Participation of Ceylon in World War II

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After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the British Crown Colony of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the collaborationist government of Sir Baron Jayatilleke assured the British King and his government of its continued support. British soldiers and sailors had been in occupation of the coastal areas of the island since 1796. The Royal Navy's East Indies Squadron had a base in Colombo and another in Trincomalee, on the other side of the island. It had a regular garrison of British troops.

The fixed land defences consisted of four coastal batteries at Colombo and five at Trincomalee. There was an aerodrome at Ratmalana near Colombo. Two more were rapidly built at Koggala near Galle and at China Bay near Trincomalee, and the Colombo Race Course was pressed into action as a temporary airstrip.

There was resistance to occupation, both against the Axis powers and against the colonial power, the British.

1 Sri Lankan forces
2 Anti-war Resistance movement
3 Cocos Islands Mutiny
4 Continued Resistance
5 References
- 5.1 Terminology
6 See also

[edit] Sri Lankan forces

The Ceylon Defence Force, which had been established in 1861, consisted of the

Ceylon Garrison Artillery (CGA)
Ceylon Light Infantry (CLI) - one battalion
Ceylon Mounted Rifles (CMR) – the cavalry element of the CLI
Ceylon Planters' Rifle Corps (CPRC)
Ceylon Engineers (CE)
Ceylon Supply & Transport Corps
Ceylon Volunteer Medical Corps
Cadet Battalion, Ceylon Light Infantry

The Royal Ceylon Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) had been formed in 1937 was mobilzed and taken over to the Royal Navy. An anti-submarine patrol vessel, the 365 ton Okapi was manned by the RCNVR.

These forces were mobilised on 2 September, the day before Britain declared war on Germany. The CGA was equipped with six-inch (152 mm) and nine-inch (227 mm) guns. Several of them were posted to the Seychelles and the Cocos Islands, accompanied by contingents of the CLI and the Medical Corps.

As the war progressed, the CDF was expanded. The CLI was increased to four battalions. The Ceylon Royal Artillery (CRA), the Post and Telegraph Signals, the Ceylon Railway Engineer Corps, the Ceylon Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Corps, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Ceylon Corps of Military Police, and the Ceylon Signals Corps were formed. The Colombo Town Guard , which had been disbanded earlier, was re-established.

[edit] Anti-war Resistance movement

There was considerable opposition to the war in Sri Lanka, particularly among the workers and the nationalists, many of the latter of whom hoped for a German victory. Among Buddhists, there was disgust that Buddhist monks of German origin were interned as 'enemy aliens' whereas German and Italian Roman Catholic priests were not. Two members of the Governing Party, Junius Richard Jayawardene (who later became President) and Dudley Senanayake (later Prime Minister), held discussions with the Japanese with a view to collaboration to oust the British. However, the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which led the independence and anti-war movements, made it clear that it did not side with either the Axis powers or the Allies and considered the struggle against the war an internationalist one.

Independence agitators turned to opposition to the Ministers' support for the British war effort. The local Ministers brought motions gifting the Sri Lankan taxpayers' money to the British war machine, which were opposed by the pro-freedom members of the State Council. Propaganda was carried out among the troops, Australian and British as well as indigenous.

Starting in November 1939 and during the first half of 1940 there was a wave of spontaneous strikes in the British-owned plantations, basically aimed at winning the right of organisation. There were two main plantation unions, Natesa Iyer's Ceylon Indian Congress and the All-Ceylon Estate Workers Union (later the Lanka Estate Workers Union, LEWU) led by Samasamajists.

In the Central Province the strike wave reached the zenith in the Mool Oya Estate strike, which was led by Samasamajists. After Mool Oya, the strike wave spread southward towards Uva, and the strikes became more prolonged and the workers began more and more to seek the militant leadership of the Samasamajists. The Trotskyist leader N.M. Perera addressed a large meeting in Badulla on 12 May, and the police were powerless to act, although it was banned. At Wewessa Estate the workers set up an elected council and the Superintendent agreed to act in consultation with the Workers' Council. An armed police party that went to restore 'law and order' was disarmed by the workers. The strike wave at last was beaten back by a wave of terror by the police, aided by floods which cut Uva off from the rest of the country for over a week.

However, the colonial authorities were finding that the independence struggle was getting too powerful. After Dunkirk, the British colonial authorities reacted in panic (as revealed in secret files released many decades later) and the LSSP State Council members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena and others were arrested on 18 June. The Samasamajist press was raided and sealed. Regulations were promulgated which made open party work practically impossible.

Italic textBold text===Japanese Attack===

With Japan's entry into the war, and especially after the fall of Singapore, Sri Lanka became a front-line British base against the Japanese. Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Ceylon. Air Vice Marshal John D'Albaic became Air Officer Commanding. Admiral Sir James Somerville was appointed commander of the British Eastern Fleet. he retreated with his main fleet to Addu Atoll in Maldives, leaving the Aircraft Carrier Hermes, escorted by the heavy cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire, and the Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Vampire in Sri Lanka.

After the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse and the fall of Singapore, British morale on the island dropped. The sinking of these two vast battleships was a shock to much of the world, and the dawning awareness of the superiority of aircraft carriers over destroyers increased dramatically. On Ceylon there understandably was much anxiety in the knowledge that a Japanese attack now appeared to be inevitable. A large sea turtle which came ashore was reported by an Australian unit as a number of Japanese amphibious vehicles. However, actual preparations for defence were incredibly lackadaisical, apart from the deployment of a Royal Air Force squadron at the Colombo race course. Anti-British sentiment increased accordingly within some portions of the indigenous population and their hopes ran high of liberation by the Japanese.

