Big thank you from the King
QUESTION Did George VI send a message to all schoolchildren at the end of the war?
On JUnE 8, 1946, the day of the London victory celebrations, the schoolchildren of Britain received a certificate from the King thanking them for all the hardship and danger they had endured in World War II and inviting them to share in the triumph of the Allied nations.
They were not sent to every individual child, but to each family. In my case, only one copy was sent to be shared between me, my older brother and sister.
It is printed in colour on thinnish card. At the top is the Royal Coat of Arms beneath which, printed in blue, is the date, June 8, 1946. The King’s signature was printed at the bottom.
On the reverse, all the important dates of the war are listed from September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland to September 5, 1945, when British forces re-entered Singapore.
There is a blank section at the bottom of the letter with the heading My Family’s War Record, where you could enter your own details.
Alan Lawley, Cambridge.
QUESTION William Walton composed the Spitfire Prelude And Fugue. Is there any music about the Hawker Hurricane or other wartime planes?
IT’S said that during World War II the Hawker Hurricane did most of the work, but the Spitfire got most of the glory.
This carried over into the musical world where we not only have William Walton’s fine works, composed for the 1942 film The First Of The Few, but also Horace King’s popular The Spitfire Song, recorded by Sam Browne backed by Joe Loss And His Orchestra.
Ironically, it ignores the Hurricane, but name-checks the Boulton Paul Defiant, dubbed the worst wartime aircraft:
Sharing in victory: Royal certificate
There’s music in the sky Don’t you hear the engines humming? Prepare to do or die The British planes are coming! Steadfast, reliant, Spitfire or Defiant So give a rousing cheer, The British planes are here!’
There is a tribute to the Hawker Hurricane on a compilation called Our Finest Hour where air ace Douglas Bader introduces a flypast by a Spitfire and a Hurricane, however it’s not a piece of music.
Other wartime planes commemorated in music include Maurice Johnstone’s The Beaufighters, a rousing march for brass band celebrating the Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter, and Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu’s P47 Thunderbolt Scherzo, honouring the U.S. fighter.
Alan Doren, Fleet, Hants. LIvERPOOL band Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark had a Top Ten hit in 1980 with Enola Gay about the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
Keith Sherwood, High Wycombe, Bucks.