Lankans who volunteered for service with the Royal Air Force during World War 2 Source:Island Within a year of the outbreak of World War II, the colonial government began looking for Sri Lankan volunteers to serve in various capacities with the British forces including the Royal Air Force (RAF). Accordingly, 15,000 applied to join the RAF. Out of this lot, 15 were initially selected and sent for training at the RAF Cranwell Flying School in the United Kingdom in 1941. But a paper cutting dated the Sep 1941 gives only twelve (12) names even though it says in the beginning fifteen (15) Ceylonese for the RAF have arrived in Britain. Of the 15 Lankans who joined the RAF during WWII , only four were selected for fighter pilot training. They were Emile Jayawardena, Noel Peiris, Rex de Silva and Shelton Flamer-Caldera who were sent to operational squadrons soon after completing ...
Dec 27, 2020
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Tagged A.A. Wijeyewickrema, Chelliah Kanagasabapathy, D Ranasinghe, E C Godlieb, K Sivasubradas, M Karthigesu, S Kanagasabai, W Terence J M Wijerama
