Air Force Days - Part II

After the month long training at the Diyatalawa combat training unit, I was assigned to the Regiment of the Air Force Base at Katunayake, Sri Lanka’s largest air base. The Regiment is the ground combat unit of the Air Force. In addition to flying squadrons, the base also had administrative, engineering, logistical, supply, and other units, along with a hospital.

The base is on a large coconut plantation, and sat next to Sri Lanka’s international airport, which was built long after the base was established. The two runways – of the air force and the international airport’s - ran parallel. The sound of jetliners landing and taking off was noisy and was a nuisance at night. I was given a room at the officers’ mess and meals were served at the dining room, which also had a bar.

I reported to the Regiment every morning and hung around with little to do. Most afternoons, I took a nap after lunch. Because home, where my wife and son lived, was only about an hour by train, I only stayed at the base overnight when I was the duty officer. (More about that later.) After a tough, month long training, and fighting fit, the routine was an anti-climax. Perhaps I expected too much; the fact is, peacetime armed forces have little to do on a day-to-day basis.

Katunayake had been a Royal Air Force base till 1957. Well laid out, solidly built, it still retained signs of the impeccable British touch even twenty years later. During RAF days, even the non-commissioned officers’ family quarters had carpeted floors, I heard, and during my time the quarters of senior officers were well equipped and comfortable. But, the tropical weather and poor maintenance had caused a visible deterioration.

 

As I came to know the base culture, I saw a clear hierarchy, which cut through the officer ranks. The flyers – those who piloted fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters – were the elite, and only a flyer could become the Commander. Everyone else - engineers, logisticians, regimental types, and others – were considered a slot below. Last came volunteer officers whose primary allegiance was to our civilian employers (our paymasters), and for whom the air force attachment was only temporary.

Among officers, the most detested were those who strutted around with puffed chests, thinking highly of themselves. The Sinhala language has an apt term for such behavior: “pakum” (swollen with self-importance is the nearest equivalent I can come up with). Of course, this term was never uttered to the officers’ face.

My neighbors at the mess were a mixed bag. The regular officers, except for those in engineering and medical units, had joined directly from secondary schools and undergone two years of intensive training as officer cadets. Some cadets had been recruited because they were outstanding sportsmen, in cricket and rugby, during their schooldays. During my time, the air force had a champion cricket team, Adastrians, and a renowned rugby team.

Unfortunately, despite their training, not all of the young officers fitted in. Petty jealousies and personal disputes were not uncommon. One problem was the easy access to alcohol from the officers’ mess bar. A few became heavy drinkers, leading to other problems such as fights with fellow officers and bullying of batmen - the young men who were assigned to clean our rooms, iron our clothes, polish our shoes, carry messages, etc. A young fixed-wing pilot, whose room was near mine, had run-up high debts at the officers’ mess bar and was denied any more liquor. So, he would disappear for days, going on drinking binges, with rumors floating back that he was seen lying drunk at railway station. We did not expect him to live long, but, in fact, he did, after coming off the alcohol, I assume.

Eksith

Among the regular officers, I made two friends. The first was Eksith Peiris, who towered above everyone else at 6’6”. He had been an outstanding officer cadet, was dedicated to the air force, and was a rising star in the Regiment. He was also the leader of the air force’s newly formed commando unit. We hit it off, and he helped me adjust to life at the base and also at the Regiment. Easy going with fellow officers and enlisted men, which hid his steely resolve, Eksith was indeed a gentle giant.

Sunil

The second friend was Sunil Cabraal, a helicopter pilot, who lived across the courtyard from me. One day, I told him that I had never ridden in a helicopter. From then onwards, when I was around and a seat was available in the Bell Ranger he flew, Sunil invited me to come along. So, I saw a good part of Sri Lanka from the sky with a pilot who occasionally went out of the way to show me a familiar sight, such as Kandy in the central hills where we had both gone to school.

Numerous stories, some humorous, circulated at the base. One was about a helicopter pilot, not Sunil, who got entirely lost while returning to base as darkness was falling. (I think the helicopters flew without sophisticated navigational aids at that time.) The only open patch of land the pilot spotted turned out to be a cemetery when he touched down. The bewildered locals who rushed up must have been dumbstruck when the pilot asked in which part of the country he had landed!

