OBITUARY – BRIGADIER T. BARRETO
By
Maj
Gen VK Singh (Retd)
Brigadier Terence Barreto is no
more. They say that old soldiers never die – they just fade away. And so it
will be with Tery Barreto, the name by which he was known by almost everyone.
The Corps of Signals was his first love and anyone who has worn a Jimmy on his
cap will do well to cherish his memory. He was a signaller in the truest sense,
who did more for the Corps than anyone I can think of.
Tery was commissioned into
the Indian Signal Corps (ISC) on 22nd December 1940. During WW II,
he saw active service in Burma as part of 5th Divisional Signals. He
participated in the famous battle of the Ngakedauk Pass, the relief of Imphal
and Kohima and the battle of Meiktila. Soon after the end of the war, he was
given command of ‘G’ Company in the STC which had been the first to mutiny in
February 1946. During his service, Tery held almost all important appointments
in the Corps – DCSO J&K; Commandant STC; Deputy Director Signals; CSO of
Southern and Western Commands; and Commandant School of Signals, from where he
retired in 1965.
Tery was our first Corps
Historian. He authored the first volume of the Corps History covering the
period form the birth of the Corps in 1911 to the outbreak of WW II in 1939.
Before he retired prematurely in 1965, he had finished the manuscript. But the
volume was published ten years later, in 1975. An account of how this came
about is given as an appendix titled ‘History of the Corps History’ in Volume
II of the Corps History. Apart from
writing the first volume, he had also collected a considerable amount of material
for the subsequent volumes.
The task of
compiling the history of the Corps was undertaken by him entirely on his own,
shortly after Independence. Soon, this came to the knowledge of the SO-in-C,
Brigadier Akehurst and Maj Gen Iyappa who succeeded him in 1954. After Tery
moved to Poona as CSO Southern Command, he was nominated Chairman of the Corps
History Committee in 1957, an appointment he held until his retirement in 1965.
Later, he was also Chairman of the Corps Tradition Sub-Committee, which was tasked to examine
Corps customs and traditions. After his retirement in 1965, no officer was
found suitable to replace him and both committees became defunct.
It is difficult to
list the contributions of Tery Barreto to the Corps - there were just too many.
Almost every regimental institution in Signals was suggested,
conceived, established and nurtured by him. Apart from the Corps History that
was his most abiding and well-known achievement, he played vital roles in
designing and setting up establishing the Corps Museum, War Memorial,
Regimental Colours, Corps Flag, Headquarters Mess, Roll of Honour, Honours and
Awards, the Corps Band, the football and hockey teams and many others.
Like
the Corps History, Tery started collecting signal
equipment for a museum at Jabalpur
on his own initiative in 1948 when was commanding the Technical Training Regimental. The
first pieces to be exhibited were a DIII telephone which he purchased from a kabari (scrap dealer) for five rupees at Kamptee and an SX-DX baseboard which he
obtained from an Ordnance depot. In subsequent years, he built up the
collection by contributing many more items. After becoming Chairman of the Corps
History Committee, he literally pestered CSOs and COs to contribute obsolete
equipment and documents of archival value. He thus laid the foundation of the
Corps Museum that is today a show piece of the Corps.
In 1959 the Corps Committee
entrusted the task of designing the memorial to Tery. He chose the site, designed the memorial, selected
the material and the inscription that was to be written on it -“In Memory of Those Who Gave Their Lives In
the Service of The Country”. The
War Memorial was unveiled on in February 1961, during the Golden Jubilee
Reunion at Jabalpur. The total cost of the project was Rs. 8,309.
Another institution that bears Tery’s
unmistakable imprint is the Headquarters Mess in Mhow. For the first three
years of its existence, it was personally overseen by Tery who was the
Commandant of the School of Signals. He carried out wide ranging improvements
that laid the groundwork of all that we see in the mess today. These include
placing the brass statuette of Mercury from the Bengal & Assam Signal
Regiment Sergeants Mess in the centre of the hall; the carved half-round side
table in the foyer (presented by Tery himself); construction of show cases to
display the pre-war mess jackets presented by Major General BD Kapur and Brigadier
BS Bhagat; the Katangese Flag presented by Lieutenant Colonel PK Roy Chowdhury;
the Italian sword presented by Brigadier Bhagat; development of the rear garden
with lawns, paved pathways and a pond; and dozens of others. Some of the additions
and alterations that he had planned or started – the verandah in front of the
lounge and dining room, a cycle and scooter shed, a roof for the rear patio, a
shelter for officer’s bearers etc. - were still not completed when he left in
1965
After his retirement in 1965, Brigadier
Barreto had initially settled down in Jabalpur. Subsequently, after becoming a
widower, he moved to the Shanti Bhawan, a shelter for the destitute in the
Mother Teresa Ashram that he dedicated to Missionaries of Charity. Not many
people know that that his father, Dr. Christopher Barreto, was for some time
the personal dentist of Mahatma Gandhi.
Tery breathed his last on 16th
August 2014 in his home in Mother Theresa Ashram in Nagpur, where he had been
living alone for several years after he became a widower. He leaves behind
three sons and a daughter. His three brothers, who followed him into the Army,
live in Goa. Strangely enough, his
passing away went almost unnoticed by everyone in the Corps. One officer, one
JCO and two signalmen attended his funeral at Nagpur, where his funeral pyre
was lit by his daughter Maya Maker.
The famous lines,
quoted below, were never so true, as in case of Tery Barreto:
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As
they carried his body to the ramparts..."
8 Feb 2017
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