AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 4 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 50 of 237 In 1967 he met his future wife Isabelle who was in the Military Nursing Service and visiting her uncle and aunt on holiday in Ambala. In 1968 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and married Isabelle on 12th September 1970 while still stationed in Ambala. In December of the same year he was sent to Bareilly to do a conversion course on the Sukhoi-7, Isabelle packed up their home of 3 months and moved to rented accommodation in the town. On completion of the course he was posted to Adampur where the couple house hopped just to be with each other while on the waiting list for a house. Laurie was now on the posted strength of No.26 Squadron, IAF. On 13th September 1971 he was the proud father to Nicole Annabelle. The family happiness was short lived when war broke out in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, escalating to the Western border. Laurie was deputed as Forward Air Controller with the 2nd Independent Armoured Brigade a powerful tank unit equipped with T55 tanks. Laurie was the dashing young officer who captured the hearts of the Brigade right from the first day of his deputation; he was loved for his warm and generous character and got on fabulously with the crew and fellow officers. One of the Army officers in the Brigade at that time was Lt Col J K Dutt, of the Central India Horse, who fondly remembers: "June 1971 was as hot as any summer in central India. We were out on a military exercise with full complements, far away from our cantonment at Bina near Jhansi. I was the Brigade Major of the Indian Army's 2nd Independent Armoured Brigade. My commander, Brigadier Roy Thumby had recently returned from an operational conference at HQ 1 Corps, Mathura. His grapevine conveyed that there would be a war with Pakistan before the year was out; so we were "shaking ourselves out" in exercise parlance, making sure that men and material were fully fit for battle. Being a tank brigade, we were on high priority for air support from the Indian Air Force. Arrangements for this were set in motion and soon enough, a dashing young Flight Lieutenant, Lawrence (Laurie) Pereira, joined us as our air support officer. He and I quickly got down to the business of processing air support for our projected operations. He was a thorough professional and the two of us made a good team. Laurie captured our hearts from the very first day. He got on fabulously with the tank crews who would welcome "Laurie Saab" with the traditional tanker's brew whenever an opportunity presented itself during the exercise. He took great pains to familiarise himself with the T 55 tank and ended up driving it like an expert. When the exercise finished after five days or so and time came for Laurie to go, he extracted a promise from Brig Thumby that should we go to war, the Brigadier would ask for Laurie by name as the air support officer for our Brigade . Brig Thumby readily agreed. We made Laurie an "Honorary Tanker" and presented him with the