Victory in the Far East
There are today commemorations to mark the day sixty-five years ago when the Second World War finally ended. We had already finished the war in Europe and celebrated VE day. Now it was VJ day. There were huge celebrations. At last we had real peace. Tyranny, military dictatorship, Fascists, all had fallen. This was indeed the war to end wars. It had not been a war of conquest. It had been a war of survival. We had survived, millions had not. We could not then know of the Cold War, Korea, Suez, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I remember that in the small south coast town in which we lived after WWII, my mother used to take me to a stationery shop, full of pads, pencils and crayons ; an Aladdin’s cave in the age of austerity. It was run by a quiet man, a touch stooped, older looking than his years, with kindly eyes softened by a troubled shadow. It was explained to me that he was a very great hero. He had been a prisoner who was forced to work building the notorious Burma Railway (Bridge On The River Kwai) and had survived.
I remember at school one day in 1946 a new teacher arrived. We called him a master in those days. He was in his late twenties. I had never seen anyone so pale and thin. He had been a POW in the Far East, captured at the fall of Singapore. He too was a hero. He was also a wonderful teacher. He taught my own children thirty years later.
Today there are few veterans left, but there are some. Heroes every one. It is their day.