Our President, HRH The Princess Royal visits Colombo Liveramentu Cemetery

In her first official engagement as President of the CWGC, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal visited Colombo Liveramentu Cemetery today.

Her Royal Highness was joined by our Vice Chairman Vice Admiral Peter Hudson CB CBE, as well as representatives from our Commonwealth member nations, local dignitaries and invited guests. Among the guests was Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, a former CWGC Vice Chair and the British High Commissioner to Colombo, Colonel Darren Woods.

During the event, Her Royal Highness paid tribute to those commemorated in the cemetery, laying a wreath on behalf of the commission, as well as meeting our staff and visiting some of the burials in the site.

The Princess Royal has long been a passionate supporter of our work, visiting many of our cemeteries and memorials around the world and opening our visitor centre in Beaurains, France, in 2019.

This was the Princess Royal’s first commitment as our President, having taken on the position in November 2023. She succeeds The Duke of Kent, who served as our President for more than 50 years before he stepped down last year.

Colombo was the location of an important Royal Navy base during the Second World War. For a time, it was home to the navy’s forces in the Pacific following the fall of Singapore in 1941 and was directly attacked by Japanese forces in April 1942 during the Easter Sunday Raid.

Known locally as Jawatta Cemetery, Colombo Liveramentu Cemetery contains more than 600 burials and is the largest CWGC site on Sri Lanka. Most of the burials here are casualties from the Second World War, although there are a few First World War war dead commemorated here.

The entrance to the cemetery is formed by the Colombo Memorial Tablets which bear the names of more than 300 war dead whose graves could either not be found or could not be permanently maintained.

Within the cemetery stands the Colombo Cremation Memorial which commemorates 165 casualties whose remains were committed to fire in accordance with their religious beliefs.