Ex-Services news

Felicitation

The Army Signals Association President and executive committee held a felicitation ceremony for the Colonel Commandant, senior officers and the Regimental Headquarters Sri Lanka Signal Corps staff on June 30 at the Ex- Servicemen's Institute, Colombo.

Colonel Commandant Major General Piyal Abeysekera, Brigade Commander Brigadier Nilantha Hettiarachchi of the Signal Corps and Major General C J Abayaratna former President of the Signal Association were present. Signals Association President Brigadier K A Gnanaweera welcoming the guests thanked the Colonel Commandant and his staff for their support to the association throughout.

Visit to Veterans' Home

Thirty members of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service 1974 batch visited the SLESA Elders Home at Bolegala, Katana on July 1. The day marked the SLAS 1974 batch 38th anniversary.

The members comprised recently retired public servants who held senior posts including heads of ministries and who served throughout the country including the North and East.

Senior civil servants were happy to have had the opportunity to interact with the ex-servicemen, some of whom were World War II veterans.

The former SLAS officers toured the premises and enjoyed visiting the inmates in their residential quarters as well as interacting with them, and the camaraderie and fellowship that followed which ended with a lunch together with the inmates.

In an address on behalf of the SLAS officers, they expressed their sincere appreciation for the selfless services extended by these veterans, reiterated their gratitude and wished them a well deserved period of retirement.

They prayed for their continued good health and a contented life. This visit was organised by former Veterans' Home chairman Colonel Faiz-ur-rahman and SLAS 1974 batch member.

Executive Committee Meetings

Sri Lanka Army Medical Corp Association Executive Committee Meeting will be held on July 7 at 9 am at the SLESA Secretariat.

Sri Lanka Ex-Army Women's Association Executive Committee Meeting will be held on July 7 at 1.30pm at the SLESA Secretariat while the Sri Lanka Ex-Naval Logisticians Association Executive Committee Meeting will be held on July 8 at 11 am at the SLESA Secretariat.

Curtain making course

A course on curtain making ended on June 19 with a grand party held on July 2 at the Sri Lanka Ex-Servicemen's Association Headquarters. The course was conducted by eminent fashion designer Deepthi Hettiarachchi of Polgasovita.

The participants were ex-service women from the Army, Navy and Air Force, Jayanthi Seneviratne, Wasantha Malini Piyadigama, Jinadari Karunasena, Anusha Perera, Shaam Jayatillake, Indrani Jayasinghe, Renuka Edwin, Kumari Wickramasinghe, Chulani Sirimewan, Devika Wasanthi Kumari Karunatillake and Shamali Damayanthi.

Sustainable Development Committee

Major General P Chandrawansa (Chairman), Cdr. D P Nandasiri, Col. H G W Pathmasiri, Major H M S S K Godamune, Capt. S Djinadasa, B G Kularatne and Hemantha Soyza

Ceylon during the 1939 - 1945 war

During the 1939 - 1945 war, Ceylon was of vital importance in preserving communications between East and West and acting at base from which operations were conducted. When Japan entered the war in 1941, however, the existing defences of the island were dangerously weak and the Japanese could have destroyed the naval bases at Colombo and Trincomalee from the air, as they did Pearl Harbour. Early in 1942, from the meagre forces then available, reinforcements were hurried to Ceylon. There were already on the island two Indian brigades and two brigades of local troops, two Australian brigades of the 6th Division were sent (although these were later returned to Australia for political reasons) and the 21st East African Brigade (subsequently sent to Burma) arrived. Two new airfields were built- one at Ratmalana and one at China Bay near Trincomalee, and a runway was quickly constructed on the golf course at Colombo.

Hurricanes Mark 1 and Mark 11 belonging to No 30 and No 201 squadrons R A F were sent from the Middle East by the aircraft carrier H M S Indomitable, arriving on March 6 and 7 and were shortly joined by No 11 Squadron R A F and No 113 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. By the end of the month, 50 Hurricanes, 14 Blenheims, six Catalina flying boats and a small number of Fleet Air Arm Fulmara and Alhacores were ready to go into action.

These preparations were completed only just in time. A Japanese naval raid into Indian waters took place in early April. The bulk of the Eastern Fleet, which made up to a strength of five battleships, three aircraft carriers, seven cruisers, 15 destroyers and five submarines, were refueling at Addu Atoll, the new secret naval base 400 miles in the south west. Colombo was attacked by carrier borne aircraft on April 5 and Trincomalee on April 9.

