Navy sails into 60th year

by Dhaneshi Yatawara

The LTTE once said that their final battle with the Sri Lanka Armed Forces will be in the seas. The Sri Lanka Navy, which steps into the 60th year, proved its might by venturing out to deep sea thousands of miles away from our coast to hunting down LTTE floating warehouses thereby depriving the LTTE of logistics support.

All these warships did a remarkable job round the clock to run naval barriers and blockades to keep the enemy at bay and ensure that enemy held did not receive any kind of support from the outside world.

During the past 59 years, especially during the last three decades of war, the Sri Lanka Navy has been gradually structured to provide four fundamental military and non military capabilities. First is control of the sea to assure Sri Lanka can use the oceans for economic and military purposes while denying such access to opponents in time of crisis or war.

Second is the ability to project power ashore with naval gunfire, rockets, and marine forces—either in support of sea-control or to support a joint campaign ashore. Third, the Navy provides Aid to Civil Power in time of unrest or any civil disturbances. Finally, the Navy provides aid by way of men, expertise and material in times of natural calamities.

The cutting edge of SLN was the Fast Attack Craft (FAC) Squadron, which from its inception in 1984 have held the line tight and stayed together against all odds at sea. FACs were the first on the scene of action in time of trouble at sea.The Special Boat Squadron (SBS) along with the Rapid Action Boat Squadron (RABS) opened a new concept in combat especially within the sphere of asymmetric warfare to effectively counter the swarming tactics of the Sea Tigers. Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, who introduced these concepts, was succeeded by the then Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Tisara Samarasinghe. He is the 16th Commander of the Navy. “We are standing amidst a vastly resourceful ocean. Protecting it from all intruding factors is essential for the economical, cultural development of our mother land.

Being a strong Navy our officers and sailors are specialized in navigation, communication and under water torpedoes as well as gunnery, missiles etc,” he says.

Though the days of terror are no more the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) is shouldering a mammoth task of protecting the territorial waters which is one third of the land, the Exclusive Economic Zone that is seven times larger than the land mass as well as the rescue and search zone of the sea which expands 27 times the land area.

Technically speaking the SLN is responsible for Protection of Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCS), continuous surveillance and naval operations, protecting maritime resources and fishing industry and most importantly it assists the Government in development activities.

The SLN will keep their Warships and all other naval craft in all probable states of readiness and use its state of the art array of Marine Surveillance Radar system installed along the coast.

These Radars capable of detecting any inbound threat or any unwanted guest in the sea for a distance of 400 km (200 Nautical Miles) from the coast. All these radars are positioned at strategically important coastal locations and with time to come, will be definitely fortified and expanded as deemed necessary.

Recently nearly 10,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were resettled in the northern islands by the Sri Lanka Navy in liaison with government agents under the Government’s Resettlement Programme.

Transit centres for IDPs with domestic facilities have been established by the Navy in the Northern Islands and the registrations and resettlement process is carried out with the assistance of the Navy.

Medical clinics and other welfare activities for the IDPs are also facilitated by the Navy.The present Commander wants every sailor to become millennium sailor - thus competent in every aspect of their job elevating themselves in to high professionalism. “We have started a special project to make our sailors fluent in English and special classes are conducted at every centre situated islandwide,” the Commander added.

The nation is forever indebted to our heroes who sacrificed life, limb and liberty for our country. It is an honour for the officers and sailors to say that they were their comrade sailors.