Lieutenant Jude Wijethunge
With the capture of Jaffna and the securing of the peninsula by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, the Tigers had lost their capital city, the symbolic heart of their struggle for Tamil independence. Forced to retreat into the Wanni jungles, the Tigers reverted once more to guerrilla warfare for the next half-year, rearming and retraining in preparation for a new offensive. They continued to operate at sea as well from bases on the mainland, often attacking SL Navy convoys resupplying the Jaffna Peninsula. On March 30th 1996, the Sea Tigers attacked a south-bound SL Navy transport carrying troops home on leave, escorted by Dvora fast attack craft (FACS) of the 4th Fast Attack Flotilla. The Dvoras had fought off several nighttime attacks, trading casualties with the Sea Tigers, and had taken some damage to their own craft. One of these was P458, commanded by Lieutenant Jude Wijethunge, with a twelve-man crew. P458 had damage to its engines and was under tow.
When daylight arrived, the Sea Tigers tried a new tactic; they sent in two suicide boats escorted by Muraj gunboats, in two flanking attacks. As the northernmost attack came in, Lieutenant Wijethunge ordered his tow line dropped and turned into the Sea Tiger attack. Commanding his Dvora from its open bridge rather than the closed bridge radar station used for longer range engagements, Wijethunge intercepted the flanking maneuver and tried to destroy the suicide boat. Alone, and almost without engine power, several of its crew killed and badly wounded, P458 continued to fight, engaging the Muraj gunboats until it was rammed by the suicide boat and sunk. Only two of Jude Wijethunge’s crewmen survived to be picked up by the other Dvoras, and the skipper of P458 was not among them. He was the first sailor to receive the PWV.
As part of this guerrilla warfare, the Tigers launched a multitude of terrorist attacks across the country, including assassinations and a train bombing close to Colombo. One attempted assassination was of a cabinet minister, Nimal Siripala de Silva, the Minister of Housing and Public Utilities who, in his capacity as the chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Northern Rehabilitation, was visiting Jaffna in early July 1996.
On July 6th, Minister de Silva was having a busy morning in the Tamil capital; arriving at 0900, he had conducted a discussion on the reconstruction of the City of Jaffna, damaged the previous year in the fighting to capture it from the Tigers, and had then helped hand out free books to students at a convent. He then headed to Stanley Road to officially open the new Building Materials Corporation outlet. After the ceremony, Minister de Silva left the building and walked to the Mitsubishi Pajero SUV that was to transport him to the Jaffna Kachcheri for talks with military and civil officers involved in rehabilitation work. With the minister was Brigadier Ananda Hamangoda, commander of the 512 Brigade that held Jaffna, Ranjit Godamudune, the chairman of Lanka Cement, and a police bodyguard, PC Banda. Brigadier Hamangoda was going to personally drive Minister de Silva to his next appointment, escorted by armed troops of the 51st Division’s Quick Reaction Team (QRT) mounted in Land Rovers and on motorcycles. A large crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings.
Lance Corporal WIM Seneviratne, 7th Light Infantry.
On one QRT bike was Lance Corporal WIM Seneviratne of the 7th Light Infantry. A 28-year-old veteran, thrice wounded in combat, he had been seconded from his battalion to the division QRT after the capture of Jaffna. A son of Kurunegala paddy farmers, Seneviratne had almost ten years in the SL Army and had fought in two wars. On the pillion of his bike was Private Pushpakumara, and they were stationed twenty metres behind the minister’s SUV, engine ticking over, ready to escort the convoy.
Minister de Silva started to get into the front passenger seat of the SUV at 1245, to take his place next to Brig Hamangoda in the driving seat. At that moment, Lance Corporal Seneviratne noticed a young woman move out of the crowd and start to walk quickly towards the minister’s vehicle. She seemed to be pregnant, and was carrying two bags in her hands. Immediately deciding that she could be a suicide bomber, Seneviratne snapped a warning to Pushpakumara and gunned the big XT250 forward towards the woman. Cutting diagonally across the road, Seneviratne braked to a halt in front of the woman, placing his motorcycle between her and the SUV. A second later, the woman detonated the explosives strapped to her body, killing herself, Seneviratne, and Pushpakumara instantly, and sending the charred bodies of the two QRT riders and their mangled bike sprawling across Stanley Road. Being in the passenger seat on the left side of the Pajero, Minister de Silva was only slightly wounded in the face and forehead; but the others in the SUV, Brigadier Hamangoda, Ranjit Godamudune, and PC Banda were all killed. Along with them died 20 others, 11 of them civilians, and 59 more were wounded. Lance Corporal Seneviratne’s selfless act of literally shielding the minister with his own body and preventing the suicide bomber getting any closer undoubtedly contributed to Minister de Silva’s survival. He was recommended for the PWV by his CO, Lieutenat Colonel KADA Karunasekara, and it was awarded two years later, in October 1998.
