[News] No VE Day thread?

[jakarta]

Shame on NSC...

My Grandad fought in France in 1940 in the Cheshire Regiment, was evacuated at Dunkirk and ended up in Italy via North Africa in 1945. I never met him, clearly suffering with PTSD he took to drink and walked out on my Grandmum and two children a few years later, where he died and is buried I have no idea.

Mrs Jakarta's Dad went to Normandy D-Day plus 3 and spent the rest of the War as a Signaller with the Guards Armoured Division all the way over the Rhine
into Germany. As ever with veterans, getting tales of the war from him were almost impossible, but I know he shared that the proudest day of his post as Chairman of Horsham District Council was reviewing the British Legion March-Past in Horsham on a horrible cold and rainy November day in 1998.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

The King is currently speaking into a merkin.

 

[cjd]

Public Holiday here in France and as usual I go down to the local village a couple of miles away and observe 2 minutes silence for all those lost in the war and all the names of every villager who lost their life is called out. It's quite moving ( as is Remembrance Day ) and a three course meal and wine follows for those who wish to stay and chat.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Public holiday here as well.

 

[AmexRuislip]

The King is currently speaking into a merkin.

One has to do the conga.....

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

One has to do the conga.....

Belgium won't be happy it was theirs

 

[hart's shirt]

One has to do the conga.....

...but one will draw the line at Agadoo.

 

[ofco8]

Well, I have a big Union Jack hung up. Think we are the only ones in Westdene who have recognised the day.

 

[dazzer6666]

No shame on @Bozza who blocked the site with a tribute message for 2 mins at noon. Well played boss

I’ve loaned all my grandad’s war memorabilia to the local history group in the village where he lived (and I was brought up), the guy that runs their page on facebook is posting bits of information from time to time on my grandad’s wartime experiences (and that of his family left at home).

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Well, I have a big Union Jack hung up. Think we are the only ones in Westdene who have recognised the day.

Excuse me, flag

 

[SouthSaxon]

My grandfather was in the Royal Army Service Corp and went over to France two days after D-Day. He never spoke much about it, but I do have some letters he sent back and army records etc.

 

[jakarta]

Well, I have a big Union Jack hung up. Think we are the only ones in Westdene who have recognised the day.

Union Jack Bunting on Hedge outside Jakarta Towers. Will be taken down in the morning.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Excuse me, flag

Maybe they live on a boat.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Maybe they live on a boat.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Let's face it, no other country can beat the UK in the way we pay tribute to the fallen and surviving heroes.

 

[Skuller]

I could be wrong, but I think I’ve detected a definite lessening in the degree of remembrance for this anniversary. Whilst a bit worrying (“Lest We Forget” and all that), I suppose it’s understandable, with the direct memories getting more and more lost each year.

There are some weird inconsistencies in twentieth and twenty first century remembrance. Back in the sixties, as a Boy Scout, I marched through Seaford on November 11th, remembering the dead of the two world wars, but we weren’t remembering the dead of the Siege of Khartoum (eighty years earlier), and I’m sure that in the thirties they weren’t remembering the dead of the Crimean War (eighty years earlier).

It’s an awful thing to say but maybe, eventually, we have to let it go and consign it to the history books. That, of course, sounds callous and has all the risks of “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” catching up with us.

 

[El Presidente]

My great Uncle Arthur was a PoW in WWII. He had blond hair and blue eyes. The commander of the PoW camp where he was imprisoned offered him extra rations if he told the other prisoners he had Aryan ancestry. Arthur told him to f*** off.

 

[Chicken Run]

Public holiday here as well.

I hope you didn’t mention ’It’

 

[jakarta]

I could be wrong, but I think I’ve detected a definite lessening in the degree of remembrance for this anniversary. Whilst a bit worrying (“Lest We Forget” and all that), I suppose it’s understandable, with the direct memories getting more and more lost each year.

There are some weird inconsistencies in twentieth and twenty first century remembrance. Back in the sixties, as a Boy Scout, I marched through Seaford on November 11th, remembering the dead of the two world wars, but we weren’t remembering the dead of the Siege of Khartoum (eighty years earlier), and I’m sure that in the thirties they weren’t remembering the dead of the Crimean War (eighty years earlier).

It’s an awful thing to say but maybe, eventually, we have to let it go and consign it to the history books. That, of course, sounds callous and has all the risks of “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” catching up with us.

Neither of the previous Wars quoted would have changed the world significantly.

WWII was just that, a WORLD War across the whole globe, it killed tens of millions and left the World in a totally new place.

Did you grow up in the Cold War when Brezhnev was running the Warsaw Pact?

We currently have a Fascist state wishing to extend its Borders - sound familiar?

My family remember Jack Barnes and Les Walker , amongst the other millions of servicemen, for what they did.

 

[keaton]

Let's face it, no other country can beat the UK in the way we pay tribute to the fallen and surviving heroes.

This isn't a dig at anyone here but the people who seem to care most strongly about this seem to directly their energy at getting angry on the internet now, rather than organising anything previously.