The 'Puttalam Elephants'

A Corsair (Chance Vought F4U) fighter being moved by an unusual towing vehicle, Ceylon 1944.

In April 1942 Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) had been able to withstand an initial Japanese air assault which deterred the Japanese from pressing ahead with their invasion plans of the island. The island continued to serve as an important bastion for the allies in the Indian Ocean.  

As the British colonialists expanded their operations on the island, the  airstrip of HMS Rajaliya was cut out of thick jungle at Puttalam. The grass strip was reinforced with metal. Even the heavy American-built Chance Vought F4U Corsairs used the runway, but during the wet season many a Corsair went sliding off into the muddy ground than flanked the strip. It was then that the Navy called in its special towing vehicles to haul the aircraft back to solid ground – Elephants! Operating in conditions where towing tractors became quickly bogged down, the Puttalam Elephants provided an invaluable service. They soon became part of the flying and ground crews fraternity.

This famous painting was executed by artist Robert Taylor in as a commission for the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton. The artist had never visited the location but had based his painting on the descriptions given by a Corsair pilot who had served alongside the now famous ‘Puttalam Elephants’.  

Today the airstrip is central to the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Unit Palavi. To visit the location, one needs to travel for about 2 hours north along the Colombo - Puttalam highway and turn off to the right at the Palavi junction (about 4 kilometers short of Puttalam). The 'PSP' metal sheets that made up the runway surface are no longer to be found (replaced by a paved strip), neither the famous 'Puttalam' elephants ! A enlarged print of Taylor's painting hangs in the small officers' mess - a memory of its wartime history.