History
1949-1972
The Regiment of the Sri Lanka Army Ordnance became a Corps on 14 October 1949. With the raising of Ceylon Army in 1949, munitions of the Royal Ordnance were accepted and stacked in government storerooms. The Ordnance storeroom was established on 1 February 1950 in Kirulapone.
Major B G Brecher was the first Director of the Sri Lanka Ordnance. He was dispatched to Sri Lanka on 11 March 1950. The initial plan was laid down by him with the advice of Wolly Rowi. Sri Lanka Corps of Ordnance was officially established as a Unit on 29 March 1950 with 2 Commissioned Officers, 2 Warrant Officers, 1 Staff Sergeant, and 3 Sergeants under the direction of Major B G Brecher. Its founder members were Captain ED Ebert, Lieutenant AADB Perera, WO I, BC Waisse, WO I, PM Rathnayake, Staff Sergeant Wickramaseka WEB, Sergeant Karunathilaka MLWB, Sergeant Ebert JAVD, Sergeant De Alwis CS.
Cylon Ordnance Corps was the youngest Commonwealth member to have been raised according to Royal Ordnance. Other ranks were first recruited to the Corps on 7 February 1950. During the initial years, the Corps operated as two units - the Directorate of Ordnance Services was at the Army Headquarters while the Ordnance Depot was located in Kirulapone.
Policy affairs, planning and inventorying were the responsibility of the Ordnance Directorate, while acceptance of goods, stocking, and issuance were the responsibilities of the issuing depot. The first-ever stock was what the Army purchased from the Royal Ordnance.
An Arms and Ammunition unit was established at Army Headquarters on 23 March 1950. Its first staff included one officer and three other ranks. As the responsibilities assigned to them were growing, the first ordnance depot was established as part Sri Lanka Electrical Mechanical Engineering Corp. This unit functioned according to the Royal Ordnance Depot which was part of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Corps.
The Kirulapone Ordnance Depot was shifted to Panagoda Army Cantonment, Panagoda in July 1955 where it remained. In March 1956, the Sri Lanka Corps of Ordnance was separated from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. The officers, therefore, returned to their country, and in the same month, Lt Col DFT Abeysinghe was appointed the unit's first Commanding Officer. At the time, the Corps consisted of 6 officers and 176 other ranks.
Thereafter, the SLAOC was functioning jointly with the Ordnance Director under the supervision of a senior Stock control officer and accounts officer. All duties pertaining to SLAOC were performed under the SLAOC Directorate and the Commanding Officer SLAOC was answerable to the Army Commander on all technical affairs related to ordnance services.
Commandant is a title often given to the officer in charge of a military training establishment or academy. This usage is common in English-speaking nations. In some countries it may be a military or police rank. It is also often used to refer to the commander of a military prison or prison camp.
Lieutenant General Parami Sudammika Bandara Kulatunga, RSP, VSV, USP was a Sri Lanka Army general. He was serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army and its third highest-ranking officer at the time of his assassination. On the morning of 26 June, he was killed by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber who drove an explosives-laden motorbike into his staff car as it was driving to a military base at Pannipitiya near Colombo.
The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The army was officially established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, though the army traces its roots back in 1881 when Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers was created; the army was renamed as the 'Sri Lanka Army' when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972. In 2024, the Army had approximately 150,000 personnel.
The Sri Lanka Armoured Corps (SLAC) provides the armour capability of the Sri Lanka Army, with vehicles such as the T-55AM2 main battle tank; the BMP infantry fighting vehicle; and the BTR-80 and WZ551 armoured personnel carriers. It comprises five regular armoured regiments, a volunteer regiment, and a regimental band. It has an independent Armoured Brigade and is headquartered at Rock House Army Camp, Colombo.
The Sri Lanka Artillery (SLA) is the artillery arm of the Sri Lanka Army. It is made up of ten regular regiments and two volunteer regiments. The SLA is headquartered at Panagoda Cantonment, Panagoda.
The Corp of Sri Lanka Engineers (SLE) is a combat support arm of the Sri Lanka Army which provides military engineering. It is made up of ten regular regiments and one volunteer regiment. Headquartered at Panagoda Cantonment, it is headed by the Centre Commandant.
