With the out break of World War II, he joined the Ceylon Light Infantry and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1940 with the war time expansion of the regiment within the Ceylon Defence Force. Thereafter, he served in the 1st, 3rd and 4th Battalions of the Ceylon Light Infantry and undertook several infantry courses in Ceylon and India. He was promoted to the temporary rank of Captain on 1 January 1943. In November 1943, he was transferred to the British 14th Army operating in the Burma Campaign on secondment with the British Army. There he served with the 7th Battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment which was under the 7th Indian Infantry Division in Arakan, on the eastern side of Mayu Range. During the Arakan campaign, he was captured by the Japanese and held in a POW camp until the end of the war in 1945. After the war, he was demobilised and returned to work as a school teacher.