My routine at the air force was broken only on a few occasions. One was an all-day motor tracing event, for which the air force runway was used. Massive crowds turned up to watch and I had my first and only experience of crowd control. Another was a failed attempt to provide flood relief in the Chilaw area. In addition, because the air force was in charge of security at the international airport, I had to make occasional visits there.

About once a week, I was the base duty officer for a 24-hour period. The duty officer was in charge of the guards on duty, and could conduct inspections at any time of day or night. At the end of the duty period, I would write a report for the CO of the Regiment about the previous day's happenings. Often, there was little to report. My last tour was around 11pm, and I liked to do it with a foot patrol consisting of enlisted men - they were called aircraftman (AC) and leading aircraftman (LAC) in the air force – along with a corporal and a sergeant. The walk, in the cool of the night, was enjoyable because I got to chat informally with the men. Most of them were village lads, away from home for the first time, and I was curious about how and where they had grown up. Late at night, the base had a quiet feel of a coconut plantation, which in reality it was.

All that routine came to a shattering end on November 15, 1978. That night, in the midst of the mother of all thunderstorms, I had taken a Land Rover to do the rounds. As I was returning to the officers’ mess, around 11.45pm, I saw a huge aircraft aborting its landing on the airport runway. Then, as I sat down for a cup of tea, I was told about the crash of a passenger airliner not far from the base, and I quickly caught a ride to the crash site and saw a sight that will stay in memory all my life. The aircraft had crashed into a coconut grove and the fuselage was on fire, with charred bodies still strapped to the seats and beyond help. The tail section had split from the fuselage and was standing at a 45⁰ angle. On seeing me, a sergeant came running saying “Sir koheda hitiye, api call karanawa, call karanawa” (Sir, where were you, we have been calling and calling). I didn’t know what he meant.

Eksith was already there, and told me that he had rescued a number of passengers from the tail section. Google tells me that the DC 8 aircraft, chartered from Icelandic Airlines, had been taking returning Haj pilgrims from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia. Of the 262 passengers and crew, 183 died and 79 survived, some with severe injuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Airlines_Flight_001

No civilians were killed, but I knew the locality and realized that a worse disaster could have occurred. Not far from the crash site is the village of Kimbulapitiya, where the making of firecrackers was a cottage industry. Every home had a stock of explosive gunpowder.

I later learned why I had been repeatedly called after the crash. The Regiment had a jungle rescue unit, set-up after a previous air crash, with equipment such as axes, ropes, ladders, and the key to the supplies depot was with the duty officer. But, I had not been given a key, did not even know about the jungle rescue unit. When they couldn’t contact me - I was in the Land Rover in the midst of a thunderstorm, and this was long before cell phones – they had broken in and taken the equipment.

Barely a week later, disaster struck again, when a powerful cyclone hit the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, devastating the area and taking more than one thousand lives. Sunil was to go on a reconnaissance flight and invited me to join. As we flew over the Mahaweli, Sri Lanka’s largest river, what I saw below was a strange sight: what appeared to be matchsticks lying along both banks of the river, all facing downstream. They were not matchsticks but teak trees, stripped of their leaves, which had been uprooted and swept down when the massive rains following the cyclone caused a raging flood.

As we flew low towards a major town, Batticaloa, we saw the staggering devastation. About 10 years earlier, I had experienced a cyclone on the western coast where I lived, but that was from the ground level. From the air, the destruction was absolute: thousands of coconut palms lay flat, or broken in two; tanks (man-made lakes) had overflowed and the rice fields were flooded; power and telephone lines were down; roofs blown off churches and homes, and hardly any structures still upright. Clusters of terrified people, perhaps without a meal or even drinking water for two days, huddled under whatever shade was available to escape the blistering sun. They watched the helicopter, in vain, hoping for a food drop, but we had none.

