And from the Telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 18/09/2004)

Air Commodore Leonard Birchall

Air Commodore Leonard Birchall, who has died at Kingston, Ontario, aged 89, was known as "the Saviour of Ceylon" because he spotted the Japanese Fleet approaching the island, which was the base for the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet in 1942; as he radioed the position of the enemy force, his flying boat was shot down in flames.

Admiral Sir James Somerville had taken up command as C-in-C, East Indies Fleet, two days before being alerted by intelligence sources to the probability of a Japanese attack on Ceylon on April 1 1942. Fearful of the Pearl Harbor fiasco being repeated, Somerville dispersed some of his forces, and ordered air patrols to search for the enemy fleet.

Birchall and his crew, who were part of No 413 (RCAF) Squadron, had only arrived in Ceylon from the United Kingdom 48 hours earlier, when they were immediately pressed into action. After two days of fruitless searching, their Catalina took off early on April 4 and, eight hours later, sighted the Japanese force 350 miles south-east of Ceylon, steaming towards the island.

Realising that he had found the Japanese strike force, Birchall closed to observe that the fleet included five aircraft carriers. Almost immediately his lumbering flying boat was attacked by 18 fighters. A sighting message was hastily coded and transmitted to base before cannon fire destroyed the Catalina's radio. The aircraft was then set on fire and, as Birchall landed on the sea, the tail broke off.

Two of the crew were seriously injured and went down with the aircraft. As the survivors swam away from the burning fuel, the radio operator was killed by machine-gun fire in the water. All six of the survivors were wounded, three of them seriously, when they were picked up by the destroyer Isokaza.

Birchall's signal was garbled on arrival in Ceylon, and requests for amplification went unanswered. However, it gave the clear impression that invasion was imminent. The defences were alerted and 48 ships, including the aircraft carrier Hermes, sailed from Colombo and Trincomalee. As the first Japanese air attack was mounted the following morning the defences were fully alerted. The British suffered considerable losses, but the Japanese fleet retreated; Ceylon suffered no further attacks.

Although The Daily Telegraph reported at the time that there was talk about erecting a memorial to Birchall, it was not until the end of the war that he learnt of his award of a DFC for his unique mission. At a formal dinner in Washington in 1947, Winston Churchill declared that Birchall's courage in helping to foil the Japanese invasion was "one of the most important single contributions to Allied victory".

Leonard Joseph Birchall was born on July 6 1915 at St Catharine's, Ontario. After serving in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, he joined the RCAF to train as a pilot in 1937 before specialising in maritime reconnaissance. Following the outbreak of war, he flew convoy and anti-submarine patrols from Nova Scotia. Early in 1942 he joined No 413 Squadron in the Shetland Islands, flying patrols over the North Sea. Following the Japanese advances in South-East Asia, No 413 was ordered to Ceylon to provide a reconnaissance force.

Once on board Isokaza, Birchall was singled out as the senior officer, and beaten by his captors in an effort to find out if a radio message had been sent. He steadfastly denied that any such report had been sent, and resisted all attempts to extract information.

The badly injured crew were put in a damp lock-up with room for only the three most badly wounded to lie down. After three days they were transferred to the carrier Akagi, flagship of the Japanese commander Admiral Nagumo, before being landed at Yokohama, where the injured were given good treatment.

Birchall and his three other crew were taken to the town prison, where they were poorly fed before all the crew were eventually reunited. After five months they were the first inmates at a new camp in the mountains near Yokohama, where 250 Commonwealth prisoners from Hong Kong and 75 Americans from the Philippines soon joined them.

These had been so badly let down by their officers in previous camps that they proved extremely troublesome; but Birchall quickly instituted a strict code of discipline. He endeared himself to the PoWs when he struck a Japanese guard, who was insisting that a badly wounded American should join a working party. Birchall was severely beaten and placed in solitary confinement where he suffered great privation.

For most of his time in captivity, Birchall kept detailed diaries of camp life, recording deaths and maltreatment by Japanese guards. He completed 22 diaries, which were kept hidden. "If they are found," he told a friend at the time, "I am for the chop."

In early 1944, he and others were moved to another camp, where ailing men were forced to work in the docks until they collapsed. In protest, Birchall ordered the men to stop working and sit down. Although guards flayed him with clubs and rifle butts, the PoWs did as Birchall commanded until the sick were excused from work. He was then taken to a "discipline camp", beaten senseless and left without food and water for days.

In June 1945, Birchall and 200 prisoners were sent to a camp near Mount Fuji. When three men died of malnutrition, he organised "stealing teams" to raid local farms for fresh vegetables to provide the essential vitamins; no more deaths were recorded. Finally, on August 27, American troops arrived to take over the camp. After his release, Birchall stopped off in Manila, where he left eight of his diaries with instructions on how to find the remaining 14, which were wrapped in oilcloth and buried at one of the camps.

On his return to Canada, Birchall was appointed OBE in 1946, when the citation recorded that "he continually displayed the utmost concern for the welfare of fellow prisoners with complete disregard for his own safety. His consistent gallantry and glowing devotion to his men were in keeping with the finest traditions of the service". His own flight engineer, Brian Catlin, who spent much of the time with him as a PoW, echoed the feelings of many when he said: "There are many alive today who would not have survived without Birchall."

In 1950, President Harry Truman appointed Birchall an officer of the Legion of Merit, saying: "His exploits became legendary throughout Japan and brought renewed faith and strength to many hundreds of ill and disheartened prisoners."

Birchall was a member of the American prosecuting team at the war crime trials held in Japan, where his diaries were used in evidence by the prosecution. As a group captain he served on the Canadian attache staff in Washington before joining the Canadian Nato delegation in Paris. After commanding a fighter base he was promoted air commodore. He was commandant of the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, and finally retired in 1967 rather then be associated with the unification of the Armed Forces.

Even when honorary colonel of No 413 Squadron in the Air Reserve, Birchall exasperated some progressive spirits by insisting on wearing the light blue mess kit of the RCAF.

While acting as a Canadian observer during Sri Lanka's general election of 1994, he was struck by the poverty of its hospitals. At his own expense, he arranged for eight tons of medical supplies to be sent to the country. He also organised visits to the war cemeteries in Sri Lanka and a memorial at No 413's wartime Ceylon base. One veteran commented: "Birch is still looking after his men."

Birchall was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1999. He was one of only two recipients of a fifth clasp to the Canadian Decoration; the other was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Twice a widower, Leonard Birchall, who died on September 11, is survived by his third wife Kay and two daughters and a son from his first marriage.