V E Day

[Bryn]

My dad was a corporal in the RAF from 1942, mostly in India. He was in charge of stores and apparently spent many happy hours picking weevils out of biscuits. The rest of the time he played tennis.
I was 2 when he went and when he came back he didn’t have a door-key and knocked on the door. My mum sent me to answer it, I came back to her saying “Mummy, it’s a man”. I can’t imagine the awfulness.

Hmm, mine was a WO1 in the RAF in what was then India (now Pakistan) towards the end of the war and for some months after. Prior to that he had been a Wireless Air Gunner on European bombing raids. His experiences in South Asia helped protect him against a racist outlook for the rest of his life.

[eighthobstruction]

....my Dad was a corporal Wireless operator....fought in desert with Eigth Army....then spent time in the mountains of Iraq training for later trip to conflict in mountains of Italy - Monte Casino and such, then up through Europe to Germany....1939-46, long time. Photos of before and after are quite astonishing....I have recently found out more about my Dad his upbringing in London and Essex in 20s, 30's one of 10 children to a stone-deaf widow (but a very large extended family)....many of whom went to Australia after the war. My now dead Uncle compiled a really readable document memoir about those years in 20's and 30's full interesting detail....and another about what it was like in Australia (Tasmania) when the family arrived....dirt, dust and doing anything to make aliving....

[Globaltruth]

I was around for the original V E Day - having been born just as Dresden burned from the allied bombing - and have fairly unmixed feelings about this celebration tomorrow, 8 May. I believe it has been foisted upon us as some sort of celebration of B****t, and am relieved that Covid-19 has forced a scaling down of whatever plans were afoot. I wish it weren't happening.

My lifetime has been blessed with (mostly) peace in Europe - not forgetting the Balkan tragedy - and I attribute much of that to the existence of the European Union: with all its faults, it has been partially instrumental in keeping that peace.

I detest nationalism in all countries, and don't like it when the one I live in wheels out dusty jingoistic tropes like this one.

Well said.
My mother (94) was there. Her quote
"...wasn't about the victory round our way, more about the ending of something terrible. People would be better off thinking about the awful grief so many people are going through in this country and across the world right now"

[ardcarp]

I don't know if it's already been said somewhere upthread, but surely there's a difference between commemoration and celebration.

It always struck me as a young kid the difference in size between the lists of 'The Fallen' (e.g. at school and outside churches) in the 1st and 2nd Wars.
The sadness and tragedy of losing family and friends after the 14-18 War must have been on a huge scale. The post-war circumstances of the poorer in society must have been dire; so commemoration yes; celebration, no.

[vinteuil]

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I detest nationalism in all countries, and don't like it when the one I live in wheels out dusty jingoistic tropes like this one.

... mme v's pa was a night fighter pilot, flying ace, air commodore DSO DFC & bar and all the works. My pa was a conscientious objector, attached to the Friends' Ambulance Unit in Bethnal Green. We wd all share kernelbogey's take on the wretched jingoism that has become attached to this commemoration.

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[Padraig]

"...wasn't about the victory round our way, more about the ending of something terrible.

Quite a few here relating to the RAF. I would add member Ferretfancy, and my father, whom I remember in uniform. I used to polish his buttons using a little protective tool which I still have. He also received a Victory bell - the one made from metal from German planes with portraits of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin embossed - which I still possess. When the War ended I was 9 and I was glad, which is about all I remember feeling. I felt sorry for my dad because he had been hospitalised a year earlier. He died in 1951 of pulmonary tuberculosis. I have learned a lot more about war since then.

[Serial_Apologist]

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... mme v's pa was a night fighter pilot, flying ace, air commodore DSO DFC & bar and all the works. My pa was a conscientious objector, attached to the Friends' Ambulance Unit in Bethnal Green. We wd all share kernelbogey's take on the wretched jingoism that has become attached to this commemoration.

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Nicholas Witchell, the Beeb's Royalty booster, really overplayed the inferences in reading stuff into the Queen's speech yesterday. All balance and impartiality blown to the winds. I don't remember anything like it since the days of Richard Dimbleby's hushed reverence.

[Nick Armstrong]

Nicholas Witchell

He scores very high on the Tom Service Scale of Broadcasters To Be Avoided At All Costs

I avoid at all costs
Hideous brown-nosed forelock-tugger

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[MrGongGong]

Nicholas Witchell, .

I avoid at all costs
Hideous brown-nosed forelock-tugger

Glad I missed him

as for the "wonderful" head of possibly the most dysfunctional family in the country ......

[DracoM]

Nicholas Witchell, the Beeb's Royalty booster, really overplayed the inferences in reading stuff into the Queen's speech yesterday. All balance and impartiality blown to the winds. I don't remember anything like it since the days of Richard Dimbleby's hushed reverence.

Yes, oh dear, what yuk!

[ardcarp]

I used to polish his buttons using a little protective tool which I still have.

Is it like a flattened brass 'tuning fork' shaped object that you slide between the button and the cloth? We have one too...belonged to Mrs A's Dad who was in the Royal Engineers in Burma. (He was there for a year after the War ended in Europe.)

[LMcD]

Yes, oh dear, what yuk!

Every time Witchell appears on our TV, I shout 'Get a REAL job!' Possibly the most pompous, self-important broadcaster in the history of the BBC.

[kernelbogey]

...the most pompous, self-important broadcaster ....

Isn't the word flunky?

[kernelbogey]

I don't know if it's already been said somewhere upthread, but surely there's a difference between commemoration and celebration....

Thanks, Ardie: I think you have put your finger on what it is about this day that so repelled me. My street is full of flags - Union Flag, Stars and Stripes, Canadian... and St George (the Turk). A celebration of nationalism.

[kernelbogey]

I am a History buff and have read extensively on WW II. I am therefore very frustrated at the lack of historical awareness of the general public. Half Americans under the age of 40 are unaware that the Holocaust occurred. To the extent that celebrations stimulate any in interest in History, then I could not disagree more with the sentiments of the O.P. Perhaps we cannot escape repeating the mistakes of the past, even if we maintain Historical Awareness; we surely have no chance avoiding their repetition if we embrace collective ignorance.
A celebration such as this might be useful if it explores related issues, such as: What were the lessons of selling out the Czechs at Munich and pursuing appeasement with a bloodthirsty tyrant? Was the RAF campaign of deliberately targeting German Civilians a justifiable policy in view of the Nazis own behavior? Was Roosevelt justified in imprisoning thousands of American Citizens of Japanese descent? Was Truman justified in using the A bomb to limit American and British casualties? Should the Anglo Americans have fought more forcefully for the postwar fate of Eastern Europe? And on it goes.
A celebration can be an opportunity for reflection, not just mindless jingoism

I have given thought to every one of those questions, I believe, Richard; and perhaps that is a consequence of having grown up in the shadow of the war. None of my immediate family was a combatant (my father as a teacher being in a reserved occupation), but my mother, of Austrian descent, had family 'on the other side'; and postwar Britain in the '50s was just that - emerging, slowly, from the consequences of the war. As a young man (in the '70s) I met at least one older man who had been a combatant and who remained fiercely resentful of the prosperity of the Germans, compared with the postwar austerity which he believed we had endured.

So I too have read fairly widely on the history.

I fear celebratory/commemorative days such as we had here on Friday are unlikely to stimulate debate and enquiry of the kind you so rightly commend. I avoided all of the radio and tv broadcasts, but could observe that the direction of them tended towards the celebratory.