Joining the RAF

1940 - 1941

After his unsuccessful attempt to join the Army, Edward secretly applied to join the RAF on Sept 19, 1940, in response to an advertisement seeking young men with London Matriculation to join the RAF as Pilots, Navigators or Bomb Aimers (PNB Program). He was among the fifteen that were selected as the first batch of RAF Recruits from Ceylon. The photo below shows the volunteers with H.E. The Governor of Ceylon at a dinner hosted in their honour.

Having applied in late 1940, the volunteers were eagerly waiting for the day they could sail to England and the letter above was sent by the Chief Secretary to one of Edward's fellow volunteers, Justin Perera [Source: Ms. Lindy Perera]

The first batch of RAF volunteers from Ceylon sailed on the TSS City of Exeter from Calcutta, India. The voyage took a very circuitous route to avoid U-Boats in the Atlantic. They stopped at South Africa; Walvis Bay, Namibia; St. Thomas US Virgin Islands (08/08/1941); Norfolk, VA; Newport News, VA (04/09/1941), Cape Vincent New York, Halifax Nova Scotia (Canada), Umarnasuk, Greenland and finally reaching Scotland on 25/09/1941. They took the train from Glasgow to London.

TSS The City of Exeter

The signatures of the fifteen volunteers from Ceylon, from the autograph album of M M Omerdeen [Source: Rizvi Omerdeen]

Newspaper cutting abou the arrival of the Ceylonese volunteers in UK - Sept 26, 1941

Ten of the volunteers in full flying gear pose for a photograph

Upon reaching London, they enlisted at Air Crew Selection Board (ACSB) at Euston on Sept 30, 1941. Edward was now Aircraftman 2nd class RAFVR with the service number 1396932. The other fourteen were assigned the following service numbers:

St. Elmo Alfred Lionel Michael Masefield MULLER 1396918

Clarence Shelton Antony PERERA 1396934

Rafe O'Brien VAN CUYLENBURG 1396935

Stanley Alexander Noel PEIRIS 1396936

Mervyn Rex DE SILVA 1396937

Lienage Osborne Herbert WANIGASEKERA 1396939

Kenneth Graydon JOACHIM 1396940

Leonard Shelton FLAMER-CALDERA 1396941

Mohamado Maharoof OMERDEEN 1396942

Emile Duncan Pius Mendis JAYAWARDENA 1396943

Frederick Horatio BROHIER 1396944

Patrick Shirley Arnold PEREIRA 1396945

Ponniah BALACHANDRAN 1397053

John Justin Albert PERERA 1473193

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