Thank you Sir for always managing to speak up for those who gave everything. My late Father Robert Wilkinson made it through the second World War. Leaving his RAF. Regiment service in India and Burma behind, but bringing back the nightmares he suffered for years later. I remember all too well as a child my Mum consoling him after such dark nights.
The USA today is still using the Purple Hearts they minted in anticipation of the monumental casualties they expected in invading Japan. Rejoice indeed that the atomic bombs forced Japan's surrender and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Not to mention Japan's post-war turning it's face against the naked imperial aggression that had led it to that point.
An excellent article, Robert. My Uncle Harold was captured with members of the Royal Netherlands Air Force in Jarva and spent the war in a camp near Osaka. Although he survived the war, the events undoubtedly contributed to shortening his life, and he died in the early 1960s at the age of 46.
Recently, a YouTube video posed the question: who was the most skilled British General of World War II? The video concluded with Bill Slim, which received overwhelming support, followed by Alexander and O’Connor. Perhaps the Forgotten Fourteenth Army is finally no longer being forgotten.
Lest We Forget. You only need to view the documentary film "The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru" to understand what the Japanese would have done to Allied POWs and the civilian internees (in their tens of thousands) throughout the Far East had not the atomic bombs been dropped.
Agree. In fact, Count Terauchi in the Southern Army had already sent orders for the killing of all prisoners the moment Allied soldiers landed on Japan.
Thank for another great column! Last month I did a Normandy Campaign tour, which brought home many of the points that you made in your column. Although it was an American tour company, our historian, Chris Anderson (I believe that he interviewed you on your "War of Empires book") set everyone straight right from the start by emphasizing that the Normandy Campaign was an Allied effort and an Allied victory (which is why I picked this tour - it was the only American tour that went to Hill 112, along with other British, Canadian and Polish battlefield sites). There was a headstone at the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery that brought me to tears:
K.69765 RIFLEMAN
R. W. JANSON
THE REGINA RIFLE REGIMENT
12TH AUGUST 1944 AGE 24
WELL DONE SON
DAD AND MUMMY
Well done indeed. Well done to all the Allied men and women who fought and sacrificed so much to defeat two of the most murderous and destructive regimes in history.
I am about to start reading your latest book on the Korean War and am very excited about it, as my father served with the 1st Marine Division from Sep 50 - October 51. And I am still hoping to join you on one of your Kohima tours!
Worst thing my mum said she ever did was to ask a friend of her brother's to tell her what was like as a POW under the Japanese. Tom (4th Bn Norfolk Regt) didn't make it home, lost at sea on board the Kachidoki Maru hellship.
Of course it is not racist to celebrate VJ Day, or indeed VE Day, or Remembrance Sunday. The Wars of 20th Century were incredibly traumatic events, requiring the mobilisation of an entire nation: whether in arms; the military industrial complex, or in ancilliary civilian support. It is important that this legacy is appropriately commemorated; the sacrifice honoured, and thanks given.
But I'm a bit worried by your choice of words in selecting 'rejoice'. There are indeed many surviving interviews from the veterans of both World War 1 and World War 2, and many of them had little to 'rejoice'. These men and women were mostly ordinary people dragged into conflicts they had little interest in, or understanding of, and they did not enjoy the carnage. However they understood that their sacrifice would build a better world and ensure, inasmuch as possible, that their own children were not called to arms. It is, arguably, subsequent generations that have come to 'rejoice'. I wonder if 'rejoicing' has become a coping mechanism for the end of Empire, which itself is a direct result of the Second World War and American insistance that Britain decolonise.
The wars of the 20th Century were recorded in great detail in mass media, ulitising new technologies, particularly the motion picture. As such it is easy for the living descendants of these war generations to identify and connect from the sanitised comforts of their own armchairs. People who had ancestors who fought in the great conflicts of the 19th and early 20th Centuries: Napoleonic Wars; Crimea or the Boer War have less connection. 18th Century conflicts are largely forgotten.