Lieutenant Colonel Fazly Lafir
After almost eight months of preparations, the Tiger offensive finally came in July 1996, with a massive assault on the 215 Brigade HQ at Mullaitivu on the northeastern coast. In addition to the brigade staff and support arms, the base was held by two battalions of infantry — the 6th Vijayabahu Infantry and the 9th Sinha Rifles — a total strength of just over 1,400 men. The Tiger forces numbered approximately 4,000. And, just like at Kokavil, the base’s senior officers were not present. The brigade commander, Colonel (later Major General) Lawrence Fernando, and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Gunaratne were both in Colombo on leave. The base had no road link to any other garrisons in the area, and could only be resupplied by air or sea.
In the early hours of 18th July, the Tigers launched Operation Oyatha Alaikal (Unceasing Waves) and, in eight hours of ferocious fighting overran the 6th Vijayabahu and 9th Sinha defence lines and destroyed most of the strongpoints in the base complex. They then concentrated on assaulting the artillery positions and armouries within the base. The decimated SL Army infantry retreated into small enclaves and attempted to hold out until reinforcements arrived. Most of the Army resistance was centered around what was left of the Vijayabahu battalion HQ. It was now full daylight, and the Tiger unit commanders were ordered to regroup and wait for nightfall before renewing the assault.
Lieutenant Colonel Fazly Lafir, commanding officer of the 1st Special Forces, pictured in the uniform of his parent regiment, the Gajabas.
Seaborne reinforcements on the Jaffna Peninsula which were to relieve 215 Brigade weren’t ready to embark, and it took the rest of the day to get them on board a merchant vessel that would transport them to a rendezvous with naval landing craft that would make the final assault on the Mullaitivu coast. A beachhead needed to be established first, however, at the designated landing beach, Alampil, five kilometers south of the besieged 215 Brigade. This objective was assigned to two squadrons of the 1st Special Forces, and the first wave of 137 elite soldiers were helicoptered in, led by their battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Fazly Lafir, a 37-year-old veteran special operations soldier and one of the founding members of the Special Forces. Lafir and the first wave of SF landed under heavy fire on the exposed beach. The pilots of the SLAF’s No 6 Helicopter Squadron brought their Mi-17 transports suicidally close to the Tiger positions, one landing his SF “stick” practically on top of a Tiger .50-in heavy machine-gun, so close that the Tiger crew couldn’t bring their weapon to bear in time. Led by Fazly Lafir, who was by now in radio contact with 215 Brigade, the SF fought through the rest of the day and, after being reinforced by a second wave of SF at dusk, into the night to secure the beachhead, making repeated assaults on the Tiger positions that surrounded them, and losing thirty-six men killed and sixty wounded. Already shot several times, Lafir continued to lead his men until finally killed by shrapnel early on the 19th. At one point during the night, surrounded by battle and the continuous mortar fire of the Tigers, he was heard to say, “This is the most beautiful night of my life.” Lieutenant Colonel Fazly Lafir is the highest ranking member of the Armed Forces to receive the PWV.
By the next day, the Tigers had reinforced their positions at Alampil, and the helicopters could land no more troops. The Special Forces squadrons then fought on alone for two days to hold the beachhead until the landing craft could get in on the 21st. One Mi-17 was forced down by Tiger fire and SLNS Ranaviru, a Shanghai-class fast gun boat was sunk by a Sea Tiger suicide boat. Delayed by the Tigers at the beachhead, and by planning and logistical issues, the relief column didn’t reach Mullaitivu until July 23rd, by which time the base had fallen. 215 Brigade had been practically wiped out, with over 1,200 men killed, including at least 200 taken prisoner and subsequently murdered, and many killed in the act of surrendering.
After losing large bases like Pooneryn and Mullaitivu in 1995 and 1996, the Government of Sri Lanka needed to re-establish a main supply route from the south to the Jaffna Peninsula. Regular Tiger attacks and periodic bad weather on the sea and air routes had proven them too unreliable to sustain Jaffna. The most practical such supply route was the A9 Highway that connected central Sri Lanka to Jaffna, and in May 1997, the SL Army launched its biggest offensive, a multi-division thrust named Operation Jayasikurui (Victory Assured).
Captain GS Jayanath, 2nd Commando Regiment.
