V-J Day 15th August 1945

Discussion in 'War Against Japan' started by Shiny 9th, Aug 15, 2013.

  1. Shiny 9th

    Shiny 9th Member

    I have been looking to see if anyone else was going to remind us that today is VJ Day. I actually went to a small local memorial service this morning. Not many there as the local branch of Burma Star Assoc has had to close.
    Sylvia
     
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  2. Enigma1003

    Enigma1003 Member

    Always remembered by Dad, but just a visit to the local church.
    This is the day that many of the POWs noticed the Japanese guards started to behave "strangely".
    Many slaving routines changed, and guards relaxed their brutality.
    Rumours abounded, but few had anything confirmed for several days.

    Just the beginning of the end.

    Hundreds still died through starvation and disease over the next few weeks though. That must be one of the hardest facts to know that a loved one died after the war was over. Several even died when the Americans dropped oil drums with emergency food supplies, and the parachutes failed to open. On Formosa one drum crashed through a hospital roof and killed 3 men.

    Mike
     
  3. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    I have been flicking through some RAAF unit histories (ORBs) recently and attached are a few pages showing the reactions at a couple of squadrons to the end of hostilities.
     

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  4. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Absolutely nothing has been made of VJ day here, I am sorry to say.
     
  5. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    Five years on, this forum doesn't seem to have mentioned VJ Day at all this year...

    Lest we Forget.
     
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  6. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I have to admit to never knowing when VJ Day is unless I read about it on here.
     
  7. Enigma1003

    Enigma1003 Member

    COFEPOW held their service at the NMA on Sunday which was well attended.
     
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  8. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    It does seem to sneak by most years. Perhaps it is just a continuation of the Forgotten Army.
     
  9. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    It does not sneak by for those who remember the original VJ Day, just as we shall never forget the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki days previously:

    Brothers and sisters, we must watch and take care
    That the third atom bomb never comes.

    Ishigu Astu, translated by Ewan McCall
     
  10. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    This, from my original posting on the BBC PEOPLE'S war;

    VJ DAY
    Tuesday 14th August 1945
    I remember the day well even though I’ve long since lost the original diary entry. Our Squadron was in Trieben in Austria at the time, ,controlling the roads leading into Germany and I had just come off the road-block guard in the early afternoon.
    I was changing from my guard uniform into more comfortable gear when I heard the wireless in the next room creating quite a racket.
    I went next door to see what was going on and found myself the only one there.
    I realised that my mates were probably eating dinner in the mess-hall and that they must have been listening earlier and had then left the set on.
    It was VE Day all over again. The announcer back in London was describing the noisy scene as tens of thousands of jubilant servicemen and civilians swarmed the streets. As on VE Day I felt no emotion at all, if anything, I probably felt like a kid who had not been invited to a party and who was now watching the lucky ones coming home with their party bags.

    The short explanation was that the end of the war had come too late for my older brother Jack, G-d rest his soul. On the 11th of May, just three days after VE Day, I had received a letter from home telling me that Jack, who was an Air-Gunner, had been shot down over Nuremberg on the last such raid of the war.
    The loss to his widow, his two young children and to all of our family was as incalculable then as it is today some fifty odd years later and our family was never to be the same again.

    Ron
     
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  11. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

  12. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  13. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  14. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    74th Anniversary of VJ Day and also the end of WW2. Hope you're all not forgetting.

    Tim

    Edit: Sorry Clive just noticed you remembered on another thread.


    Mod edit: Merged threads
     
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  15. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Not forgetting Tim, thanks for posting.
     
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  16. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Well done Clive. :poppy:
     
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  17. redtop

    redtop Well-Known Member

    We will Remember them ,
    or do we,
    Have not seen a mention of VJ Day except on here.
    The only WW2 survivor I met who actually spoke about the war was a workmate captured in Singapore.
    I wish I had asked more questions.
    He hated all things Japanese and said he would never forgive them.
    He would not get into a Japanese Car and could not understand why anybody else would..
    He resigned from the local serviceman's Club when they had Mitsubishi air-conditioning fitted and never returned.
    He was bewildered by his capture having believed our propaganda
    Japanese were.
    Almost dwarfs.
    Short sighted wearing bottle end glasses.
    Therefore could not aim a rifle.
    Did not understand mechanical things.
    Could not fly aircraft as they were carried on their mothers backs as babies???
    Said his first shock when he was captured by a 6 foot plus member of the Imperial Guard..
    Was shipped out on the .....Maru ( I think he said this was sunk or attacked ? not sure)
    His guards were brutal Koreans
    On being freed they strangled headguard with his own tie as relieving troops looked on..

    But that is all in the past and seldom mentioned nowadays.
     
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  18. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    An old post:
     
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