By the time the first flight of the second wave—flown again by Sapre and Vinayraj—took off from Palali airbase however, the Tigers had been able to identify the approach route and moved troops and heavy machine guns to the rooftop of a building north of the field.
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By the time the first flight of the second wave landed back at Palali, the paras numbered eighty instead of the preplanned hundred and twenty.
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The rebels were at this time in IPKF custody at Palali Airbase pending transfer to Sinhalese authorities.
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Under increasingly intense ground fire, they took off to head back to Palali.
Palali |
A Kumaon battalion was the first Indian Army unit to land in Jaffna at the Palali airfield.