THE SAVIOR OF CEYLON
A 27 year old Canadian Pilot and his crew lifted off from a makeshift air base in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to forestall what Winston Churchill said was the most perilous moment in the second world war.
In 1942 Leonard Birchall, who passed away Sept. 10, 2004, in Kingston, Ont. at age 89, and his crew, Bart Onyette, Brian Catlin, Ginger Cook, J. Henzell, Ian Davidson, P.O. Kennedy, L.A. Colarossi, and radio operator Fred Phillips, took off from their base at Koggala, Ceylon, at dawn on April 4, 1942 in Catalina AJ-155. They were furnished with hand drawn charts. In the late afternoon, after having been in the air for 12 hours they discovered that the inaccurate charts had probably caused them to fly 450 kilometres off course. It was an extraordinary stroke of serendipity for almost at the end of the last leg of the patrol the crew saw something far to the South.
They had just finished a snack when they saw some specks which looked like a convoy and they went over to investigate. They identified the outer screen of the Japanese fleet and radioed back to base the position, course, speed, and composition of the fleet. On closer inspection they identified battleships, several aircraft carriers, and other war ships which Fred Phillips reported back to base.
Then all hell broke loose. 30 Zeros came at them from the carriers. The Catalina was hit in the fuel tank and erupted in flames. Birchall managed to ditch the aircraft but it sank immediately killing one of the crew. The remainder swam away from the burning gas that spread out over the water. However, the Japanese fighters machined gunned the crew in the water. Two more crewmembers were killed and Birchall was hit in the leg.
The remaining crew members were picked up by a Destroyer and interrogated. When asked if they got a message out to base they said no because their radio had been shot out. This seemed to satisfy their captors until the Japanese intercepted a radio signal from Colombo to the aircraft asking them to repeat their previous message. Birchall was severely beaten. It was his first taste of mistreatment. It wasn’t until after release from PoW camp that they found out their first message did get through.
As a result of the sighting the Royal Navy sent its Ceylon fleet to sea and the RAF were in a position to repulse the enemy aircraft when the Japanese dropped their bombs on Colombo on April 5/42. The Japanese withdrew its large attack force from the Indian Ocean and abandoned plans to invade India by way of Ceylon.
Churchill, in 1945 said, “the sighting of the Japanese fleet had adverted the most dangerous and distressing moment of the entire conflict. Ceylon’s capture, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean and the possibility of a German conquest in Egypt would have closed the ring, and the future would have been bleak.”
In the Japanese prisoner of war camp 150 kilometres West of Tokyo, Birchall became the advocate for and defender of the men, resulting in him being condemned to death three times. He kept secret documentation of the atrocities witnessed in the camp. In 1948 Birchall returned to Japan to testify in the subsequent war trials and witness the hanging of one of his former tormenters. Years later he used his diaries to in a campaign to win Federal compensation for PoW survivors. Some of his documents were used by Barry McIntosh in his book HELL ON EARTH.
Two days after Leonard Birchall passed away, Fred Phillips, the radio operator, and fellow camp survivor, died at his home in England. Of the AJ 155 crew, only Mr. Catlin is still living.
Churchill, in 1945 said, “the sighting of the Japanese fleet had adverted the most dangerous and distressing moment of the entire conflict. Ceylon’s capture, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean and the possibility of a German conquest in Egypt would have closed the ring, and the future would have been bleak.”
Typical Churchillian bombast. There was nothing critical about Ceylon. In fact, Admiral Somerville, who was appointed in 1942 to be the new Commander-in-Chief of the British Eastern Fleet, decided that he’d be better off dispensing with Britain’s naval base there. He felt that its port was too small, that it was too open to spying (he didn’t trust the locals), and that it was potentially vulnerable to enemy attack. So Somerville transferred his forces to a secret and isolated naval base Addu Atoll in the Maldives, which the Royal Navy had first established in 1941.
Before I opened this thread, by the way, its title (“the savior of cylon”) made me think it had something to do with Battlestar Galactica. :wink:
Cylon?
is this another Battlestar Galactica thread?
the main reason i posted this is because, Leonard Birchall, is from my home town of ST. Chatharines. he is my war hero.
Yes but you wrote CYLON, which are robots in Battlestar Galactica.
If you wrote the “the savior of colon”, id expect a medical thread.
oops my typo can you change that?
To savior of colon?
lol ur funny.
