no position to counter-attack. Several Indian Army formations, free from the east from 14 Dec 1971, were being shifted to the western theatre. Pakistan could have been balkanized into three or so mutually hostile nations, leaving the rest of the world free from the scourge of terrorism and Project-706 that made Pakistan a nuclear power.

 

Indian gunnery skills ensued that Pak's 8 Armoured Brigade was pulverised. Pakistan Army regards Basantar as their most humbling defeat on the western front in 1971 besides the Battle of Longewala in Rajasthan, despite its numerical and qualitative superiority over the Indian forces.

 

Ceasefire came into effect from 20.00 hours 17 Dec 1971. Stories of Indian heroism were many. Suffice to say both PVCs awarded during the 1971 war in the western theatre, were bagged for the same battle and by the same formation, in a historic first. The 54 Infantry Division won in all 196 gallantry awards in the Battle of Basantar, more than any other division in the hoary history of the Indian Army.

 

Lt Gen Pinto, the Goan in the Rajputana Regiment, came to be known as “The Legend” in the Indian Army. The Rajputs elected him to the coveted post of Colonel of the Regiment in 1973, which he held until retirement.

 

General VK Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC, Chief of Army Staff (2010-12) and Union Minister since 2014, described Lt Gen Pinto in 2011 as one of the Indian Army's "foremost battle commanders" whose Battle of Basantar "has now passed into folklore in our glorious history." Lt Gen Pinto’s innovative tactics at Basantar are now part of the academic curriculum for army commanders.

 

Recalled Lieutenant General BT Pandit, PVSM, VrC (he was awarded the Vir Chakra for gallantry in Basantar), who retired as Adjutant General of the Indian Army, “Operationally [our commander] was a hard taskmaster and had little time for armchair strategists. On a personal plane, he was brave, kind hearted and of forgiving nature. Even in stressful situations, he retained and exhibited a unique sense of humour.” On the eve of the 49th anniversary of the Battle of Basantar (year 2020), also observed as 'Vijay Divas' (surrender of the East Pakistan Army took place the same day – 16 Dec 1971 – in Dacca), the 87-year-old Lt Gen BT Pandit visited his 97-year-old former divisional commander, which produced a memorable photograph of the two.

 

54 Infantry Division stayed in Basantar until March 1973, when it was ordered to home base in Secunderabad. When leave was opened, Maj Gen Pinto took time off and spent some days in Goa. He harboured ideas of leaving the army and starting a cashew grove on a hill called Condolem near Bambolim that he had inherited. "If Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer, could become President of the USA, there was no way of knowing what great future Pinto and his cashew nuts had ahead of him," he mused. His wife shot down his 'ramblings and babblings' (Pinto, Bash On Regardless: A Record of Life in War and Peace, 2011, Pages 108-109).

 

Lt Gen Walter Pinto was Director General Military Training, GOC XXXIII Corps, Commandant of the National Defence College, New Delhi and then the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Command, Lucknow, from which position he retired on 01 July 1982 after serving almost 40 years. He passed away in Pune 25 March 2021, aged 97.

 

(This first appeared in the Marathi language in Goa’s daily, Gomantak, 28 August 2022, and is 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.)