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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sarika406" data-source="post: 19369215" data-attributes="member: 106621">Lance Corporal Gamini KularatneThe road and rail routes onto the Jaffna Peninsula cross from the mainland via a causeway close to the small town of Elephant Pass, and by June 1991, a year after the outbreak of the Second Eelam War, it was held by a single infantry battalion — the 6th Sinha Rifles, commanded by Major (later Major General) Sanath Karunaratne — some supporting arms, and a small Commando detachment; totally surrounded by enemy territory and dependent on resupply by helicopter from the airbase at Palaly. Strategically valuable for its control of the Jaffna Peninsula and its neighbouring lagoon, Elephant Pass was an important target for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and its leader, Velupillai Prabkharan, had vowed to capture it in “the mother of all battles”. As fighting raged across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, 5,000 Tigers launched a massive attack on the 800-man garrison at Elephant Pass, bringing in heavy ZSU-23-2 anti-aircraft cannon that prevented air resupply. For the next three days, the 6th Sinha stood at their guns as the Tigers sent in human wave attacks again and again, trying to use their superior numbers to overrun the riflemen, failing each time, but causing heavy casualties among the defenders.By the 13th, the Tigers had overrun the Rest House Camp — a strongpoint in the sector protecting the southern side of the causeway, and the riflemen had been forced to retreat to the second line of defence centred on the Saltern Siding strongpoint. At dusk, the Tigers tried a new tactic, sending an armoured fighting vehicle — a converted Caterpillar bulldozer — north up the main highway towards the Saltern Siding. Heavy weapons mounted on the AFV hammered the defenders and Tiger infantry moved up in its path. Flattening a bunker, the AFV broke through the perimeter. The fate of the southern perimeter hung in the balance. Another bunker further down the line was manned by Lance Corporal Gamini Kularatne and Rifleman Roel, and as they watched the AFV break through the defences, Kularatne slung his assault rifle and picked up a grenade in each hand. Ordering Roel to provide covering fire, the shy, rail-thin 26-year-old from the Kandyan farming village of Hasalaka, made for the AFV, running through the heavy crossfire between the next line of defenses and the attacking Tigers. Hit several times, Kularatne kept going until he reached the rear of the AFV and scaled its ladder. Hauling himself onto the AFV, Kularatne used his grenades to kill the four-man crew, falling to the ground with the explosions. The Sinha riflemen then counterattacked and secured the perimeter. Gamini Kularatne was found on the road by his comrades, dead of the gunshot and shrapnel injuries he had received. Although it would take a further eighteen days of fighting before the 6th Sinha would be reinforced after an amphibious landing 12km away, the moment of supreme danger had passed. Major Sanath Karunaratne, the CO of the 6th Sinha recommended Kularatne be awarded the PWV, and four months later the award was approved. The Parama Weera Vibushanaya had its first recipient.Lance Corporal Gamini Kularatne of the 6th Sinha Rifles, probably the most famous of the PWV recipients and the armoured bulldozer he gave his life to destroy, now part of a memorial to the battalion’s fallen at Elephant Pass.Over the next two years of ferocious fighting, no single act of courage was considered great enough to be awarded the PWV. Not until Poppy Day, 1993, and the Battle of Pooneryn. The 3rd Battalion of the Gajaba Regiment had been sent to Pooneryn primarily to help protect the nearby naval base at Nagathevanthurai which dominated the western part of the Jaffna Lagoon. SL Navy boats from this base were able to prevent the free movement of Tiger craft using the lagoon to resupply their troops on the peninsula, and particularly around the city of Jaffna itself. Like Elephant Pass, it was a thorn in the side of the Tigers and needed to be destroyed. Unlike at Elephant Pass, however, the Tiger attack was successful.2nd Lieutenant KWT Nissanka2nd Lieutenant KWT Nissanka was a platoon commander in the 3rd Gajabas when the Tigers sprang a massive land- and seaborne assault on the Nagathevanthurai naval base and the SL Army positions close to Pooneryn late on November 10th, the eve of Poppy Day. Along with the main assaults, Tiger commandos who had earlier infiltrated the perimeter overran the strongpoints within the base as well as many of the bunkers housing the heavy support weapons. Taken by surprise, the Gajaba defenses collapsed under the intense attack. With Tiger troops inside the perimeter lines, an organised resistance was impossible, and the defenders grouped together in small squads and sections and fought back as best they could, hoping to survive. Lieutenant Nissanka’s platoon, deployed as part of the battalion perimeter, was just outside Pooneryn, and facing the town, when around 0130 hours on November 11th, a Tiger assault hit them. Nissanka’s platoon fought back with small arms and RPG fire, holding the Tigers off; however, they regrouped and mounted a second assault which, along with another assault by Tigers already inside the defense lines, began to take its toll on the platoon. As the situation worsened, the young lieutenant braved enemy fire to move from bunker to bunker, encouraging his men, and with his lines being overrun and more Tigers pouring into the attack, he radioed his battalion HQ for reinforcements. However, there were no reinforcements available as the whole perimeter was under attack, including the battalion HQ. The fighting continued through the dark hours, and as dawn approached, Nissanka’s continued disregard for his own safety resulted in a bullet in his thigh. Badly wounded and in great pain, Nissanka still stayed in command of his platoon, though the majority of his men were now killed or injured, and those unhurt were unable to evacuate the wounded under the intense Tiger fire. Finally, with yet another Tiger assault forming, Nissanka knew that his platoon’s position was hopeless. He then ordered his few remaining uninjured