The main purpose of the commemorations of 20th Century Wars were to help and assist the living survivors of the two World Wars to cope with their trauma and honour their fallen comrades, initiated by King George V in 1919. The poppy was both to honour the fallen and to assist servicemen who had fallen on hard times, when times were indeed tough.
With the passage of time, as and when the survivors of these great conflicts have passed on, I wonder whether it is appropriate that all commemorations are merged into one: into Remembrance Sunday. The Second World War, in particular, is a conflict that casts a long shadow and in some respects is an unresolved conflict; for others a continuing trauma.
There is a fine line between commemoration, which is right and appropriate, and imperialist spectacle and triumphalism. The latter is very much evident in Moscow on the 9th of May in recent years, with parades of tanks (not many of those left) and Yars missile launchers: instruments of our modern destruction.
There is also a rising cultural fetishization around the history of the Second World War, in some instances rising to the level of paranoia, particularly in countries like Poland, which for the last quarter century has witnessed a rise of paramilitary organisations sponsored, in particular, by PiS - a party that nurses its post-War grievances very much on its sleeve. Same for Victor Orban's Hungary who barely disguises their irredentist claims on Romanian and Ukrainian lands.
The Koreas, Taiwan etc are also regions of the World that have unresolved legacies arising from the Second World War and the drift into the post-war ideological conflict of the Cold War.
It is important not to forget that these 20th Century conflicts have a continuing legacy in many parts of the World, a legacy that is arguably toxic and continually exploited by malign actors. These wars have also become an object of unhealthy obsession with continual television documentaries set to repeat on English Language channels about Hitler and the Nazis. I think we all might be very worried, indeed, if German television started showing continual documentaries about their own suffering in the War, particularly in the post War environment and the expulsion of Germans from the post-War Czechoslovakia and the revised borders of Poland. Not much to rejoice there: 'It is nought good a sleping hound to wake'.
I also, personally, find little to celebrate or rejoice in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which heralded the arrival of our own ability to destroy all creation. That being said, I understand why Harry Truman never lost a moment's sleep over his decision to drop the bomb, as a necessary expedient to save the lives of American GIs, as well as a firm demonstration of nuclear containment to Stalin. However there is little to rejoice in the advent of the age of nuclear weapons, particularly in these dangerous times of increased proliferation - there is an imperative to get back to basics in nuclear doctrine. Only the grim reapers of Moscow rejoice in their nuclear stockpiles, and the Mullah's of Iran aspire.
The final point I would make, in relation to your piece, is your remarks on the current conflict in the Middle East. Whilst I 100% support the State of Israel, 100% rock solid, I think it is possible that you may need to reflect on just who, exactly, lacks moral clarity here. Hamas, undoubtedly, visited destruction on the Palestinian people on October 7th 2023, a date that should rightly forever live in infamy. The primal savagery of that day haunts. Nevertheless one of the more positive legacies of the Second World War is that Western Armies and R&D are culturally invested in avoiding civilian deaths in conflict, inasmuch as this is possible. We are indeed truly lost and lacking in moral clarity when we turn off our televisions to look away at the systematic and total destruction of the Gaza Strip; the deliberate starving of women and children, and the absurdity of the Home Office designating a bunch of old ladies terrorists for spray painting aircraft. Where were the police? You don't bring a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
If we're looking at legacy, what legacy but a poisonous one, will Israel wear in the long term arising from the harrying of Gaza. If Ehud Olmert has the courage to speak out, then we too should not turn off our televisions or, indeed, rejoice.
Thank you Sir for always managing to speak up for those who gave everything. My late Father Robert Wilkinson made it through the second World War. Leaving his RAF. Regiment service in India and Burma behind, but bringing back the nightmares he suffered for years later. I remember all too well as a child my Mum consoling him after such dark nights.
Thank you to the Greatest Generation!
Thank you Lorraine. Yes, they were the greatest!