On 4 April 1942 the Japanese Navy fleet of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was located by a Catalina aircraft flown by Sqn.Ldr. Leonard Birchall out of Koggala. However, when Nagumo launched his aircraft on an attack on Colombo on Easter Sunday, 5 April, so apparent complete surprise was achieved (the British radars were not operating because it was Sunday). The huge shock of the day was to the Japanese high command. They intended to catch the remnants of British Eastern Fleet at anchor in Ceylon where they normally were found. The Japanese had planned the bombing of the Eastern Fleet at their home base with meticulous care and precision in a manner almost exactly like the Pearl Harbor operation. In fact many of the same bombers with the same pilots were used on 5th April 1942 as had been used on 7th December 1941. Most of the fleet was secretly at anchor in Addu Atoll maintaining a radio silence, so that when the Japanese arrived at Colombo there were only three ships at anchor instead of the much larger number they had anticipated. It was the continued existence of the remnants of the British Eastern Fleet (which contained some Dutch war ships as well) which prevented the Japanese from attempting a major troop landing in Ceylon. The continuing presence of the Eastern Fleet was the first Japanese disaster of the Second World War, completely scuppering her plans for invading both Ceylon and India (the real Japanese goal -- above all others -- in early 1942 was the conquest of both Ceylon and India).

The Hawker Hurricanes of No 30 Squadron were on the ground at Ratmalana when the Japanese aircraft passed overhead. The auxiliary cruiser Hector and the old destroyer Tenedos were sunk in the harbour. The Japanese discovered the Cornwall and Dorsetshire 320 km (200 miles) southwest of Sri Lanka and sank them. The RAF and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) lost at least 27 aircraft, the Japanese only 5. The Japanese also bombed the lunatic asylum at Angoda, mistaking it for the fuel tanks at nearby Kolonnawa.

On 9 April 1942 the Japanese attacked the harbour at Trincomalee and off the British ships off Batticaloa. Hermes, Vampire and the corvette Hollyhock were sunk. The Royal Australian Air Force lost at least 8 Hurricanes and the FAA one Fairey Fulmar. The Japanese lost 5 bombers and 6 fighters, one in a suicide attack on the Trincomalee fuel tanks.

The sortie demonstrated Japanese superiority in carrier operations, but Somerville had the good luck not to be able to locate the Japanese fleet, so his own fast carriers Indomitable and Formidable were saved to fight another day. However, British prestige was brought even lower than it had been after the fall of Singapore.

[edit] Cocos Islands Mutiny

The fall of Singapore and the subsequent sinking of the Battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse, punctured forever the myth of British invincibility. Whatever remained was ripped to tatters by the sinking of half the British Eastern Fleet off Sri Lanka, accompanied at the same time by the virtually unopposed bombing of the island and bombardment of Madras (Chennai). Such was the panic amongst the British in Sri Lanka that a large turtle which came ashore was reported by an Australian unit as a number of Japanese amphibious vehicles. Anti-British sentiment increased accordingly and hopes ran high of liberation by the Japanese.

The Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands mutinied on the night of 8/9 May, intending to hand the islands over to the Japanese. The mutiny took place partly because of the agitation by the LSSP. The mutiny was suppressed and three of the mutineers were the only British Commonwealth troops to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. [1] Gratien Fernando, the leader of the mutiny, was defiant to the end, confident of his place in the annals of history as a fighter for freedom.

No Sri Lankan combat regiment was deployed by the British in a combat situation after the Cocos Islands Mutiny, although Supply & Transport Corps troops were used in rear areas in the Middle East. The defences of Sri Lanka were beefed up to three British army divisions because the island was strategically important, holding almost all the British Empire's resources of rubber. Rationing was instituted so that Sri Lankans were comparatively better fed than their Indian neighbours, in order to prevent disaffection among the natives.

[edit] Continued Resistance

Public disgust at British colonial rule continued to grow. Among the elite there was irritation at the colour-bar practised by the leading clubs. Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, the Civil Defence Commissioner complained that the British commander of Ceylon, Admiral Layton called him a 'black bastard'; this was merely an expression of continuing white-supremacism. However, it was grist to the mill for an increasingly angry middle class that this was the attitude of their rulers who had been bested in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma by Asians.

Sri Lankans in Singapore and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A plan was made to transport them to Sri Lanka by submarine, to begin the liberation struggle, but this was abortive.

The LSSP leaders were able to escape, with the help of one of their guards. Several of them fled to India, where they participated in the struggle there, underscoring what had been established before the war, that India's and Sri Lanka's freedom struggles were interlinked. However, a sizable contingent remained, led by Robert Gunawardena, Philip's brother.

[edit] References

Arsecularatne, SN, Sinhalese immigrants in Malaysia & Singapore, 1860-1990: History through recollections, KVG de Silva & Sons, Colombo, 1991
Crusz, Noel, The Cocos Islands Mutiny, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, WA, 2001
Muthiah, Wesley and Wanasinghe, Sydney, Britain, World War 2 and the Sama Samajists, Young Socialist Publication, Colombo, 1996