By December that year, the offensive had reached Mankulam, at the cost of heavy casualties. On the 4th, the elite 53rd Division, veterans of the Battle of Jaffna, pushed north of Mankulam in a pincer movement out of which most of the Tiger units quickly withdrew. Before the division could consolidate, however, they were hit by a massive Tiger artillery bombardment that was obviously preparatory fire before a counterattack. The enemy artillery had to be taken out, and the 2nd Commandos were sent in. Leading one squadron-sized group was Captain GS Jayanath. The artillery positions that were his objective however proved to be a fake, and when Jayanath’s group assaulted it, the waiting Tigers sprang a massive ambush, pinning the commandos down. Under heavy machine-gun, rocket, and mortar fire, and taking casualties, Jayanath led a team of volunteers forward in an attempt to draw the Tiger fire and allow the remainder of his men to escape. In spite of his efforts, Jayanath’s group had taken too many casualties to break out with their wounded, and the captain ordered them to form a perimeter in the thick jungle while the Tigers kept up a continuous fire on them, periodically assaulting Jayanath’s perimeter in an effort to overrun his lines. In radio contact with his commanding officer, Jayanath said that he believed he could hold his position until reinforcements arrived. This proved no easy task, however, and the reinforcing troops, fighting their way through to Jayanath were faced with heavy Tiger resistance and began to take too many casualties themselves. Jayanath was told that he couldn’t be reinforced and told to break out with his men and withdraw. Knowing that this would mean abandoning his wounded, Jayanath, like Lieutenant Aldeniya at Kokavil and Lieutenant Nissanka at Pooneryn, refused. His CO heard him say that he wouldn’t leave as long as there was even a single one of his men left alive to take his orders. He also said that he was determined not to surrender, and would hold his position as long as he could. The Tiger assaults were too strong, however, and eventually Jayanath was hit in the head and killed, his group overrun and destroyed almost to a man. For his courage in refusing to abandon his wounded, and for leading by example until he was killed, Captain Jayanath was awarded the PWV, and remains the only commando to have received the medal to date.
Squadron Leader Tyron Silvapulle, 9th Attack Helicopter Squadron.
By late 1999, Jayasikurui had stalled and the Tigers were on the offensive with their own Operation Oyatha Alaikal (Unceasing Waves) III. Kilinochchi fell, and Paranthan was under heavy attack. Tiger troops were also moving against Elephant Pass to prevent reinforcements being sent. On December 17th, Tiger units were moving up by boat against the SL Army lines at Thammilamadam, close to Elephant Pass, and the soldiers called for air support. Based at Palaly, was No 9 Attack Helicopter Squadron, and Squadron Leader Tyron Silvapulle led a pair of Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters on the mission. With him was Flying Officer Chinthaka de Soyza as copilot, the youngest officer in the squadron, and two door gunners. Arriving over the target area, Silvapulle analyzed the situation. The Sea Tiger boats were heavily armed and known to possibly carry anti-aircraft missiles. It was also the middle of the northeast monsoon, and the weather was bad. Nevertheless, Silvapulle ordered his wingman to remain on station, out of range of the Tiger boats, and he himself dove into the attack. The Mi-24 possessed massive fire power, and Silvapulle and de Soyza unloaded on the Tiger boats in repeated passes, coming in dangerously low to make their fire count. Eventually, the Sea Tigers had enough and began to retreat, heading their boats down the coast. Not content with letting them escape to fight another day, Silvapulle pressed home his attack and his chopper was almost immediately hit by what is suspected to have been an anti-aircraft missile fired from the boats or the nearby shore. The Mi-24 went down in the shallow waters of the Vettilaikerni lagoon, killing its four-man crew. Although Silvapulle was recommended for the PWV, it took over twelve years for it to be approved, being awarded last week, along with fourteen others from the last few years of the war.
In 2002, the LTTE and the government signed a ceasefire agreement, and for the next four years, an uneasy peace reigned; the war relegated to acts of terrorism, assassination, and sabotage, carried out by shadowy terrorists and intelligence operatives. In mid-2006, open warfare broke out again in the Eastern Province, followed almost immediately by a Tiger offensive in the north against Jaffna in August. Just before the 2002 ceasefire, the Tigers had captured Elephant Pass, and with it the eastern half of the Jaffna Peninsula, eventually squaring off against the SL Army along a line of fortifications and trenches between Muhamalai and Nagarkovil, dubbed the National Front by the government. During the years of the ceasefire, both sides built up their defenses, and when fighting broke out in the East, the SL Army launched several probing sorties against the Tiger lines, giving the impression that an offensive to recapture Elephant Pass was being planned. The Tigers in turn beefed up their troop strength and, on August 11th, after a heavy preparatory artillery bombardment, launched a pre-emptive attack overland and amphibiously, overrunning the Muhamalai-Nagarkovil line. It would take the SL Army’s 53rd Division ten hours of heavy fighting to throw the Tigers back and retake the captured forward defense lines.
, once again sorry for my mistake. 
