Prologue – By Capt Elmo Jayawardena
“The Incredible Rescue” is a true story. It was written by the co-pilot of the flight Capt Shelton Goonewardeana. He is 97 years old and lives in Marawila. ‘Sinhabahu’ and ‘Terry’ in the story is him. Capt Emil Jayawardena was my father and off and on I heard this Madras story. Mr John Vethavanam was the Radio Officer (father of Capt Duleep Vethavanam.) Miss Cynthia Phillips was the flight Stewardess. In my humble opinion this really was an incredibly crazy operation planned and flown by Capt Emil and his crew. Yes, some would say they broke every rule in the book. Who am I to judge? The scales of justice at times have to be tempered with mercy and kindness and a whole lot of madness. There were 17 film people who boarded the plane on the taxiway close to the end of runway 25. Among
them was B A W and Eddie Jayamanne and Rukmani Devi. Someone even brought along the dog from the Minerva House. The rest of the story is here in Capt Shelton’s own words.
Capt. Elmo Jayawardena
Elmojay1@gmail.com
Capt. Elmo with Capt. Shelton
THE INCREDIBLE RESCUE
The pioneers of SRI LANKA’s Sinhala cinema were the MINERVA Players. They turned their very popular stage plays such as Broken Promise into very successful films. There being no filming studios locally, they went lock, stock and barrel to Madras to do the needful.
At Madras, they ran house in typical Sinhala, Negombo hospitality traditions. It was Open House all the time, night and day, for all and sundry irrespective of nationality, social status, caste or religion. There was always plenty to eat and drink with real Sinhala cuisine. The undisputed Godfather of the setup was BAW, a person of very serious disposition and a workaholic. He directed all the plays and films and
everything else that went on at the Minerva household. BAW was ably assisted by his brother, Eddie, a genius at comedy and his beautiful singing wife, Daisy who were the leading actors. There were
also a host of others, all highly talented actors such as Josie and Joe.
All the stage hands, helpers, cooks and the lot were natives from Negombo, so they made one big happy family at the Minerva house in Madras. When not filming it was jollification from dawn to dawn and a good time was had by all. The Minerva players travelled often to and from Sri Lanka, always on Air Ceylon, hence everybody at the Airports, including Air Traffic Control Officers, Customs, Immigration Officers, Doctors, Traffic Assistants and the lot became their bosom friends, who were often invited to the Minerva house for parties and celebrations, of which there was never a shortage.
The Minerva house Sri Lankan hospitality became legendary in Madras. Sri Lanka’s Governor General and many high dignitaries when visiting Madras were all welcomed guests at the Minerva house, where they received right royal treatment.
Air Ceylon operated a fleet of four DC 3 Dakotas with a daily night stop at Madras. The Air Ceylon air crew were always put up at the poshest hotels wherever they went. At Madras it was the Connemara or Victoria hotels. However, Captain Emil Jayawardena, a World War two RAF veteran pilot, although used to all the best trimmings of high society, preferred the simple Sinhala home comforts and so he always night stopped at the Minerva house.
Having had his training in the RAF traditions, his discipline and airmanship had no equal. As a person, his personality was such he had a phenomenal ability of making friends and influencing people. His level
of compassion once spurred him to fly the Air Ceylon DC 3 Dakota at sea level manually, with a full load of passengers from Madras to Ratmalana to try and save the life of a sick and dying child passenger.
All the Area Controls and Control Towers played ball, such was his popularity with the aviation fraternity.
However much he indulged the night before he was always there on time early morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for duty, personally doing the pre-flight checks himself. He saw to it that
everybody else was in similar vein, otherwise there was hell to pay. Even every brass button on the uniform had to be polished and shining. As Senior Training Captain, all were on their toes when he was around. Captain Emil showed a special interest and took under his wing Terry, a greenhorn First Officer who had just graduated from the Air Academy
The DC-3 Dakota and was the newest recruit to the Airline. They flew together a lot, with Captain Emil teaching the youngster all the tricks of the trade and its finer points. In fact, after that memorable flight at sea level from Madras to Ratmalana, he even showed him how to fudge the flight log.
