Blog Archives

The Rising Sun comes with bombs on Easter Sunday – By Capt Elmo Jayawardena I am no aviation historian, just an aeroplane driver who spent a long time in the sky. The Japanese bombing of Sri Lanka in 1942 is mainly information that passed from people to people as the years rolled. Some subtracted the truth and some others exaggerated the myths. I want to share with readers what little I found out and perhaps shed a little more light on events that took place a long time ago on an Easter Sunday morning. Squadron Leader Leonard Birchall arrived in Ceylon on the 3rd of April 1942. The flight was from Karachi to Koggala where an RAF base was operational. Birchall was from the 413 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. They, at that time, had a joint operation with RAF to conduct reconnaissance flights over the southern coast ...