A nation salutes
Veteran Stanley Albert Gudd, formerly of the 2nd Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, pays his respects during the VJ Day service at Winchester Cathedral, Hants. Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of VJ Day and the end of the Second World War
There is no greater symbol of the sacrifice of the war in the Far East than the Burma railway, built by British and Allied prisoners of war. It is said that for every sleeper laid a life was lost. Yesterday the Prince of Wales placed a wreath of poppies on a 100ft section of the railway track at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and led a nation in honouring those he called the “indefatigable” heroes of the Far East.
In a speech to veterans sitting socially-distanced in the shade, Prince Charles recounted conversations with his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command during the war.
The Prince said that his great uncle (who in 1979 was assassinated by the IRA) “helped me begin to understand the quite atrocious conditions experienced by our forces throughout south-east Asia” – a theatre which claimed the lives of 71,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers.
He assured those in attendance “you are respected, thanked and cherished with all our hearts” and added “your service and your sacrifice will echo through the ages”.
Commemorations of the 75th anniversary of VJ Day yesterday took place across the country. As dawn broke, a lone piper played Battle’s Over on the decks of HMS Belfast in London. World leaders including Donald Trump, the US president, and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, released a joint televised message, while the Duke of Edinburgh contributed to a video memorial featuring veterans of the conflict. On August 15 1945, the Duke was a young Naval officer aboard HMS Whelp in Tokyo Bay as the Japanese signed the surrender aboard USS Missouri.
The Duke and the Queen also released a joint statement reflecting on their memories of VJ Day and “the jubilant scenes and overwhelming sense of relief ” that the war had come to a close. Such joy was tempered, they said, by “the cost borne by so many”.
Yesterday only around 45 veterans attended the main event at the National Memorial Arboretum – their numbers diminished by social distancing requirements and age.
Those present recalled the privations of jungle warfare. In conversation with the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, who laid her own posy of poppies, Edward
‘Our country owes you a debt of gratitude. Your bravery and sacrifice will never be forgotten’
Woodward asked them to guess the most sought-after item in their air-dropped rations. “Toilet paper,” the 97-year-old, who served in Burma, India and Malaya with the Royal Corps of Signals, deadpanned to the amused pair.
One of those responsible for delivering those jungle airdrops was WO Richard Wellings, who was part of a Dakota crew delivering supplies across Burma. Yesterday’s service was the first VJ Day commemoration the 97-year-old had attended and he did so with a tear in his eye – in memory of fallen comrades and his wife Joan, who died two weeks ago. “I feel proud knowing we did something essential and good,” he said.
Others came bearing the scars of the Burma campaign. L/Sgt Peter Heppell, 100, sheltered under a Chindit hat during the ceremony – a token of the elite guerrilla training he underwent before flying into Burma. Embedded in his upper left thigh was a piece of a Japanese mortar shell.
He said yesterday’s commemorations were a fitting tribute to the Forgotten Army. “A lot of my mates never came back from there and I think they ought to be remembered,” he said. Prime Minister Boris Johnson read the Exhortation before the two minute silence, which was followed by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight fly-past over the arboretum.
Veteran Richard Day recited the Kohima Address, which is of particular poignance for VJ Day veterans due to its inscription in the memorial to the 2nd British Division commemorating the fallen during one of the key battles in the Far East. The 93-year-old, who served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, was present at Kohima and the words – “when you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today” – were recited in memory of fallen comrades.
The Prime Minister also laid a wreath and spoke with those gathered, among them 91-year-old Jane Elgey, a survivor of the Japanese camps in which over a quarter of all Allied prisoners of war lost their lives.
She had been captured aged 12 with her family following the fall of Singapore in 1942. Her father, who worked as a civil servant for the British, managed to get the family on a tugboat but was separated from them as Japanese aircraft strafed the harbour. She spent the rest of the war as a prisoner with her mother, grandmother and four siblings.
She was put to work fetching water for Japanese officers and given just one bowl of rice a day – watered down to span three meals. “If you disobeyed orders you were badly treated,” she said. The family were reunited after the war, although her grandmother did not survive the camps.
As the Prince of Wales said in his speech, the veterans of the Far East “comprised a force whose courage was as remarkable as its diversity”.
Yesterday’s service was designed to reflect the contribution of so many nationalities. Sikh veteran Darbara Singh Bullar, who served as a signaller in Burma and Singapore, laid a wreath alongside the Prince of Wales.
Following the two-minute silence, a lone Gurkha played the piper’s lament. No Gurkha veterans from the Second World War were in attendance yesterday, though a living link to the past was proud to play his part.
Captain Buddhi Bahadur Gurung, a 45-year-old Afghanistan veteran, is the grandson of Bhanbhagta Gurung, who in March 1945 was awarded the Victoria Cross for a heroic one-man dash through the Japanese lines. No
‘A lot of my mates never came back from Burma and I think they ought to be remembered’
fewer than 29 Victoria Crosses were awarded during the Burma campaign, the highest tally of any theatre of war.
“I am proud to be here,” said Captain Gurung. “I grew up with his stories and that is what inspired me to join the British Army and continue what my grandfather did.”
The day’s commemorations didn’t entirely pass without a hitch. The Red Arrows had been scheduled for the first UK-wide tour since the London 2012 Olympics, conducting fly-pasts across the four nations’ capital cities but bad weather forced them to cancel.
The day concluded with the Duke of Cambridge giving a televised tribute yesterday evening. Remembering the address of his great-grandfather, King George VI, delivered 75 years ago to mark the end of the war, the Duke spoke of his pride at the resolve of the wartime generation.
“To each and every one of you who contributed to the effort, I say – thank you; our country owes you a debt of gratitude,” the Duke said in his address. Your bravery, and the sacrifices you made, will never be forgotten.”