Today is remembrance day of our fallen heroes. A feature of Bakers fund-a-fighter-plane campaign was that each aircraft donated to the Royal Flying Corps bore a name significant to its donors. One of the more interesting donations resulted from a brainwave of Mr. M. Subramaniam, a native of Mallakam, Jaffna, then working in the Survey Department at Kuala Lumpur. Inspired by Mr. Alma Bakers untiring efforts, he enlisted the support of other expatriate Jaffna Tamils towards raising money for a fighter plane that they could call their own. The undertaking was a great success. Contributions came pouring in from Ceylon Tamils and their families living and working in all parts of the Malay States: Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Taiping, Pahang, Selangor, etc. Within five months of launching the appeal, the handsome sum of Pounds Sterling £2250 was raised, enabling the Ceylon Tamils of Malaya to contribute a brand-new fighter plane to help the British combat the dreaded Hun. An F.E.2b similar to Jaffna; And Jaffna (above)The aircraft was a F.E.2b, built by the Royal Aircraft Factory of Britain. Like most other airplanes of its day, it was a flimsy biplane (two pairs of wings, one mounted above the other), and could be used both as a fighter plane and a night bomber. It carried a pilot and one passenger, the latter to fire the guns or drop bombs. Unusually, the planes single 120-horsepower engine was mounted behind the pilot with the propeller facing backwards, an installation called a pusher powerplant. This F.E.2b was presented to the British Government on December 22, 1915. The justifiable pride of the Tamils who had helped to purchase the plane was embodied in the name they bestowed on their gift. In honour of their hometown in Ceylon, the fighter plane was dubbed Jaffna. One wonders, as the aerial battles raged over Europe, how much death and destruction rained down on the Germans from a frail little fighter plane with the innocuous name Jaffna, far away from the city of the same name? Little would anyone have imagined that, several decades later, the town of Jaffna would play a pivotal role in another theatre of war back in Sri Lanka itself. Nothing is known of the fate of the F.E.2b plane called Jaffna. But the story of the Ceylon Tamils of Malaya, uniting in a spirit of patriotism, gratitude and generosity to gift an airplane to the British Empire, will long live in the annals of Malaysian and Singaporean history. sundaytimes.lk/990801/plus6.html
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 09:50:13 +0000