Lt Col Louis Fonseca was com. into the 8 Armoured Regiment (equipped with AMX light battle tanks) of the Armoured Corps. He commanded the armoured column that rolled into Goa during Op Vijay in Dec-1961.
Crossing the ghats and rivers whose bridges were detonated by the retreating Portuguese (who teasingly left an empty beer bottle at the standing end of every broken bridge), he was headed for Vasco-da-Gama via Margao. He dropped off en route, and nobody knew why.
He lined up all his tanks on the Verna Church foreground, to resume journey early the following morning, Dec 19. He pined for Goan food and knowing well that not one of his tanks would be required to fire a single shell, stopped overnight at the house of his aunt, a Gama from Verna! Lt Col Fonseca was older brother of Lt Col Ernest Fonseca. From Badem, Salvador do Mundo.
Source: Pages 87-88
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