Leonard Birchall

Air Commodore Leonard Joseph Birchall, (6 July 1915 – 10 September 2004), "The Saviour of Ceylon", was a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) officer who warned of a Japanese attack on the island of Ceylon during the Second World War.

Birchall was born in St. Catharines, Ontario and graduated from St. Catharines Collegiate.

He was always interested in flying, and worked odd jobs around St. Catharines to pay for flying lessons.

After serving in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Birchall enrolled as a cadet at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario (student #2364) in 1933.

He was commissioned in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) upon graduation in 1937 and was trained as a pilot.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Flying Officer Birchall flew convoy and anti-submarine patrols from Nova Scotia flying with No. 5 Squadron RCAF.

The squadron was equipped with the Supermarine Stranraer.

On June 10, 1940, Birchall was responsible for the capture of an Italian merchant ship, the Capo Nola, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, hours after Canada declared war on Italy.

Birchall had been tasked with locating any Italian vessels still in Canadian waters as the outbreak of war became imminent.

On June 10, he found the Capo Nola.

Birchall had been informed of the declaration of war by radio so made a low pass over the freighter, as if making an attack.

This panicked the captain into running his vessel aground against a sandbank.

Birchall then touched down nearby and waited until Royal Canadian Navy vessels reached the scene.

The Capo Nola's crew were the first Italian prisoners taken by the Allies during the war.

In early 1942, he joined No. 413 Squadron RCAF, then based in the Shetland Islands and flew patrols over the North Sea.

After the Japanese successes in southeast Asia, the squadron was sent to Ceylon to provide a reconnaissance force.

On 4 April 1942, only two days after his arrival, Squadron Leader Birchall was flying a PBY Catalina flying boat (AJ155/QL-A) that was patrolling the ocean to the south of Ceylon.

Nine hours into the mission, as the plane was about to return to base, ships were spotted on the horizon.

Investigation revealed a large Japanese fleet, the Nagumo Task Force (Responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour), including five aircraft carriers, heading for Ceylon, which at that time was the base for the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet.

Birchall's crew managed to send out a radio message, but the Catalina was soon shot down by six A6M2 Zero fighters from the carrier JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER Hiryū.

The Japanese continued to strafe the wreck seriously wounding Sergeant John Henzell in the front turret.

He was lost when the aircraft sank along with Warrant Officer Lucien "Louis" Colarossi.

The Japanese continued their attack on those survivors in the water killing Sgt. Davidson.

The remaining six crew members were eventually picked up by the Japanese destroyer Isokaze.

The Easter Sunday Raid went ahead despite Birchall's signal, but his warning put the defenders on alert and allowed the harbour to be partially cleared before the Japanese attacked Colombo.

Three of his crewmen were killed in the action and the others, including Birchall, spent the rest of the war as prisoners of war (POWs).

For many captured servicemen, a trip to a Japanese camp meant death.

As the senior Allied officer in four successive Japanese prisoner of war camps, the resistance led by Birchall helped to reduce the Allied death rate from an average of 30% to less than 2%.

During his time in the POW camps, he repeatedly stood up to the Japanese and demanded fair treatment of the prisoners, in compliance with the Geneva Convention.

In his first camp, he struck a Japanese soldier who was forcing a wounded Australian to work.

This earned Birchall a severe beating and solitary confinement, but won him the respect of the other POWs.

In 1944, Birchall encountered a situation in which sick men were being forced to work on the docks.

He ordered all of the men to stop working until the sick were excused.

Birchall was beaten and sent to a special discipline camp, where he again was beaten.

He saved many ill soldiers by taking their beatings.

Birchall was liberated on 27 August 1945 by American troops.

His wife Dorothy had not known whether he was dead or alive for two years.

His diaries, written during his captivity and buried, formed the basis of a number of Allied wartime trials at which Birchall testified.

In the immediate postwar years, Birchall served on the Canadian attaché staff in Washington, D.C., then was a member of the Canadian NATO delegation in Paris.

He later commanded a fighter base and was commandant of the Royal Military College of Canada from 1963 until his retirement from the Canadian Forces in 1967.