We landed near the Batticaloa cathedral, where more people sheltered under plastic sheeting amidst wrecked homes and public buildings. I had never seen such misery. When Sunil asked what he could do, he was told about a leprosy hospital on a nearby island, from which all communication had been cut off. So we took off and flew over the hospital and found that the buildings were intact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fMaBk9fFes

 On returning to Batticaloa town, way past lunchtime, I saw that Catholic nuns had set up a large field kitchen and were serving canned fish, parippu (lentils) and rice to everyone. I am amazed by the resilience of nuns, who always rise to the occasion, whether running an orphanage, an elders home, or providing social services. That simple meal they cooked and served, in the midst of a major catastrophe, was delicious.

After doing a few more trips around Batticaloa, we flew north to another air force base at China Bay, near Trincomalee town. It was late, and Sunil decided to stay overnight, so I caught a flight back to Katunayake on an Indian Air Force plane. The IAF had rushed in after the cyclone, bringing food and fuel. They had better, larger, and more sophisticated aircraft for the job.

In 1995, seventeen years after the training, I stopped by the Diyatalawa unit while on a road trip. On the way out, I stopped at the officers’ mess for a minute, and as I was walking to the car, heard someone coming running behind me. It was Cpl. Gamini, our drill instructor, now a commissioned officer. He had recognized me, and took me back to the mess to show our group photograph which was hanging there. I was delighted to see him; no one deserved the promotion more.

I still have one item left over from those air force days: my peaked cap.

Air Force Days - Part 1

In 1978, needing a change from teaching English, I applied to join the Sri Lanka Volunteer Air Force. After facing an interview and passing a medical exam, I was asked to report in a few days to Air Force HQ in Colombo, before departure by train to Diyatalawa for training.

At HQ, I first met my fellow trainees, about 20 in all. We were taken to the office of the Commander, Air Vice-Marshall Harry Goonetilleke, in groups of five, where we were sworn-in and commissioned.

On the night mail train to Diyatalawa, I got to know the other trainees better. We ranged in age from early 20s to late 30s and were a motely lot, coming from varied educational and occupational backgrounds: teachers, agricultural officers, technical officers, budding accountants and bankers, an engineer, a veterinarian, and a dentist, a mix of public servants and mercantile employees. Sgt. Silva, our drill instructor, accompanied us on the train. He chatted with everyone amiably and seemed like an easy going person.

Diyatalawa, at an altitude of 5000 feet, is salubrious. It was a garrison town established by the British during colonial times, and had the air force’s ground combat training camp. When the train reached Diyatalawa, an air force truck took us to the camp, where we were shown to a long, dormitory style billet, the beds and lockers lined up on each side. After breakfast, uniforms and combat boots were issued. The sight of fellow trainees in ill fitting, baggy uniforms brought much fun.

Our training began soon after. Assisting Sgt. Silva was a ramrod-straight, ever smiling, Corporal Gamini. Both addressed us as Mister (Mr. Whatmore, Mr. Ratnapala, Mr. Jeyapalan, etc). First, we were trained to march, and I soon realized that some of us were not meant for any type of military training. In all shapes and sizes, some in good physical shape, but a portly few who found even the marching exhausting. We must have been a hilarious sight for everyone else in camp. I had seen enough war movies to recall how foul mouthed and brutal drill sergeants could be, but Sgt. Silva’s meanest word to us was “slovenly”. He was strict, he had a clear objective - to train us within a month - so he gave no respite; we marched endlessly, back and forth, all morning, and came back for more in the afternoon. After a few days, we had casualties: the heavy, ill-fitting combat boots were a torture, and all that marching was taking a toll on a couple of us, who began limping with sprained ankles.

During my time at Diyatalawa, about 8 officer cadets were also undergoing training prior to being commissioned. These cadetships were coveted positions those days, and I was surprised to learn that two of the cadets were the air force commander’s sons! Their training began early morning at the parade grounds, and, in full combat gear, they would be drilled till noon. They were punished for the slightest infringement, and we saw one or two cadets being made to jog endlessly or perform other forms of physical exercises well into the afternoon.

In the evening, after a shower and dinner, we chatted back at our billet. One story I recall came from the engineer, who was from the north. The infamous Murunkan massacre, in which some police officers had been ambushed and shot dead, has occurred a few months earlier. The engineer had visited the site after the horribly mutilated bodies had been recovered from a well. What we did not realize was that the killings were a prelude to the civil war that tore Sri Lanka apart for the next 30 years.

