Sri Lanka, though a sea faring nation for much of its history, had not experienced any naval engagements for many centuries even as a colony of the British empire through two World Wars.
A noteworthy military accomplishment of historic value is all but forgotten in modern times.
It happened many centuries ago during the Polonnaruwa kingdom era when the King of Burma refused to pay his annual ransom to the King of Sri Lanka who held sway over the region with significant military and economic power which dictated who stood on top in the pecking order at the time. The Sinhala king despatched a naval amphibious force, which even after losing half of its ships in the stormy waters of the Bay of Bengal yet managed to land the remaining force to march many hundreds of miles to burn the City of Rangoon as a lesson to other similar would be challengers.
Though the intervening years had been less than dramatic in the Naval front, thanks to the generous efforts of the overseas tamil diaspora who provided rust buckets filled to the gills with arms and ammunition intended to cause death and destruction in Sri Lanka, the SL Navy has become a true blue water Navy.
These videos are a few of the exploits of the modern day Sri Lanka Navy as it takes on the duty of keeping our seas and international waters free of terrorism. The opportunity for target practice on a live target is such a rarity, that the Navy and its wellwishers hope the tamil tiger toilet washers languishing in western nations to collect funds for terrorism in Sri Lanka would hurry up and buy more ships for the SL Navy to hunt down and turn into artificial reef.
And without a doubt, the fish must be appreciative of the fresh meat.
No comments:
Post a Comment