Saliya Upul Aladeniya

Captain Saliya Upul Aladeniya PWV, WWV, SLRS (In Sinhalese: ) (1964 - June 11, 1990) was the second recipient of the Parama Weera Vibhushanaya, highest war time award for valour of the Sri Lanka Military. He was a Sri Lankan army officer who refused to abandon the injured of his platoon and, fought until the Kokavil army camp was overrun by LTTE.

Educated at Trinity College Kandy, he joined the Sri Lanka Army in 1989. After basic training he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in to the Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment.

Lieutenant (at that time) Aladeniya was in command of an army outpost with a handful of men at Kokuvla (Kokavil) that was established for guarding the television relay station. The camp was surrounded for several days by LTTE cadres who outnumbered them five to one. The food and water were running out in the camp and so was the ammunition. In spite of many requests, reinforcements sent from Lt. Aladeniya's regimental headquarters in Nuwara Eliya never reached Kokavil, having been diverted elsewhere. Orders to withdraw from the camp came at the eleventh hour but then it was too late and Aladeniya had wounded men whom he did not want to leave behind. Pledging that he would rather die alongside them than leave them, Lt. Aladeniya fought on till an adjacent fuel dump exploded, killing the majority of the defenders in the camp.

Lt. Aladeniya lost his life and was posthumously promoted to rank of Captain and honoured with a Parama Weera Vibhushanaya medal on June 21,...
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