The dentist slept across the aisle from me. He had been a boxer at school and was fighting fit. He also slept spread eagled on his bed, a posture I had never seen in another person. A technical officer, Jeyapalan, was perhaps the most popular trainee. He mingled easily with everyone and was full of stories and jokes.

In addition to foot drill (all that marching!), we also had regular inspections, obstacle training, lectures, and weapons training. Before going to bed, we polished our boots to a mirror shine, and soon after waking up, we made our beds - a practice I have continued to date - ready for inspection during which “slovenly” would reverberate around our billet.

Obstacle training was the hardest. We crawled under strands of low-slung barbed wire, unable to raise our heads, scrambled over 10-foot walls, swung on a rope to cross a muddy ditch. We practiced charges, running up with fixed bayonets and repeatedly stabbing sacks filled with straw. Some went to hilarious extremes to avoid obstacle training: although the medical post opened only at 8 in the morning, a few trainees were seen lining-up at 6.

The lectures on military strategy were conducted by Flight Lieutenant Atapattu, who did his best to make them interesting. But, what I looked forward to was weapons training, conducted by Cpl. Dharmaratne. When the JVP insurrection in 1971 broke out, the Sri Lankan armed forces mainly had World War I vintage 303 rifles, so China had rushed planeloads of carbines, pistols, and other weapons. Before target practice, we were trained to take these weapons apart and reassemble them. At the firing range, we used Chinese carbines and pistols, and my favorite, the Sterling sub machine gun, with its distinctively perforated barrel casing. I had read a ton of war comics and seen enough war movies in which the Sterling SMG figured, so took extra pleasure in the SMG, which was fired in short bursts till the magazine emptied.

The crowning event of our training was a route march from Diyatalawa to World’s End, on Horton Plains, a height of around 7000 feet. Geared up in uniforms, a heavy knapsack, and combat boots, we started early morning from the camp, accompanied by Sgt. Silva and Cpls. Gamini and Dharmaratne. We trekked cheerfully in the morning mist, following narrow, rocky paths, fording streams, climbing and descending the rugged, mountainous terrain. I walked with the gentle, soft-spoken veterinarian, who narrated growing up in the north and his experiences in treating field animals. We went through a couple of villages and the children and women came out to smile knowingly at us, because they must have seen many hapless route marchers before. 

After pausing for lunch, which we had carried, we started again and the going became grueling. The scenery was beautiful – pine forests, distant mountains shrouded in a bluish sheen, the occasional water fall – but we barely noticed them, because we had to watch our step on the narrow, slippery paths.

I was walking along with Cpl. Gamini when a fellow trainee came up with a hangdog expression, tears pouring down his face, pleading “Corporal, mata bae” (I can’t); he couldn’t go on. I was both surprised and amused. How could a young man, in the prime of his life, weep at such a trivial matter?  The corporal hung back, talked to the trainee kindly, and I later saw them following us.

Eventually, at dusk, we reached Horton Plains, a high plateau with tall grasses and winding streams, and the going got easier. But I was exhausted, my feet felt like lead, and was stumbling more than walking. As we neared World’s End (so named because it has a sheer drop of about 4000 ft.), we could see some lights ahead. Suddenly, someone sprinted past me, and I was amazed to see it was the trainee who had wept and pleaded earlier in the day, saying he was unable to go on. Obviously, he wanted to be the first to finish the march! I wasn’t impressed.

The lights turned out to be a field kitchen set-up by cooks sent from Diyatalawa. So, utterly famished, we stood around, enjoying the steaming dinner in the chilly air, happy that we had survived the biggest challenge of our training. The route march may have been about 20 miles.

The next day, our training concluded with a group photograph. That night, Cpl. Gamini came with us to the railway station to say goodbye. On the platform, just before we boarded the night mail train to Colombo, he stood at attention and saluted, calling us “Sir”. Seventeen years would go by before I saw him again.

We rode the train together to Colombo and were soon posted to various air force locations. I never met some of my fellow trainees again.