Forgotten Ceylonese war heroes of WW I

by ECB Wijeyesinghe

Every year at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, sirens are sounded and a grateful world stands in silence and thinks of the gallant people who died to keep Democracy alive. Nobody, however ever seems to think of the men who fought the good fight but instead of dying, lived on to tell their children and grandchildren of the perils they had faced and the dangers they had passed.

The veterans of World War I in Ceylon have been dwindling steadily and today (1979) we are left with exactly one, even to revive memories of Mademoiselle from Armentieres who according to a bawdy barrack-room ballad, had not been kissed for forty years. He is R. Y. Daniel (Rex to his friends) now a breezy octogenarian who, with a stick in his hand and a song in his heart, still keeps the home fires burning at “Royden” in Colombo’s Greenpath.

The musical obligato to his life is of course, provided by his versatile wife, Bertha, who is now busy rehearsing a Nativity Play to be staged at her parish church, St. Anthony’s in Kollupitiya. Bertha, as usual has written the music and the dialogue and is directing what has come to be regarded as an annual artistic event. It is not necessary to say that Bertha is talented because she is the daughter of James van Langenberg, K.C. who was once Solicitor General in the Colonial regime, and a sister of the celebrated Arthur van Langenberg, one of the master-spirits of our age.Alas, the male line of this dynasty is virtually extinct, but Bertha and Rex, who incidentally were married at Westminster Cathedral, London, have raised a remarkable family which has introduced the art and crafts of Lanka to the exclusive boudoirs and shopping centres of the world. Rex Y. Daniel as may be guessed, is a son of A. Y. Daniel who a generation ago made auctioneering a fashionable and lucrative profession.

When the old man agreed to let his son, who was then at Oxford University, enlist for War Service, many an eyebrow in Colombo was raised. Pessimists who playfully told his auctioneer-father that Rex would soon be going, going, gone had to eat their words, when the son staged a triumphant return, humming, “It’s a long way to Tipperary

Rex, who was the first Ceylonese to answer Kitchener’s call to arms 65 years ago, was wounded twice, once at Ypres where the Germans mowed down five British divisions, but failed to break through despite using poison gas. The other time he was hit was on the Somme when the Allies used tanks for the first time, but it was in the muddy trenches that Rex received the wound that sent him to hospital. Another Ceylonese who proudly carried the scars of battle to his dying day was Richard Aluwihare. He lived to tell the tale, unlike the 50 others who lost their lives in action, the first being Lt. G. C. B. Loos of the Third Worcesters, a son of the Hon. Mr. F. C. Loos, a member of the old Legislative Council.

Richard Aluwihare (who was knighted later), Rex Daniel, D. B. Seneviratne and Carl Arndt were four men who were up to the neck in the Flanders mud when they served on the Western Front. All of them were promising young men when they enlisted, and as their careers were seriously interrupted by the war, the British Government held a special Civil Service examination for them. The test was stiff but all four of them passed it and later justified the confidence placed in their abilities. The First World War did not have much of an impact on Ceylon except for the declaration of Martial Law during the 1915 riots and the constant threat to food supplies caused by the German cruiser Emden. The Emden under the resourceful Captain Von Muller created a sensation in Eastern waters by attacking Allied vessels and ports at unexpected moments. Legends began to be built up round this mysterious German warship and the word, Emden, passed into the language as the nickname for a dangerous man or a seductive woman.

The Kaiser

When the first Armistice was signed everybody thought that the war to end war was over. Such a holocaust could not be repeated unless, of course, another man like Kaiser Wilhem II appeared on the scene. The Kaiser who was a grandson of Queen Victoria was a by word for that vaulting ambition that o’er leaps itself and falls flat on the other side.

Within two years of his accession to the throne, the Kaiser sacked his Chancellor Bismarck, the man of blood and iron who laid the foundation for the greatness of modern Germany. As a statesman, Bismarck had few equals and his fame became so widespread that local headmen loved to use him as a model. There was even a Mudaliyar who revelled in the honorific “The Bismarck of Kalutara.”

Germany without Bismarck was like a powerful ship without a capable captain, and one of the most famous cartoons of the century was one published in “Punch” depicting the Iron Chancellor majestically walking down the gangway, while the Kaiser leans on the railings and watches, with a quizzical smile, the great man’s departure. The caption merely said “Dropping the pilot”.

The Kaiser had the temerity to direct the war in person during the first two years, despite the fact that military geniuses such as von Hindenburg, Talkenhayn and Ludendorff were at his beck and call. There were, however, two talking points about the Kaiser at the time he wanted to rule the world. They were both in his bristling moustache which turned up suddenly at both ends and had numerous imitators in Ceylon. But when the Kaiser went into exile the local moustaches lost their points.

Skeptics

When preachers in churches, temples and mosques grimly proclaimed on November 11, 1918, that once and for all there would be an end to wars and rumours of war there were a few skeptics in their congregation. They were the men who said that history has a nasty way of repeating itself. They were right, because 21 years later Hitler came on the scene and set fire to Europe.

World War 11 had started and two Ceylonese whose names are seldom mentioned in this context deserve an honourable mention. Both of them are happily alive. One is Dr. Chandra Gooneratne, MA, PhD who graduated in the United States but joined up as a Welfare Officer in the British Expeditionary Force. He was a handsome bachelor then and had not yet met and married Margaret, the English woman who presides so efficiently over the American Center in Flower Road.

The other man who volunteered to drive away the blues and roll out the barrel when the Nazis were knocking at the doors of Paris was the lovable doyen of Ceylon painters, Gate Mudaliyar A. C. G. S. Amarasekera now in the naughty nineties. This time he was not painting Paris red, but with the help of Chandra Gooneratne showing Hitler’s men a few Sinhala tricks.

With support from the Mudaliyar’s magic and Chandra’s charm, World War II was won but the way they did it despite the diversions and temptations in the French cities is a long story. Once when the Mudaliyar was missing in Paris they searched for him high and low in all the hot-spots. Eventually, they found him of all places in a church, admiring the frescoes and the paintings. Chandra and his search party were greatly relieved, but it was altogether an anti-climax to the pursuit of the Mudaliyar, whose artistic soul since his boyhood has been devoted to the Pursuit of the Beautiful.

(Excerpted from The Good Among The Best first published in 1979)