Sri Lankan 4th ARMOURED REGIMENT - Foreign Military Studies ...

4th Armoured Regiment – ThePioneer TankersThe Officers and men had barelydropped their baggage, wheninformation came from Colombo that aship carrying twenty-five main battletanks (MBTs), 2 armoured recoveryvehicles (ARV) and twenty four 40 –and 20 – foot containers were arrivingthe next day. The movement of thevessel was kept secret for securityThe Prima Jetty Trincomalee, where theTanks were unloaded. (Photo by author)reasons. A Norwegian registered vesselnamed Pauwgracht, reportedly carryingclassified cargo, entered Sri Lankaterritorial waters in the Laccadive Seaearly 9 October and rendezvoused withtwo Sri Lanka Navy, Dvora Fast AttackCraft. It was escorted round the southerncoast to Trincomalee and arrived at thePrima Jetty 8 at 1930 hrs on 11 October1991.The Defense Ministry had soughtpermission from Prima to berth the shipbut had not discussed usage of its cranesfor the unloading operation. Afterdiscussion and persuasion, Prima agreedto allow usage of their cranes to unloadthe equipment.Unloading commenced early thenext day and twenty-four containerswere transported on borrowed low-bed8 Prima Ceylon Limited is a Wheat milling andBakery concern established in 1977. The planthas a milling capacity of 3600 metric tons ofwheat per day. The complex includes its ownwharf and unloading equipment.18