Other Goan-origin Lieutenant Generals
Valmiki Faleiro
Other Goan-origin Lieutenant Generals
We have seen so far one Army Chief (Gen SF Rodrigues), one Vice Chief (Lt Gen Stanley Menezes) and two Lieutenant Generals who were Army Commanders (Lt Gen Eric Vas and Lt Gen Walter Pinto) of the Indian Army of Goan origin. Please note that Vice Chief and Army Commanders are equal in position, next only to the Army Chief.
Let us today, very briefly, glimpse at the other Lieutenant Generals who served the motherland with dedication and integrity, one of them as the Deputy Chief of the Indian Army and one serving.
Lieutenant General Christopher Anthony Barretto (“Bobby”), PVSM (Veteran) from Ganapoga-Raia was a Silver Medalist cadet commissioned in 1953 in the Corps of Engineers (Madras Engineer Group). As Lieutenant General, he was in the Adjutant General’s Branch at Army HQ and later was Commandant, College of Military Engineering, Pune. He was Commandant, Madras Engineer Group and, in 1984, was elected Colonel Commandant of the Regiment, which post he held for seven years (‘Colonel Commandant’ is a prestigious, much-coveted and rare honour that reflects the esteem of jawans for their officer). He retired in September 1991 and settled in Goa, where he passed away on 30 January 2021.
Born and bred in Nagpur, he was son of the illustrious dentist, Dr. Cristovam Filipe Eusebio Francisco Jose Ubaldino da Gama Barreto (1889-1972) who was the personal dentist to Mahatma Gandhi at the Wardha Ashram. Lt Gen Barretto was youngest of the 'famous four' Barretto Brothers – the eldest was Brigadier Terence Barretto with the Corps of Signals, followed by Wing Commander Cecil Barretto and by Brigadier Noel Barretto who was in the Artillery. What set them apart was their helpfulness and a perennially positive attitude. While the eldest is no more, the other two brothers live in Goa.
Lieutenant General Francis Tiburtius Dias (“Dick Dias”), PVSM, AVSM, Vr.C (Veteran) from Velsao was born in Pune 04 Oct 1934, educated at St Stanislaus High School and at St Xavier's College, both Jesuit institutions in Bombay. He was commissioned into the elite Gorkha Rifles Regiment in Dec 1954 – and was so bonded with his Gorkha men that he fluently spoke the Gorkhali language!
A 1971 war hero, he commanded 5/11 GR when he was given the crucial task of attacking the strongly held Bogra city in East Pakistan – which was district HQ, tactical HQ of Pak's 16 Infantry Division, and a large administrative and logistics base – from the West/South-West side on 14 Dec 1971 (Bogra was surrounded in other directions by the Indian forces).
The Battle of Bogra was perhaps the only 1971 battle fought in heavily built up areas, advantageous to the defender. It saw fierce fighting, street to street, house to house, room to room and hand to hand. 5/11 GR attained all its objectives in less than 48 hours.
Besides khukris, rifles, guns and grenades, every man of 5/11 GR carried (believe it or not) Molotov Cocktails ... Pak soldiers believed that death by fire would consign them to hell!
The fall of Bogra – leading to the capture of 345 Pak officers, 597 JCOs, 15,443 troops and 6,000 paramilitary personnel – hastened the liberation of Bangladesh.
Lt Gen Dias was awarded the Vir Chakra for this op. He was later Director General of Military Training, Corps Commander on the Indo-China border, Chief of Staff, Western Command and the first Chief of Staff, Southern Command. He retired in 1993 after nearly 40 years in the military uniform. He was elected the Colonel Commandant of the 11th Gorkha Rifles. He passed away on India's Republic Day in 2019.
He was older brother of Ivan Cardinal Dias who, in 2006, rose to be The Red Pope, the No.3 in the Vatican hierarchy after the Pope and the Secretary of State. Their father, Carlos Dias, was Deputy Secretary of the Home Department, Government of Maharashtra.
There were many illustrious Goan-origin military officers whose brother was a distinguished priest, bishop or higher. This probably was in keeping with the quintessential Goan dictum, 'Ek put devak, dusro povak, tisro devcharak' – one son for God (as a priest), another in service of the people (as a doctor, engineer, defence officer, etc.) and a third for the devil (the reader will imagine the vocations/professions). Ancient Indian wisdom held that keeping the devil content was almost as important as worshipping god.
Lieutenant General Kevin Louis D'Souza, PVSM, AVSM (Veteran) was originally from Mapusa, born in Clarke Town, Nagpur, son of the Director of Education of the state of Madhya Pradesh. He was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery in June, 1959. He served in all branches of the Field Artillery until March 1974, when he transferred to the Infantry and was with the Maratha Light Infantry. In 1975, his unit, 20 Battalion MLI, was converted into a Mechanised Infantry unit and re-designated as 10 Battalion Mechanised Infantry (a unit his son, when a Colonel – now a serving Brigadier – was to later command). In 1983, he raised the 2 Mechanised Brigade of the Indian Army.
As Commandant, Mechanised Infantry Regimental Centre in its initial years from 1985 to 1987, he took it to new heights by conceptualizing its layout and giving it further direction, the effect of which is felt even today. He was later Deputy Commandant and Chief Instructor at the IMA, Dehradun. He commanded an Infantry Division in J&K at the peak of militancy and then the II Strike Corps as GOC. He was Director General of the Mechanised Forces Directorate and hung up his spurs as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff in Dec-1996. He was elected Colonel Commandant of the Mechanized Infantry Regiment. He passed away in April, 1999.
Lieutenant General Michael ("Mike") Anthony Jude Fernandez, VSM, ADG SD (Serving) was promoted to the rank in May, 2022. Originally from Saligao, married in Aldona, he was born in Mokama-Bihar. His grandfather left Saligao to join the Indian Railways. His father too worked for the railways but permanently shifted to Bangalore. The future Lieutenant General completed early education at the ICSE-affiliated St Joseph's Boys High School and then pursued the 11-year ISC from Bishop Cotton Boys School, both in Bangalore. A gold medallist in Electrical Engineering from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, he was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers (Madras Sappers) in June 1988.
In a career spanning over 34 years, he served at Tawang on the Indo-China border, led an engineer regiment in the High Altitude Area of Kargil, was part of the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1989 to 1990, commanded an Amphibious Infantry Brigade and then an Infantry Division in the Desert Sector, in diverse terrains. He was a Sector Engineer on the staff in UNIFIL from 2001 to 2002. He represented the Indian Army on the UN CCW deliberations at the UN’s Geneva office in March 2019. He was Chief Editor of the Indian Army’s maiden edition of Blue Helmet Odyssey, a journal devoted to the UN Peacekeeping Force around the world, to which India contributed much since 1947. The edition was launched by the Indian Army Chief, Vice Chief and Deputy Chief after the ceremonial parade on Army Day, 15 January 2022.
(This first appeared in the Marathi language in Goa’s daily, Gomantak, 04 September 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.)