Warning of the approach of the enemy, given by patrolling Catalina flying boats, enabled the defenders to disperse shipping in these ports, but two naval vessels in Colombo harbour were sunk and a merchant ship set on tire, and the harbour workshops were badly damaged. Two eight inch cruisers, H M S Dorsetshore and H M S Gorncall, were attacked and sunk by Japanese aircraft a few hours after leaving the harbour, but 1,100 of the 1,500 aboard the two ships were picked up by the cruiser H M S Enterprise and two destroyers, H M S Paladin and H M S Panther, summoned by a recon aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm.

On April 9 the enemy concentrated on China Bay airfield and on the Trincomalee dockyards, which suffered considerable damage. On both occasions our fighters inflicted very considerable losses on the enemy aircraft and suffered some losses themselves. Five of the Blenheim bombers sent to attack the Japanese aircraft carriers were lost, but four Zero fighters were shot down. While the attack on Trincomalee was in progress the aircraft carrier H M S Hermes, the destroyer Vampire of the Royal Australian Navy, which was with her, and a corvette, H M S Hollyhock, were sunk in the waters around Ceylon.

Altogether during the five days (April 5 to 9 inclusive) 15 ships sunk by enemy aircraft were lost to the guns of the Hurricanes and Fulmars a month later, only two of the five Japanese aircraft carriers could take part in the battle of the Coral Sea. The other three were still in Japan renewing their complement of aircraft and pilots.

Ceylon was not attacked again and carried on unhindered her functions as a naval and air force base and a training ground for jungle warfare for troops destined to take part in the recovery of Burma. Among the units trained on the island were the 1st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment (at Kalutara) ; 2nd Battalion Border Regiment (at Horana, Kurunegala and Peradeniya in succession); 21st (East Africa) Brigade ; 25th (East Africa) Division. Colombo and Trincomalee were the main naval bases for South-East Asia Command and in April 1944 the Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia transferred his Headquarters from Delhi to Kandy, where they remained until moved to Singapore in late November 1945.

Ceylon was also a leave centre and hospital base. No. 35 British General Hospital was established in January 1943 and was still there in December 1945 and No. 15 British General Hospital was in Colombo from January 1944 until February 1945.

Save for those killed during the enemy attacks in April 1942, the men and women of the forces who gave their lives while serving in Ceylon during the war years died of sickness or through accident. Those buried or commemorated in eight different cemeteries in the country (two of which also contain 1914-1918 War graves) were 2,044. Of the special memorials mentioned in the footnotes to the classification type A, with the superscription "known to be buried in this cemetery", commemorate men known to have been buried in a particular cemetery whose graves cannot be traced; type C, which have the superscription "Buried near this spot", commemorate men known to have been buried in a particular cemetery group of graves in a cemetery, but whose graves in other cemeteries in Ceylon are lost. The special memorials E record the original burial place and bear the quotation "Their glory shall not be blotted out".

Trincomalee War Cemetery

Trincomalee, a seaport on the north-eastern coast of Ceylon easily accessible by rail or road from Colombo, is a naval station. After the fall of Singapore it became a naval base of importance to allied command of shipping in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

The war cemetery is in the jungle, about three miles outside the town of Trincomalee in Kuchchaveli on the Nilavelli road. It was originally the Combined Services Cemetery, but was taken over by the Admiralty from the military authorities in April 1948 for use as a permanent naval cemetery.

On the withdrawal of United Kingdom Forces from Ceylon it became the property of the Ceylon government who granted the commission security of tenure in perpetuity. Save for a few post-war and non-war graves it is purely a war cemetery and service war graves were transferred to it from Trincomalee (St. Mary's) Churchyard, Trincomalee (St. Stephen's) Cemetery, Kottadi Cemetery, Jaffna and Vavuniya Combined Cemetery. The total number of burials as special memorial commemorates a naval man buried in Trincomalee (St. Stephen's) Cemetery whose grave could not be found.

The non-war graves are those of merchant Navy men whose deaths were not due to war service and under the heading "Miscellaneous", are civilian employees of the Admiralty (6), ex-servicemen whose death was not due to their war service (3), a civilian member of Force (136) and two other civilians, who were buried either in a war cemetery or a war graves plot.

The post-war graves under the same heading at the graves were of dependents of ex-servicemen (5), civilian employees of the Admiralty (10) and dependents of such employees (6).