Suren Ratwatte, whose chosen title reads as “Battle of the Somme and the Trinitians at the frontlines” …. while his text has had Highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Suren Ratwatte writes about the bloodiest chapter in the history of the British Army in WW II, where his grandfather Sir Richard Aluwihare and three other schoolmates faced the brunt of enemy fire.
What remains today: The trenches in France where the 29th Division (among whom were the young soldiers from Ceylon), fought in 1916. Pix by Suren Ratwatte
An EMAIL NOTE from Gus Mathews in UK, 25 March 2023 **
This a fascinating read that throws some light into the present-day financial woes of the current predicament in Sri Lanka. It was published some time ago, but it is as illuminating as ever.
Richard Simon … with highlighting imposed by the Editor Thuppahi
The 1979 Royal-Thomian cricket matchmay not actually have been the hundredth in the series, as it was proclaimed to be, but was certainly regarded, at the time, as the most important Royal-Thomian ever played. Richard Simon’s forthcoming book,STC: The Unauthorised History, captures not only the game itself, but also much of the behind-the-scenes competition, lobbying, manoeuvring and occasional skulduggery that accompanied the selection of coaches, team members and other important participants. Below is part of Simon’s description of the match.
By pure chance I came across a paperback book of 280 pages published by Dharshan Weerasekera via Sarasavi Publisher in 2020 that is entitled Sri Lanka’s Future Challenges and the Quest for a New Constitution. Further searches indicated that he had received university education in USA and had published a battery of books (now listed in Thuppahi at ………….. https://thuppahis.com/2023/03/24/dharshan-weerasekeras-array-of-essays-and-books.
A former SAS commander whose mercenary business in Sri Lanka is under investigation for war crimes has left millions of pounds in his will.
Attached photo of Colonel Johnson leading an SAS parade in 1960. (Image: Imperial War Museum)
One of Britain’s most rapacious mercenaries amassed a fortune worth £4m before his death in 2008, an investigation by Declassified UK has found. The soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry ‘Jim’ Johnson, was once described by a senior British diplomat as having “political ideas [that] are probably to the right of Genghis Khan” – a reference to the infamously brutal Mongol emperor.
By Dharshan Weerasekera Courtesy The Island On 18 May 2022, the Canadian House of Commons adopted without opposition a motion introduced by Rep. Gary Anandasangaree recognising 18 May of each year as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day” (www.parliament.ca). This follows a Bill adopted by the Ontario legislature in May 2021 calling for the week following May […]
Uthpala Wijesuriya, in The Island, 17 March 2023,where the title presented is “The Earth’s Greatest Rivalry”… while the highlighting in this presentation has been imposed by a Thuppahiyaaaaaaaaa.
The Royal-Thomian or the Battle of the Blues, the world’s second oldest uninterrupted cricket battle, will unveil for the 144th consecutive year this week. The encounter pits the boys bearing the crests of the Elephant and Palm Tree against those bearing the Cross and Dove.
Rukshan Perera’s ODE in Appreciation of the Frontline Workers who battled and Still Battle COVID
Thanking the Frontline Heroes in a song – When the world is at a standstill with Coronavirus Covid-19, let us pray for our heroes who are working day and night to save lives and bring the world back on track. This is a dedication to our heroes – healthcare workers, armed forces and all others on the frontline sacrificing their lives to save us from this unimaginable pandemic, Covid-19 Coronavirus.
In a landmark case last month, the Vavuniya High Court ordered the army to produce three LTTE members who had surrendered to the military in May 2019 and have been missing ever since, in response to a habeas corpus case filed by their wives.
Anoma Pieris presents her work on “Pacific War Incarceration Camps” …. to the world
While there have been many excellent studies on colonial penal environments in the Asia Pacific region, mainly prisons, very few scholars have approached the wartime internment and prisoner of war camps associated with the Pacific War as comparable carceral spaces that might offer deeper insights into imperial and national forms of political sovereignty and border conflict. There are few comparative studies across geographical areas or imperial regimes. Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard University Press 2020), though focused on Japanese military imperialism, is important for that focus, and increasingly, several anthologies have offered us a similar analytical breadth by juxtaposing numerous national perspectives. The Architecture of Confinement: Incarceration Camps of the Pacific War (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is similarly ambitious in its scope. It uses the arc of the Pacific Basin to frame a comparative study including Australia, Singapore, North America and Japan as important nodal points in the wartime incarceration camp geography. Its aim is to investigate the impact of the war on settler societies, more so than on the imperial contestants dominating both theatres of World War II.
Anoma Pieris and Lynne Horiuchi at former Cowra POW Camp site in 2016 … photo: Anoma Pieris.
What remains today: The trenches in France where the 29th Division (among whom were the young soldiers from Ceylon), fought in 1916. Pix by Suren Ratwatte
