PANAJI: While the Indian Army played a major role in Operation Vijay, which culminated in Goa’s Liberation on December 19, 1961, the two days of action were the first taste of combat for the Indian Navy post-independence.
About to come into its own, the Navy decided to dish out some strong lessons to the Portuguese. It started with Operation Chutney, which began as a surveillance patrol off Goa’s coast, but also helped prepare naval forces for an all-out attack on Anjadiv Island.
The attack on the Portuguese garrison on the island, which is located off the coast of Canacona, was necessitated after Portuguese soldiers resorted to unprovoked firing on Indian fishing vessels and a steamship, Sabarmati.
“The Navy’s role in Goa’s Liberation saw the force receiving its first Kirti Chakra,” said Commodore Srikant Kesnur in an article for a naval journal.
Rear Admiral Arun Auditto and Commander Noel Kelman earned gallantry awards for their role in evicting the Portuguese from Anjadiv, but Kelman’s heroics helped flush out the Portuguese from their fortified positions. But more of this later.
On December 1, as India finalised its ground assault plan, the Navy began a surveillance and patrolling exercise deploying two frigates, INS Betwa and INS Beas, to patrol 13km off Goa’s coast. Operation Chutney was on.
Based on intelligence gathered by the INS Betwa and INS Beas, the armed forces fine tuned Operation Vijay. The Indian Army would launch a ground attack while the naval task force was given the mission to capture Anjadiv, providing fire support and blockading the entire Goan coast.
The capture of Anjadiv was considered the primary task, says Rear Admiral Satyindra Singh in the book Blueprint to Bluewater.
The operation to capture Anjadiv was carried out by sending landing parties from INS Trishul and INS Mysore. Rear Admiral Arun Auditto was the officer-in-charge of the naval landing party as a young lieutenant.
“I took charge of the first wave of the assault party from Trishul, and we went peacefully towards the beach, and I began to believe that ‘surrender business’ was indeed true,” recounts Auditto, now 86. “We landed at the beach, took position around the beach and the boats were sent back to bring the second wave.”
Fifteen minutes into the assault, around 7.45am, as the second wave of the landing party was approaching Anjadiv, a Portuguese gun-post opened fire.
“Suddenly, all hell broke loose as sprays of machine-gun bullets opened up on the boat. Kelman, with great presence of mind, continued towards the beach, zigzagging the boat to counter the accuracy of the machine-gun fire. A few minutes later, by the time the boat beached, it had been riddled with bullets, three of his sailors were killed and he himself took two bullets, in both his legs,” said Auditto, who resides in Mumbai with his family.
For his heroics, Kelman was awarded the Ashoka Chakra, second class, now called the Kirti Chakra. “He was the first naval officer to win a gallantry award in post-Independence India,” said Kesnur.
After the parties from Trishul and Mysore had withdrawn to the beach, the Navy bombarded the island, forcing the Portuguese to surrender. Auditto’s landing party was instructed to take the prisoners of war and bring them on board the Mysore in boats.
The Indian Navy’s role saw the Indian tricolour was hoisted on top of a flagstaff on the island on December 18 afternoon, a day before Portuguese governor general Manuel Antonio Vassalo e Silva signed the instrument of surrender.