Captain Emil confessed that during his RAF war days, some crews did not know for certain where they had dropped their bombs, because most of the bombings were done at night amidst heavy enemy fire,
hence altering course all the time was normal. It was from the next days morning newspaper that they learnt where the bombs had hit and so they fudged the flight logs to suit the news reports. Fudging the flight log was a normal part of the war game, said Captain Emil.
Captain Emil has such faith in Terry, he often left the cockpit in Terry’s care and went back to the cabin to have a chat with the passengers and friends of whom he had plenty. However, he always made sure that the Radio Officer stayed in the cockpit keeping a lookout for other aircraft in the vicinity.
On one such occasion, he stormed back into the cockpit and demanded of Terry “where the hell are you farting about all over the sky?” Captain Emil could detect the slightest change of attitude of the aircraft. “I changed course ever so gently to avoid those CBs over there” explained Terry, pointing to a bank of Cumulo Nimbus clouds straight ahead in the distance.
“You bloody idiot, we are still at Puttalam and that weather front is beyond Mannar. It will be gone by the time we get there. Get back on course” he ordered Terry and left the cockpit. That day Terry learnt a new lesson in airmanship, that clouds do not stay put. That’s how Captain Emil taught his juniors. Straight off the cuff and to the point.
Terry was a village lad and even though now he moved in high society, he preferred Sinhala village home comforts and so, whenever he night stopped at Madras, he stayed in the Minerva house, where he was
considered one of the family. Terry could even talk and act like Eddie, which was a unique style. One day, Captain Emil decided to night stop at Victoria hotel instead of Minerva house and Terry went along too. This surprised Terry.
Very early in the morning, as usual Mr. Nathan came to the Victoria Hotel, in the Company Ford Prefect which he drove himself, picked up Captain Emil, Terry, John Vethavanam the Radio Officer and Cynthia the hostess and dropped them all off at the Madras Airport, after which he had a chat with Captain Emil and drove off.
This was most unusual as Mr. Nathan, a most conscientious person, always stayed on supervising all that went on till after Take Off. In fact, he always stood to attention, because of his military background, and saluted the Captain before taxiing out.
It was customary for the First Officer to go to the Control Tower for flight clearance and Met briefing. But on this occasion, Captain Emil volunteered to do the needful and asked Terry to see to all the pre-flight ground checks. Terry observed that there was an unusually large amount of baggage. The baggage compartments at the rear and up front were chock-a-block to bursting point and Mr. Magasalingham, who was the Air India Ground Engineer at Madras seeing to the requirements of the Air Ceylon DC 3s, when on night stop, and was a regular and honoured guest at the Minerva house, had them fastened
down.
Terry also noticed that to keep within the all up weight, less fuel was being uplifted. The flight from Madras to KKS was one and a half hours and the fuel on board was sufficient for just two hours. When Terry questioned Mr. Magasalingham about this, he very casually remarked ”the weather is fine so not to worry” and side stepped the issue. Most of the Airport Controllers and Air Traffic Officers were ex-war
veterans who had plenty of war time exploits to tell each other and chat about, so when Captain Emil delayed to come back, Terry thought nothing of it.
On this day, however, Captain Emil had a longer than usual pow-wow with the Customs, immigration, Police and Medical officers at the Airport, as well as the Traffic Assistants. He had a particular long chat
with Magasalingham.
All these persons and many more had at one time or other enjoyed the Sri Lankan hospitality at the Minerva house.
On entering the cockpit, Captain Emil told Terry “you command this flight” and sat himself in the co-pilot’s seat. He then started getting flight clearance from the tower on RT, but not on the usual channel and frequency, with Vaitha’s assistance. They fiddled around for quite a while, to Terry’s amazement.
The two Air India traffic assistants, Mr. Nair and Joseph, who saw to the Air Ceylon passenger matters brought the passenger manifest to the Captain for signature. Terry noticed they had a full load that day. Radio Officer John Vedavanam
After settling down in the Captain’s seat, Terry and Captain Emil completed the cockpit check and waited for the ‘ALL CLEAR’ signal from Magasalingham, which wasn’t coming. “What are you waiting for? Start the engines” inquiringly insisted Captain Emil.
“Magas has not given the ‘ALL CLEAR’ nor is the door closed” protested Terry, pointing to the door indicator light. “To hell with the indicator light and Magas, start the engines. I am telling you” ordered Captain Emil. Terry did as he was told reluctantly. He sensed that something special was unfolding as normally Captain Emil was a stickler for rules and procedure.
