Category Archives: war reportage

Chandani Kirinde talking to Somasiri Devendra, ex Sri Lanka Navy, in an article that is entitled “Bombers who became monks”

The mystery behind the much talked about crash of a Japanese bomber aircraft into an oil tank during the 1942 attack on China Bay in Trincomalee, is revealed in a new book by retired Air Force Officer Wing Commander Ranjith Ratnapala. Chandani Kirinde reports

Retired Navy Officer Lieutenant Commander Somasiri Devendra

Britain’s war-time Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill famously called the Japanese attack on the naval base in Trincomalee “the   most dangerous moment” of the Second World War. He feared that “the capture of then Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring” and spelt defeat for the Allied Forces. Such fears however, were not realized as the attack on the naval base was successfully repulsed. The Trincomalee Naval Base bore the brunt of the Japanese attack launched on April 9, 1942 but it was the crash of a Japanese bomber aircraft into an oil tank located at the Oil Tank Farm at China Bay that has been much talked and written about.

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