Category Archives: World War One

March 26, 2023 · 4:06 pm

Ceylonese Volunteers in the Midst of Trench Warfare Carnage – World War One

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

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March 13, 2023 · 4:18 am

Louis F. Obeyesekere: An Empire Loyalist who went down when the “Ciotat” was sunk by an U-Boat

This article was originally written and published by Louis Frederick Obeyesekere’s great grandnephew, Sheannal Anthony Obeyesekere at: https://medium.com/@serendibrising/  …..  Item taken from SerendibRising, 3 March 2023, entitled  “Louis Frederick Obeyesekere: Lost out at sea on Christmas Eve” … sent to Thuppahi by Quintus Andradi

Louis Frederick (Freddy) J. Wijeratne Obeyesekere was born in the early 1890s. He was the forth and youngest child of Mudaliyar Henry Ferdinandus Wijeratne Obeyesekere and Henrietta Isabel (Ellen) Perera Wijesinha Goonetillaka¹ who had married in 1881 at All Saints Church, Galle.

                                                            F Obeyesekere’s name is engraved on the Cenotaph War Memorial at Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo. Photo credits: Mithila Gunathilake and Quintus Andradi

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September 2, 2022 · 3:16 am

Fighting & Dying FOR Britain during the Two World Wars

A New Book on  The Ceylonese Volunteers in World War I and World War II

 

 

 

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July 9, 2022 · 12:39 am

Applauding Professor Trevor Wilson, Historian …. His Memorial Service

Trevor Wilson Eulogies, 24 June 2022

 Jenny Wilson [00:00:24] Emeritus Professor Trevor Gordon Wilson, AM. Known as Trevor to Mum and his colleagues, as Gordon to his daughters and granddaughters, as ‘Trevors’ to his grandson Ben, was born on Christmas Eve in 1928 in Auckland, New Zealand. Sara and my existence depended on a crowded train from Oxford to Manchester and a custard tart. A story that will be told shortly. But Dad’s existence depended on the war that became his great area of research, writing and teaching. The First World War. Trevor’s dad, Andrew Gordon Kingsley Wilson, was fighting as an ANZAC in the trenches in France.

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October 21, 2021 · 6:17 pm

The Modern Nation States’ Victims

Adam Henry Hughes, whose original title runs thus “Hiding the Body Bags: The Nation-State, Killing and Death”

During a lecture [in 2010], the famous news correspondent Robert Fisk told a story of the reaction of a Reuter’s news agency (London) to receiving graphic pictures of civilian death and destruction caused in Iraq by British forces. Reuter’s called the pictures “obscene” and therefore not fit to be shown back home.(1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learn about the abstract war, the war of nationalist or ideological sacrifice and endurance, the achievement of some military objective or another; the war that is remembered in one national cemetery or memorial museum. But we must not see the broken and mutilated bodies—the final state of the human being once steel, bomb, bullet or blade meets flesh.(2)

 

 

 

 

Many died in the Battle at LONE PINE

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March 1, 2021 · 3:33 am

A Medical Duo’s Forensic Study of Death in War

R M Coupland 1  and D R Meddings:   “Mortality associated with use of weapons in armed conflicts, wartime atrocities, and civilian mass shootings: literature review,”

9 Aug 14;31999(7207):407-10. 
 doi: 10.1136/bmj.319.7207.407.

Free PMC article

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December 16, 2020 · 1:27 pm

Today’s Strongmen cast in the Shadow of Yesterday’s Fascists

Olivia B Waxman, in TIME, interviewing Ruth Ben-Giat …. https://time.com/5908244/strongman-fascism-history/

Critics of President Donald Trump have been calling him a fascist ever since he was running for President in 2016, and those characterizations continued in the aftermath of Election Day, as Trump repeated false claims of widespread voter fraud and baselessly accused President-elect Biden of trying to steal the election. “Donald Trump is a fascist,” Late Show host Stephen Colbert argued in an emotional monologue on Nov. 5.

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November 14, 2020 · 12:49 pm

The Horrors at Gallipoli: Killing One’s “Whaler”

The “Whaler” is the shorten-form Aussie term for a breed of horses in New South Wales that  served as the stead for the famed Lighthorsemen Brigades in Egypt, the Middle East and Gallipoli during World War One. I thank Brigadier Sri Mudannayake** for bringing this somebe dimension of the disastrous Gallipoli and other Middle Eastern campaign to our attention.

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November 14, 2020 · 9:39 am

Honouring ALL the Dead in War. Somasiri Devendra’s Ecumenical Epitaph

Somasiri Devendra 

It’s a hundred years since the World War One ended.

It was called “the war to end all wars”, a war “to preserve Democracy”. It was, in fact, fought for nothing more than the needs of a handful of European countries wanting yet bigger pieces of the global pie, fighting each other for it or to deny it to others.

a war cemetery in Europe

British Garrison Cemetery Kandy

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May 13, 2020 · 6:33 pm

Holy War Unmasked

 Brian Victoria …… Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. John Donne

Introduction: Is religion a force for peace or war? Or to borrow a phrase from the title of Christopher Hitchen’s book, God Is Not Great, does religion really poison everything, including the possibility of living in a peaceful world?

The answer is much like posing the question of whether the glass is half full or half empty. That is to say, for every example cited to prove that religion has supported warfare and violence, other examples can be presented to show ways in which religion has contributed to peace and the avoidance of war, reconciliation between bitter enemies and the general betterment of humanity and the world. When the question is posed in this way, the debate is as endless as it is futile unless the “winner” is the side that amasses the greatest number of examples.

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