It took just over 40 hours of intense military action to dismantle Portugal’s 450-year grip on Goa, but the seeds for this momentous victory were sown months earlier, in Pune’s outskirts.
In a car trundling on narrow roads, defence minister V K Krishna Menon and acting Army chief Lieutenant General J N Chaudhuri decided that the time for diplomacy was over. Chaudhuri was asked to prepare a battle plan that would come to be known as Operation Vijay.
It was a bold, coordinated plan that saw the Indian Army, Navy, Air Force, and local freedom fighters uniting to expunge the colonial Portuguese from Goan soil. Brigadier A S Cheema says what distinguishes Operation Vijay of 1961 is the fact that this was India’s first tri-service joint operation where India, despite being a third world country, had taken unilateral action against a European nation.
The Indian Navy embarked on Operation Chutney, which began with routine surveillance off Goa’s coast, when the Portuguese opened fire on Indian fishing vessels and the steamship Sabarmati.
This provocation led to a daring naval operation against the Portuguese garrison on Anjediva Island. As Commodore Srikant Kesnur (retd) noted, this was the Indian Navy’s first significant battle, and it set the stage for a larger confrontation.
Portuguese governor general Manuel Antonio Vassalo de Silva surrenders
Meanwhile, the Indian Army marched into Goa — advancing from the north (Karwar), the south (Sawantwadi), and the southwest (Belgaum). By then, the Indian Air Force had already commenced bombing sorties on Dabolim, a key strategic point.
Four squadrons of the IAF began probing raids and bombing runs from Dec 16 with four Canberra aircraft flying over Goa. On Dec 18, six Indian Air Force Canberra bombers from Squadron 35 in Pune, escorted by four Hunter jets from Squadron 17 at Sambra, launched an audacious bombing raid on the Dabolim airstrip.
The raiding aircraft, laden with 1,000-pound bombs, were led by Commanding officer of Squadron 35 Wing Commander N B Menon.
Squadron Leader Vivian Christopher Goodwin, tasked with photographing the aftermath, recalled station commander Group Captain Sarosh Dastur’s warning, ‘No escort for you, but be careful.’
“We all wore civilian clothes under our overalls in case of having to eject,” says Goodwin.
While the Canberra bombers dropped 63,000 pounds of explosives on the airfield, the Hunters, led by Squadron Leader Jayawant Singh, took out the wireless station at Bambolim, a critical communication hub for the Portuguese forces.
Despite the carnage, two Portuguese transport aircraft managed a desperate flight to Karachi. Portuguese governor general Manuel Antonio Vassalo de Silva, realizing the inevitable, signed the surrender documents.
