Tribute from SLAF No. 2 Intake of Officer Cadets

Jayanath Laksen Chandri Salgado

Appreciation

SLAF No. 2 intake of officer cadets consisted of nine, along with few other in–service inductions. Of the nine, four were Thomians and Jayanath Laksen Chandri Salgado of ‘Preetheum’, Moratuwa, was one of them.

Sala, as he was fondly called by his friends, came in with an excellent school profile as one who had reached to represent Sri Lanka at the Indo-Sri Lanka athletic meet in his pet event, the 400 meters, through ACE Athletic Club. He was a college prefect, cadet, and a member of the Second XV Rugby team.

Sala’s father, Lloyd Salgado, who was a proprietary planter, was well known to my father, who was once a Police Superintendent of Moratuwa. Later, I also became acquainted with his brother-in-law, surgeon, Dr. Wimal Gunaratne, who, too, was a public school athlete.

Cadet intakes were a result of the post ’71 insurgency expansion, which the services underwent in its wake, with the infrastructure required not being able to keep pace. In this context, the No. 01 intake, of 30 cadets took priority in the available resources. Consequently, the ‘flyers’ of our batch had to wait till No. 01 completed their phases, which applied to all other branches as well.

We felt the salubrious climate of Diyatalawa (DLA) during morning PT in our thinnest possible vest. One might say we developed a dreadful respect for the ‘Siberian winter’, which we had only read about.

The stagnation in training facilities made Sala and the flying cadets follow the training that unfolded mainly for Regt. Cadets, under the then Commanding Officer (CO), Wg. Cdr. Bren Sosa and the Officer Commanding Training (OCT) Sqn. Ldr. Tony Direckze. A component of it (No. 1 Officers’ Regt. course) was a jungle march to a location, in the Kuda Oya area, in small batches, and the flight cadets consisted one of them. It so happened that they reached the destination a day earlier than the other groups, perhaps due to a ‘flying navigational error’ and had to take the ‘back bearing’ to the DLA camp. This all-round training had perhaps stood in good stead in later service life, when commanding stations, and for Sala, in particular, when he was the Director Operations with ground operations coming under it.

On commissioning, the three flyers were posted to the No. 03 Maritime Squadron flying Cessna 337 aircraft under Sq. Ldr. CO Christian. However, unexpectedly they were converted to Jet Provost (JPT) fighter aircraft which came into its own glory with the ’71 insurgency strike and interdiction sorties. Sala and the batchmates kept on flying this aircraft until it was phased out. It took almost another two decades for the SLAF to get back to fighter jet aircraft flying, post ‘OP Poonamalai’, where the Indian Air Force dropped relief supplies over Jaffna, better known as the ‘Parippu drop’.

Sala, later qualified as a Flying instructor and he was selected to undergo No. 313 Qualified Flying Instructors (QFI) course at Central Flying School, Royal Air Force, Leeming, UK, meeting a very demanding long overdue void in flying training. In his seven years as a QFI, culminating in the last two years as CO of the Flying Training Wing (FTW), generations of pilots had been churned out meeting the coveted RAF standards. He was the first to follow the Air Warfare Course at the Air War College, Pakistan Air Force for over a period of a year. As a pilot, on his flyingmanship, what better opinion than from his own batchmate who later became a very senior Captain with SriLankan Airlines. He opined, “Sala was an exceptional flyer who could be cool as ever for military flying.”

In his rising career he had gone through the ambit of appointments as Eastern and Western Zonal Commanders, Director Operations and finally the Chief of Staff. He was a recipient of the Ranawickrema Padakkama (RWP) very early in his career (1992), and without resting on his laurels on valour he continued with his operational contributions until the very end.

Sala leaves his wife Erandathie and children Laksith and Shalindri. We are grateful to Sala’s College friend HDK Silva for keeping us updated on his medical status, sparing us from troubling Erandathie. Religious ceremonies were held at the Holy Emmanuel Church, Rawathawatte, Moratuwa, and a service funeral under health regulations.

Old soldiers never die, they only fade away
May his soul rest in peace!
Ravi Arunthavanathan
(Batchmate)