men to try and withdraw the wounded to a safer position, while he held off the Tigers. Nissanka then pulled the pins of two grenades, and with one in each fist, rushed the approaching Tigers. Hit several more times, Nissanka still managed to reach the Tigers and detonate the grenades, killing and wounding a number of them instantly, and dying in the attempt. The disruption he caused the assault enabled some of his men to withdraw from their position.However, unlike with Lance Corporal Kularatne’s sacrifice at Elephant Pass, Nissanka’s couldn’t save his battalion from the ferocious onslaught. Pooneryn and Nagathevanthurai fell with heavy casualties amongst both the Gajabas and the SL Navy troops. Colonel Daulagala, commander of the 3rd Gajabas, recommended Nissanka for the PWV, and it was approved in 1996.2nd Lieutenant Saliya Aldeniya, 3rd (Volunteer) Sinha Rifles.But before Lieutenant Nissanka’s PWV was approved, one was awarded to another young lieutenant, for an act of courage that preceded even Gamini Kularatne’s, making this new recipient technically the first of the PWV heroes, even though the recommendation wasn’t approved until four years after the man’s death. This recipient was 2nd Lieutenant Saliya Aldeniya – a part-time officer in the 3rd (Volunteer) Sinha Rifles. Lieutenant Aldeniya had barely completed a year as a commissioned officer when the Tigers broke the ceasefire agreed with President Ranasinghe Premadasa and launched attacks all across the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the middle of 1990, announcing the outbreak of the Second Eelam War.Based in Nuwara Eliya in the Central Highlands, Colonel Abey Weerakoon’s 3rd Sinha was ordered to the Northern Province as war broke out. A rifle company was sent to defend Mankulam in late May, and a platoon of two officers and fifty-eight men of that company were detached to secure the nearby Rupavahini television relay station at Kokavil. Lieutenant Aldeniya was this platoon’s second-in-command, deemed too junior for the responsibility of command. On June 5th, Mankulam was attacked by the Tigers, but they were repulsed with heavy casualties, and by the 16th a temporary ceasefire was negotiated. By then, however, both Mankulam and Kokavil were surrounded by the Tigers. In spite of the danger of an imminent attack, the commander of the Kokavil detachment and fifteen men went on leave, leaving the 26-year-old Lieutenant Aldeniya in command of forty-three men. Shortly afterwards, the Tigers attacked and attempted to overrun the detachment.Surrounded and outnumbered five to one, Aldeniya and his detachment held off the Tigers for fourteen days, and were running short of ammunition, medical supplies, food, and water. They had also taken a number of casualties. Reinforcements sent from Vavuniya to relieve Aldeniya’s detachment, couldn’t fight their way past the Tigers who held all the roads. By June 10th, the soldiers were down to 300 rounds of ammunition, and had only fifteen uninjured men. Resupply helicopters couldn’t get through the Tiger fire. In radio contact with his battalion commander, Aldeniya was ordered on June 11th to abandon the relay station and withdraw, but he was reluctant to leave behind his more seriously wounded men, who could not be moved. Ordering those who could walk to withdraw, Aldeniya elected to remain with the wounded. His last words to his CO, Colonel Weerakoon, before radio contact was lost at 2345 hours were “Don’t worry sir, I will fight till I die.” The Tigers then detonated an adjacent fuel dump and overran Aldeniya’s perimeter. He was 26 years old and married, and is listed as missing, believed killed. He was awarded the PWV four years later.By late November 1995, Operation Riviresa (Sun Ray), the Sri Lankan military offensive to capture the city of Jaffna was at a very crucial stage, with the SL Army’s 53rd Division under Brigadier (later Major General) Janaka Perera on the outskirts of the city, three of its brigades — 531 Airmobile, 532 Infantry, and 534 Independent — pushing inwards, and the Tigers fighting desperately to keep them out. Being a coastal city on the edge of a peninsula surrounded by a maze of small islands, the Battle for Jaffna was also an amphibious one. In addition to the fighting for the city itself, SL Navy small boat units were tangling with Sea Tiger flotillas that were attempting to resupply and reinforce the Tigers in the city. SL Army infantry and Tiger units were also stationed on many of the small islands in an attempt to dominate the waters that the boats were using. One of these units was the 10th Gajabas, holding the island of Mandativu, just off Jaffna, to dominate both the Jaffna-Kayts causeway and the sea approaches to the city. Between the 10th Gajaba’s position and the city lay the tiny islet of Chiruthivu, manned by a small Tiger unit that was positioned to fire on the Gajabas and provide cover for Tiger boats resupplying Jaffna. The boats were operating by night, and as many as three-hundred sorties were run under cover of darkness, reinforcing and resupplying the Tigers in Jaffna. For the boat traffic to be stopped, Chiruthivu had to be taken and held.Staff Sergeant Pasan Gunasekara, 10th Gajaba Regiment.Lieutenant Colonel NAJC Dias, commander of the 10th Gajabas, decided to send two sections to take Chiruthivu. Staff Sergeant Pasan Gunasekara, a veteran platoon sergeant with ten years of fighting under his belt, volunteered to lead the team. It was just three weeks after his 31st birthday. In the early hours of the 29th, Gunasekara and his sixteen men set off from Mandativu on small improvised rafts to cross the narrow channel to Chiruthivu. Landing at 0200, they drove off the Tigers and secured the islet. Gunasekara then set up a fire base and engaged the Tiger boats with rifle, machine-gun, and RPG fire. For almost forty-eight hours, Gunasekara and his men exchanged heavy fire with the Sea Tiger boats and successfully stopped the seaborne resupply of Jaffna. His detachment was finally relieved at 2100 on November 30th, but by then Pasan Gunasekara had died of wounds sustained in the firefight with the boats. On December 1st, the city fell to the 53rd Division. Gunasekara’s CO recommended him for the PWV, and it was awarded in 1998.</blockquote>

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