The USA today is still using the Purple Hearts they minted in anticipation of the monumental casualties they expected in invading Japan. Rejoice indeed that the atomic bombs forced Japan's surrender and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Not to mention Japan's post-war turning it's face against the naked imperial aggression that had led it to that point.
Agree!
Excellent comments Rob.
Thank you Ian
An excellent article, Robert. My Uncle Harold was captured with members of the Royal Netherlands Air Force in Jarva and spent the war in a camp near Osaka. Although he survived the war, the events undoubtedly contributed to shortening his life, and he died in the early 1960s at the age of 46.
Recently, a YouTube video posed the question: who was the most skilled British General of World War II? The video concluded with Bill Slim, which received overwhelming support, followed by Alexander and O’Connor. Perhaps the Forgotten Fourteenth Army is finally no longer being forgotten.
Thanks David. Can you send me the link? I'd love to see it.
https://youtu.be/XCiy7o1RueE?si=fuUEqiJwVha9Pd2f
https://youtu.be/Fs5JCqrauL0?si=d69koy3hslF-FcBM BFBS forces news General Slim’s collection. Do they still have the rife he carried with him?
Yes I think so. They certainly have his 38 Webley!
Agree. I have felt quite uncomfortable with how things have been reported.
Lest We Forget. You only need to view the documentary film "The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru" to understand what the Japanese would have done to Allied POWs and the civilian internees (in their tens of thousands) throughout the Far East had not the atomic bombs been dropped.
Agree. In fact, Count Terauchi in the Southern Army had already sent orders for the killing of all prisoners the moment Allied soldiers landed on Japan.
Exactly my thoughts, Dr. Lyman.
Thank for another great column! Last month I did a Normandy Campaign tour, which brought home many of the points that you made in your column. Although it was an American tour company, our historian, Chris Anderson (I believe that he interviewed you on your "War of Empires book") set everyone straight right from the start by emphasizing that the Normandy Campaign was an Allied effort and an Allied victory (which is why I picked this tour - it was the only American tour that went to Hill 112, along with other British, Canadian and Polish battlefield sites). There was a headstone at the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery that brought me to tears:
K.69765 RIFLEMAN
R. W. JANSON
THE REGINA RIFLE REGIMENT
12TH AUGUST 1944 AGE 24
WELL DONE SON
DAD AND MUMMY
Well done indeed. Well done to all the Allied men and women who fought and sacrificed so much to defeat two of the most murderous and destructive regimes in history.
I am about to start reading your latest book on the Korean War and am very excited about it, as my father served with the 1st Marine Division from Sep 50 - October 51. And I am still hoping to join you on one of your Kohima tours!
Thank you Kurt!
Well said.
Thanks Tim
Worst thing my mum said she ever did was to ask a friend of her brother's to tell her what was like as a POW under the Japanese. Tom (4th Bn Norfolk Regt) didn't make it home, lost at sea on board the Kachidoki Maru hellship.
Of course it is not racist to celebrate VJ Day, or indeed VE Day, or Remembrance Sunday. The Wars of 20th Century were incredibly traumatic events, requiring the mobilisation of an entire nation: whether in arms; the military industrial complex, or in ancilliary civilian support. It is important that this legacy is appropriately commemorated; the sacrifice honoured, and thanks given.
But I'm a bit worried by your choice of words in selecting 'rejoice'. There are indeed many surviving interviews from the veterans of both World War 1 and World War 2, and many of them had little to 'rejoice'. These men and women were mostly ordinary people dragged into conflicts they had little interest in, or understanding of, and they did not enjoy the carnage. However they understood that their sacrifice would build a better world and ensure, inasmuch as possible, that their own children were not called to arms. It is, arguably, subsequent generations that have come to 'rejoice'. I wonder if 'rejoicing' has become a coping mechanism for the end of Empire, which itself is a direct result of the Second World War and American insistance that Britain decolonise.
