The Savior Of Ceylon: The Pilot who Stopped a Repeat of Pearl Harbor by Jay Hemmings
Supermarine Stranraer
Source:warhistoryonline
He was transferred to a POW work camp that had been erected in a baseball stadium. The conditions in the camp were harsh and the rations were scarce.
One of the things Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Air Commodore Leonard Birchall is most remembered for is being the “Savior of Ceylon.” He was the pilot who warned the Allied forces in Colombo of the Japanese surprise attack that was on its way, thus allowing them to prepare and preventing a repeat of Pearl Harbor.
However, he showed the true breadth of nobility and valor of his character in Japanese prisoner of war camps over a period of three years, in which he saved many men’s lives and took many prisoners’ beatings for them.
The Japanese eventually believed him, and went ahead with their attack – but they found the Allied defenders prepared for them, and their raid was a failure.
Birchall was then transferred to mainland Japan, where he was incarcerated at Yokohama. He was placed in an interrogation camp, in which he was subject to solitary confinement and daily beatings. In this camp – in which no speaking (except when answering questions) was allowed – Birchall spent 6 grueling months.
Japanese destroyer Isokaze
After this, he was transferred to a POW work camp that had been erected in a baseball stadium. The conditions in the camp were harsh; rations were scarce, and the prisoners were basically on a starvation diet. Beatings were commonplace, and everyone, regardless of their physical condition, was forced to work.
Birchall immediately began to earn the respect of the other prisoners by arranging a system in the camp whereby he and the officers displayed the food that had been dished out to them, and if any enlisted man thought that the officers had been given better food, or more food, he was free to exchange his rations with the officer’s.
Supermarine Stranraer ‘920 Photo by Alan Wilson CC BY-SA 2.0
He also gave up smoking and convinced the other officers to do the same, as cigarettes were the only items that gave the men in the camps any kind of relief. He and the officers thus donated their cigarette rations to the enlisted men. He also made sure that no heavily addicted smoker would trade their food rations for cigarettes.
Despite the risk of severe punishment, he also argued with the guards and demanded better treatment and rations for his men. If a guard was beating a particularly weak prisoner, Birchall and the other officers would step in and take a beating from the guards on that prisoner’s behalf.
Air Commodore Leonard Birchall Leadership Award, at Royal Military College of Canada; bas-relief bronze by Colonel (ret’d) Andre Gauthier Photo by Victoriaedwards CC BY-SA 3.0
On one occasion, a guard refused to stop beating a particularly sick prisoner, so Birchall intervened, as he always did – but this time he used his fists. For attacking a guard, he was tortured to within an inch of his life, but even after this, he again led his fellow prisoners in a strike, refusing to work until the guards agreed not to beat and mistreat very ill men.
For this, though, Birchall was sent to a severe discipline camp in Tokyo, where he was subjected to more brutality. Even then the Japanese couldn’t break his spirit, and he continued to inspire his fellow POWs. After this he was sent to a camp in the mountains outside Tokyo.
Birchall Pavilion, Royal Military College of Canada Photo by Victoriaedwards CC BY-SA 3.0
After three and a half years of imprisonment, Birchall was finally freed by Allied troops after the Japanese surrender. In the POW camps at which he had been imprisoned, he had succeeded in boosting morale, improving treatment of the prisoners, and making things more efficient to the point that the death rate of some camps dropped from over 30% to around 2%.
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Birchall kept detailed diaries of his time in the Japanese POW camps, and these were used as evidence in post-war trials. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in Ceylon, and made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for his actions in the POW camps.
Leonard Birchall retired from the RCAF in 1967, and then worked at York University, Ontario, until 1982. He passed away at the age of 89 in 2004.
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