In the meantime, Cynthia rushed into the cockpit in distress and lamented “Why have you started the engines? The door is not even closed. I am supposed to have a full load but only three passengers
have boarded. Besides I have a galley full of food and what am I to do with all that? Have you all gone mad?” she inquired angrily.
“Don’t worry my dear, everything will be OK, you will see. Go back and wait”, assured Captain Emil. She went back protesting and muttering to herself. On passing Vethavanam, she remarked “You are also a party to this madness, aren’t you? It’s worse than a loony bin in here”. Captain Emil kept a constant chatter with the control tower which was unusual.
Finally, Magasalingham signaled the ALL CLEAR and chocks off. Taxi to runway 25 ordered Captain Emil and Terry did likewise. On entering the intersection near the end of runway 25 he was asked to
stop, which he did.
Captain Emil and Vaitha left the cockpit and went back into the cabin and opened the door, put the aircraft retractable steps out and waited. Just then, Terry noticed Mr. Nathan in the Ford Prefect entering the tarmac and approaching the aircraft. He stopped at the open door. Lo and behold, out jumped a whole lot of people from the car and boarded the plane. Mr. Nathan did this trip twice more, picking up persons, men and women from the terminal building and nobody at the airport seemed to mind, and just looked on.
After 17 passengers and a dog had boarded, Captain Emil and Vaitha closed the door, locked it, and returned to the cockpit. Captain Emil thanked the Airport Controller and everybody else for their help and cooperation on RT. He then turned to Terry and impishly said “OK Captain, scramble”. That was the first time Captain Emil addressed F.O. Terry as Captain. Not long after, Terry was promoted to Junior Captain.
The rest of the flight was like no other. It was singing, dancing and laughter all the way back. The auto pilot could not keep the aircraft straight and level, so it had to be flown all the way back manually, with Captain Emil and Terry taking turns.
In typical Singhala hospitality traditions, Cynthia was served by the passengers rather than serving them, which cooled her off. The cabin was awash with Sri Lankan food which they had brought along. It was later on that everybody realized that the late arrivals were the Minerva Players and their retinue. First stop was KKS to a grand Jaffna welcome by Station Manager Mr. Reggiepillai, an officer and a gentleman. Everything was there, except the pandals. Mr. Reggiepillai and family had been very special guests at the Minerva house whenever they visited Madras and this was their ‘Thank you”.
The Customs Officers at KKS, Mr. Rasa and Basil and the Immigration Officers did the needful without fuss or bother. They knew the Minerva lot personally. From KKS to Ratmalana, it was no different except a bit noisier due to Jaffna toddy, and then it was straight back to Negombo for more celebrations and home comings for the Minerva Players and retinue.
The truth behind all these mysterious happening emerged later. The Madras Filming Studios were holding the Minerva Players and their retinue to ransom due to outstanding payments. This had come about because they had overrun their budget for reasons beyond their control. These amounts could have been easily met from receipts after the films were screened but the studio was demanding immediate payments which meant that the Minerva Players would have had to sell up all their assets at home to meet these demands. When this was revealed to Captain Emil when in night stop, he thought otherwise and planned this daring escape.
His national pride, compassion and determination, with the help of all those who had enjoyed the Sri Lankan hospitality at some time or another at the Minerva house, planned in secret this incredible rescue act which he pulled off with ease.
Mr. Nathan, Magasalingham and associates had smuggled out of the Minerva house the Minerva Players and retinue and housed them at the airport the previous night and completed all the embarkation
requirements, ready for the morning flight which took them to freedom on Captain Emil’s plane.
This was the first time in the history of air travel that a plane load of persons was smuggled out of a country within the laws of that country. The shockwaves of this quake to the Sri Lankan film industry were felt far and wide.
It gave birth to the setting up of filming studios in Sri Lanka and its progress to date. It took the wonder of Sri Lankan unselfish hospitality, given to all and sundry, by an unspoilt, unsophisticated and innocent
group of Sri Lankan actors in a foreign country, coupled with the determination and compassion of an unassuming Air Ceylon Captain and crew, together with the help and co-operation of all personnel at the Madras airport, to make this incredible rescue a reality. A truly combined international effort.
Those who dare to help their neighbours in a just cause always win.
TISSA SINGHABAHU