The wars of the 20th Century were recorded in great detail in mass media, ulitising new technologies, particularly the motion picture. As such it is easy for the living descendants of these war generations to identify and connect from the sanitised comforts of their own armchairs. People who had ancestors who fought in the great conflicts of the 19th and early 20th Centuries: Napoleonic Wars; Crimea or the Boer War have less connection. 18th Century conflicts are largely forgotten.
The main purpose of the commemorations of 20th Century Wars were to help and assist the living survivors of the two World Wars to cope with their trauma and honour their fallen comrades, initiated by King George V in 1919. The poppy was both to honour the fallen and to assist servicemen who had fallen on hard times, when times were indeed tough.
With the passage of time, as and when the survivors of these great conflicts have passed on, I wonder whether it is appropriate that all commemorations are merged into one: into Remembrance Sunday. The Second World War, in particular, is a conflict that casts a long shadow and in some respects is an unresolved conflict; for others a continuing trauma.
There is a fine line between commemoration, which is right and appropriate, and imperialist spectacle and triumphalism. The latter is very much evident in Moscow on the 9th of May in recent years, with parades of tanks (not many of those left) and Yars missile launchers: instruments of our modern destruction.
There is also a rising cultural fetishization around the history of the Second World War, in some instances rising to the level of paranoia, particularly in countries like Poland, which for the last quarter century has witnessed a rise of paramilitary organisations sponsored, in particular, by PiS - a party that nurses its post-War grievances very much on its sleeve. Same for Victor Orban's Hungary who barely disguises their irredentist claims on Romanian and Ukrainian lands.
The Koreas, Taiwan etc are also regions of the World that have unresolved legacies arising from the Second World War and the drift into the post-war ideological conflict of the Cold War.
It is important not to forget that these 20th Century conflicts have a continuing legacy in many parts of the World, a legacy that is arguably toxic and continually exploited by malign actors. These wars have also become an object of unhealthy obsession with continual television documentaries set to repeat on English Language channels about Hitler and the Nazis. I think we all might be very worried, indeed, if German television started showing continual documentaries about their own suffering in the War, particularly in the post War environment and the expulsion of Germans from the post-War Czechoslovakia and the revised borders of Poland. Not much to rejoice there: 'It is nought good a sleping hound to wake'.
I also, personally, find little to celebrate or rejoice in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which heralded the arrival of our own ability to destroy all creation. That being said, I understand why Harry Truman never lost a moment's sleep over his decision to drop the bomb, as a necessary expedient to save the lives of American GIs, as well as a firm demonstration of nuclear containment to Stalin. However there is little to rejoice in the advent of the age of nuclear weapons, particularly in these dangerous times of increased proliferation - there is an imperative to get back to basics in nuclear doctrine. Only the grim reapers of Moscow rejoice in their nuclear stockpiles, and the Mullah's of Iran aspire.
The final point I would make, in relation to your piece, is your remarks on the current conflict in the Middle East. Whilst I 100% support the State of Israel, 100% rock solid, I think it is possible that you may need to reflect on just who, exactly, lacks moral clarity here. Hamas, undoubtedly, visited destruction on the Palestinian people on October 7th 2023, a date that should rightly forever live in infamy. The primal savagery of that day haunts. Nevertheless one of the more positive legacies of the Second World War is that Western Armies and R&D are culturally invested in avoiding civilian deaths in conflict, inasmuch as this is possible. We are indeed truly lost and lacking in moral clarity when we turn off our televisions to look away at the systematic and total destruction of the Gaza Strip; the deliberate starving of women and children, and the absurdity of the Home Office designating a bunch of old ladies terrorists for spray painting aircraft. Where were the police? You don't bring a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
If we're looking at legacy, what legacy but a poisonous one, will Israel wear in the long term arising from the harrying of Gaza. If Ehud Olmert has the courage to speak out, then we too should not turn off our televisions or, indeed, rejoice.