The Sri Lanka Signals Corps (SLSC) is a combat support corps of the Sri Lanka Army, responsible for providing military communications, information technology and electronic warfare support. The corps is made up of a signals brigade, ten regular regiments and one volunteer regiment. It is responsible for installing, maintaining and operating all types of telecommunications equipment and information systems. It is headquartered at the Panagoda Cantonment.
The Sri Lanka Light Infantry (SLLI) is the oldest regiment in the Sri Lanka Army and the oldest infantry regiment in the army. It is made up of sixteen regular battalions and nine volunteer battalions, and is headquartered at the Panagoda Cantonment, Panagoda.
The Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment (SLSR) is an infantry regiment of the Sri Lanka Army; it is the second oldest infantry regiment in the army.
The National Cadet Corps is a youth organisation in Sri Lanka, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, which operates in schools, and normally includes Army, Navy and Air Force sections. The corp is open for secondary school students on voluntary basis and its officers are government teachers and educational administrators, who serve as instructors. The Cadets are given basic military training in small arms and parades, as well as leadership training.
The Sri Lanka Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (SLEME) (Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකා විදුලි හා යාන්ත්රික ඉංජිනේරු රෙජිමේන්තුව Shri Lanka Viduli Ha Yanthrika Injineru Rejimentuwa) is a Combat Support corps of the Sri Lanka Army. It is made up of six regular regiments and one volunteer (reserve) regiment. Regiment Center located at Kew Road, Slave Island, Colombo. The present strength of the corps is 200 officers and 5763 other ranks.
The Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps (SLAMC) (Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකා යුද හමුදා වෛද්ය බලකාය Shri Lanka Yuddha Hamuda Vayidya Balakaya) is a specialist corps in the Sri Lanka Army which specializes in military medicine and provides medical services to all army personnel and their families in war and in peace. It is made up of 4 regular units and one volunteer unit. Headquartered in Colombo, formally at army headquarters. The corps Cap badge depicting the Rod of Asclepius. General officers and senior officers of the SLMC wear gorget patches of maroon rather than of scarlet worn by other officers of similar rank.
The Sri Lanka Army General Service Corps (SLAGSC) a corps of the Sri Lanka Army. The corps carries out much of the administrative work of the army. The role of the Corps is to provide logistic backing to Regular and Volunteer units by performing Financial/ Accounting Services, pay duties, legal services, running of agriculture projects and farms etc. Therefore, it is made up of Accountants, Legal Officers, Agriculture Offices, data processing officers and other ranks specialized in those fields. It is made up of a 3 regular units and 3 volunteer (reserve) units and is headquartered at its Regiment Center at the Panagoda Cantonment, Panagoda.
The Corps of Engineer Services (CES) a regiment of the Sri Lanka Army. The role of the Corps of Engineer Services is to design, construct and maintain all buildings, roads and associated facilities such as electricity, water supply and drainage systems used by the Sri Lanka Army, Apart from this, the Regiment is also responsible for the installation, maintenance and repair of all types of generators, water pumps, sewer pumps, desalination plants and other electrical appliances. It is made up of 6 regular units and 9 volunteer (reserve) units and is headquartered at its Regiment Center at the Panagoda Cantonment, Panagoda.
The Sri Lanka Military Academy, commonly known simply as Diyatalawa, is the oldest military academy in Sri Lanka, and trains commissioned officers for the Sri Lanka Army. It is located in the garrison town of Diyatalawa in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. It has capacity to train more than 300 cadets.
General Shantha H.S. Kottegoda, WWV, RWP, RSP, VSV, USP is a retired senior Sri Lanka Army officer. He was the seventeenth commander of the Sri Lankan Army from 1 July 2004 – 5 December 2005. He had served as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Brazil and Thailand. In April 2019, following the Easter Sunday bombings he was appointed as the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence.
Brigadier G. R. Jayasinghe, VSV was a Sri Lankan military officer, who was the former head of the Sri Lanka Army Ordnance Corps and founder of the Sri Lanka Rifle Corps in 1984.
The 1891 Birthday Honours were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The Queen, and were published in the London Gazette on 29 May 1891 and in The Times on 30 May 1891.
On 21 July 1944, United States Marine and Army forces invaded the island of Guam, the southernmost of the Mariana Islands chain in the Central Pacific, with the intent to take control of the island from the Imperial Japanese Army. Operation Forager II, as it was called by American planners, was a phase of the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
Major General Duleep Justin De Sliva Wickramanayake was a general of the Sri Lanka Army. He served as the Director Operations and Training of the Sri Lanka Army.
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