The Royal British Legion have released this short video on YouTube, asking several people to read out what happened leading up to Victory in Japan 70 years ago. They were shocked to find out the truth about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, and millions of service personnel who's war continued long after the VE Day celebrations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY5hqzj80rk
What a shame its come to light so near to the day. It deserves to have been publicised at least a month ago. But at least now with Ma'am attending, it will get its publicity on the day.
Firstly, welcome to the forum. Secondly, this is a really good innovative method to convey the message about V.J. Day. Thanks.
Thanks for the link to a very clever way of bringing home to those of us born after WW2 how awful the war in the Far East was, especially for POWs and other internees. I can see some of the readers were visibly shocked by what they'd just read. My father was an RAF FEPOW and suffered a great deal in his three and a half years on Java and later on Sumatra, where he was forced to build a lesser-known "Death Railway". He rarely spoke of his time as a POW, so I know little of his capture and imprisonment but I do recall a rare anecdote he came out with on a visit to IWM Duxford. We were looking at the museum's B-29 and he said it was his favourite 'plane. I immediately assumed this was because of the A-Bomb raids. But I was wrong, B-29s had dropped food containers to his camp after the surrender and saved a lot of POW lives. There was a funny side, although perhaps not at the time, when dad grabbed a large tin of "Klim" powdered milk and ate the lot, the aftermath bringing him as near death then anything else he'd suffered. Thanks again for the link and it's a very worthwhile production. Roger Basford
