NRP Afonso de Albuquerque - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was a warship of the Portuguese Navy

Portuguese Navy

The Portuguese Navy is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defence of Portugal....

, named after the 16th century Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque[p][n] was a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, an admiral whose military and administrative activities as second governor of Portuguese India conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian Ocean...

. She was destroyed in combat on 18 December 1961, defending Goa

Goa

Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

against the Indian Armed Forces

Indian Armed Forces

The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. They consist of the Army, Navy and Air Force, supported by three paramilitary forces and various inter-service institutions such as the Strategic Forces Command.The President of India is...

invasion

Invasion of Goa

The 1961 Indian annexation of Goa , was an action by India's armed forces that ended Portuguese rule in its Indian enclaves in 1961...

.

The ship was the first of the Afonso de Albuquerque class, which also included the NRP Bartolomeu Dias. These ships were classified, by the Portuguese Navy, as avisos coloniais de 1ª classe (colonial aviso

Aviso

An aviso , a kind of dispatch boat or advice boat, survives particularly in the French navy, they are considered equivalent to the modern sloop....

1st class) and were designed to maintain a Portuguese naval presence in the Overseas territories of Portugal

Portuguese Empire

The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

. They had limited capacity to combat other surface vessels, as they were intended, mainly, to support amphibious operations and troops on land.

After the Second World War, the Afonso de Albuquerque class ships were reclassified as frigate

Frigate

A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...

s.

In her career, the NRP Afonso de Albuquerque served, mainly, in the Indian

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

and the Pacific ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

s, protecting the Portuguese territories of Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, India

Portuguese India

The Portuguese Viceroyalty of India , later the Portuguese State of India , was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de...

, Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

and Timor

Portuguese Timor

Portuguese Timor was the name of East Timor when it was under Portuguese control. During this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Netherlands East Indies, and later with Indonesia....

.

In 1945, she was part of the Portuguese Naval and Military Force that regained the Portuguese sovereignty over Portuguese Timor

Portuguese Timor

, after that territory had been occupied by the Japanese

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

, during the Second World War.

The final combat

In late 1961, the NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was based in Goa

Goa

as the leading naval unit of the Portuguese India Naval Command, with Captain Cunha Aragão as her commanding officer.

Unable to convince Portugal to relinquish its colonies in the Indian subcontinent, India launched Operation Vijay to seize Goa

Goa

, Daman and Diu by force.

In the early morning of the 18 December 1961, the Afonso de Albuquerque received information that the Indian Armed Forces

Indian Armed Forces

had launched Operation Vijay. The crew entered battle stations.

As the land communication infrastructure was bombed and destroyed by the Indian Air Force

Indian Air Force

The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...

, the Afonso received the responsibility to maintain radio communications between Goa and Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

.

At 09:00, the Afonso de Albuquerque sighted 3 Indian Navy ships, led by INS Betwa

INS Betwa

The following ships of the Indian Navy have been named INS Betwa:*INS Betwa was a Type 41, Leopard class frigate commissioned in 1960, which served in the Portuguese-Indian War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971...

, just outside the Mormugao

Mormugao

Mormugao or Marmagao is a city and a municipal council in South Goa district in the Indian state of Goa. It is Goa’s main port. It was featured in the 1980 film The Sea Wolves and the Bollywood film Bhootnath....

port. The 2 frigates and a minesweeper were an advance group of an Indian Navy

Indian Navy

The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. The President of India serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff , usually a four-star officer in the rank of Admiral, commands the Navy...

task force which included the aircraft carrier

Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

, INS Vikrant

INS Vikrant

INS Vikrant was a Majestic-class light aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy.Her keel was laid down on 12 November 1943 by Vickers-Armstrong on the Tyne and she was launched on 22 September 1945....

and about ten cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

s, destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s, frigate

Frigate

s and minesweepers

Minesweeper (ship)

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...

.

At 12:00 noon, as the Portuguese commanders refused to surrender, the Indian frigates INS Betwa

INS Betwa

and INS Beas

INS Beas

The following ships of the Indian Navy have been named INS Beas:*INS Beas was a Type 41, Leopard class frigate commissioned in 1960, which served in the Portuguese-Indian War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971...

forced the entrance into the port, and opened fire on NRP Afonso de Albuquerque. Afonso moved in the direction of the enemy ships and responded to fire. At the same time, the final radio message was sent to Lisbon: We are being attacked. We are responding.

However, the Afonso was hit by the enemy fire. At the 12:20 when she tried to manoeuvre to a position in which she could use all its guns, the command bridge of Afonso was hit, killing the radio officer and seriously wounding Captain

Captain (nautical)

A sea captain is a licensed mariner in ultimate command of the vessel. The captain is responsible for its safe and efficient operation, including cargo operations, navigation, crew management and ensuring that the vessel complies with local and international laws, as well as company and flag...

Cunha Aragão. The captain ordered the first officer

Executive officer

An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...

Sarmento Gouveia, to assume command of the ship with instructions not to surrender. Under heavy fire directed at the ship, some of the crew evacuated the injured commander to the shore

Shore

A shore or shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In Physical Oceanography a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, while the beach is at the edge of the shore,...

, and transferred him by car to medical facilities at Panjim.

At 12:35, under massive fire and, already, with the boilers and the machines destroyed, the Afonso crew ran it aground onto the beach

Beach

A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...

to be used as a fixed battery. The crew continued to resist and fight until about the 14:10. The crew was then taken prisoner

Prisoner

A prisoner is someone incarcerated in a prison, jail or similar facility.Prisoner or The Prisoner may also refer to:* Prisoner of war, a soldier in wartime, held as by an enemy* Political prisoner, someone held in prison for their ideology...

by Indian forces on the next day at 20:30.

During her last combat, it is estimated that the NRP Afonso de Albuquerque fired almost 400 shells

Shell (projectile)

A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...

. 5 of her crew

Crew

A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard...

died, and 13 crewmen, as well as some officers, were injured. The advantage of the Indian Navy was significant, as their ships were more modern and armed with quick firing guns.

The Afonso lay grounded at the beach near Dona Paula

Dona Paula

Dona Paula is a former village, and tourist destination, in the suburbs of Panaji, Goa, India. It is today home to the National Institute of Oceanography, and just alongside it lie the Goa University and the International Centre Goa...

, until 1962 when it was towed to Bombay. Parts of the ship were recovered and are on display at a museum in Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

. The remainder of the ship

Ship

Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...

was sold as scrap

Scrap

Scrap is a term used to describe recyclable and other materials left over from every manner of product consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has significant monetary value...

External links

Jane's Fighting Ships 1938, p. 398.
Area Militar: the Afonso de Albuquerque
Image
http://www.marinha.pt/Conteudos_Externos/RevistaArmada/_flipversion/2001/index.html

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