VE Day +75

[Thomas]

DD was right in that probably the most just of all wars we fought and where I differ a little it was truly a peoples war not just servicemen.

Couldnt disagree with you anymore here cromwell.



A peoples war? Just?



Deppity dawg is normally the first person to tell anyone that wars are never about being "just" , or good verses evil. Just wars and good v evil is nothing  but empty horse manure from popular culture.



If you actually scratch the surface of the second world war and research into it , you will see it was never aboput being a "just" war. The last good book i read on it was about the decade leading up to the second world war , called appeasing hitler. Very few of the ordinary "english people" new anything about what was going on in nazi germany , but the british elite did , and repeatedly turned a blind eye until their hand was forced. Whats just about that?



That book also  makes the point regarding the persecution of the jews that many of the same british elite were anti semitic themselves , and certainly werent crying any tears over their persecution.



I spent many a time talking to my old maternal grandpa who served around the mediteranean , and rather than the horsehit popular culture likes to portray of young men valiantly marching off to do their duty in some so called "just" war , the stories he told me were far different , along with much of what i have read. More like young men being dragged off kicking and screaming in terror to fight in some war of which they knew next to little about.



Its funny cromwell , i said this to my wife the other day , when the BBC pull out the latest voice of the veterans of world war two , i said to her they must be running out of these auld folk now. If you were a twenty year old in 1945 , you would be 95 today , and i doubt anyone under 80 even remembers the feckin war.



I dont need some government/ media inspired "celebration" to sit and quietly remember many in my family who fought and died in the war . I do it all the time , and my auld grandpas war medals sit in my room.



I agree with barry , its time to put this all to bed now ffs. The war ended 75 years ago , and is pretty much beyond the memory of most of those living today.



We seem to have been in some never ending feckin cycle for the last 6 years at least of being told to "celebrate" something to do with the first or second world war , and its getting silly now. I remember camerons government announcing back in 2014 the celebrations of the start of world war one.



Time to put this to bed and into the history books for good i think.

[johnofgwent]

Well that's OK John I can cope with being in the minority, any way  Churchills speech said it all for me



Yes I know we have no empire now and Churchill like us all had his failings,that in bold is what is important and should be remembered..... this country spent it's best in two world wars,the latter a consequence of the former but was it all worth it......Yes IMO.

That was a very interesting speech, I really should get around to reading more of his in full and like it's not as if I have anywhere else I have to be.



Churchill was of course a man of his time. I wonder what he meant by perverted science and I wonder if he would, on seeing Britain today, reflect on whether he did the thing.



Anyway, I have a fence to paint. Cheers

[Borg Refinery]

:hattip cromwell.

[cromwell]

I am afraid I side with Barry here. Dad was 15 when VE day came. He celebrated the fact the air raid sirens were no longer going to be heard, that death and destruction would no longer rain from the skies, that his slightly older brother newly among the ranks of the RAF would not be in danger of becoming another name added to a list.



In fact he and the whole bloody street got rather inebriated over the whole thing



I have on many occasions written that I celebrate the fact that my father was the last man in our extended family forced to put on a uniform and pick up a gun.



 My mother's brother of about dads age had chosen to put on a different uniform, that of a new recruit into our merchant navy, which of course had very similar reasons to celebrate VE day as it meant a distinctly lesser chance of finding a watery grave.



But of course, the idealism soon wore off.



The Virgin Soldiers were still to find ways to die on foreign soil and my father and his brother would find themselves embroiled in Suez and The Cold War.



I would eventually take up where dad left off, ensuring the east germans would not succeed in invading west Germany....



But today ?



The country is invaded, the economy is wrecked and we have only just managed to overcome the fifth columnists that demanded we remain beholden to.the fourth Reich.



And our streets are deserted and our population imprisoned under house arrest thanks to a plague that came here from one of the cold war enemies that sought our destruction.



There is nothing to celebrate or commemorate here.

Well that's OK John I can cope with being in the minority, any way  Churchills speech said it all for me

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. [/u]Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. [b]But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.[/b] Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour."

Yes I know we have no empire now and Churchill like us all had his failings,that in bold is what is important and should be remembered..... this country spent it's best in two world wars,the latter a consequence of the former but was it all worth it......Yes IMO.

[Borchester]

There was a VE day party in the next street, which was a bit of a surprise. There were only 20 or 30 people but I live in a pretty PC area so I was surprised that anyone turned up at all.



Strange times.

[papasmurf]

The country is invaded, the economy is wrecked and we have only just managed to overcome the fifth columnists that demanded we remain beholden to.the fourth Reich.

Are you sure we have overcome them?

[johnofgwent]

No that's not right,I didn't have to be alive then to know what happened and its importance,not just to us in Britain but for humanity.

I am afraid I side with Barry here. Dad was 15 when VE day came. He celebrated the fact the air raid sirens were no longer going to be heard, that death and destruction would no longer rain from the skies, that his slightly older brother newly among the ranks of the RAF would not be in danger of becoming another name added to a list.



In fact he and the whole bloody street got rather inebriated over the whole thing



I have on many occasions written that I celebrate the fact that my father was the last man in our extended family forced to put on a uniform and pick up a gun.



 My mother's brother of about dads age had chosen to put on a different uniform, that of a new recruit into our merchant navy, which of course had very similar reasons to celebrate VE day as it meant a distinctly lesser chance of finding a watery grave.



But of course, the idealism soon wore off.



The Virgin Soldiers were still to find ways to die on foreign soil and my father and his brother would find themselves embroiled in Suez and The Cold War.



I would eventually take up where dad left off, ensuring the east germans would not succeed in invading west Germany....



But today ?



The country is invaded, the economy is wrecked and we have only just managed to overcome the fifth columnists that demanded we remain beholden to.the fourth Reich.



And our streets are deserted and our population imprisoned under house arrest thanks to a plague that came here from one of the cold war enemies that sought our destruction.



There is nothing to celebrate or commemorate here.

[cromwell]

My point is I can't forget and nor can you, Cromwell. We are not old enough to remember.

No that's not right,I didn't have to be alive then to know what happened and its importance,not just to us in Britain but for humanity.

[Barry]

My point is I can't forget and nor can you, Cromwell. We are not old enough to remember.

[cromwell]

Maybe I'm in a minority but I don't see much point in celebrating this 75 years later. So what?

After 5 years we defeated an enemy, that enemy no longer exists. We are now more integrated as Europeans than we ever were. My son works for a German pharma company and will they be putting up bunting and having fireworks?

Is it a celebration of freedom?

We celebrate that every day, don't we, in our lives? (Current restrictions excepted).



I won't be celebrating. Maybe I'm another Victor Meldrew, so be it.

So what?,well perhaps celebrate is the wrong description and it was six years not five........two things

that enemy still exists,small and in the background maybe but that way of thinking has never gone away and if you forget you risk a repeat of that mistake,DD was right in that probably the most just of all wars we fought and where I differ a little it was truly a peoples war not just servicemen.

Yeah surely anyone has the right to differ but we should never forget IMO.

[papasmurf]

I'm sure there is a section of this country's current population who find it necessary we are 'reminded'.



Is anyone who took part in the events still alive ?



I ask because I do not know.



One street across the main road and up the hill is hanging out bunting.



No one here is.

Around 200000.

[DeppityDawg]

Maybe I'm in a minority but I don't see much point in celebrating this 75 years later. So what?

After 5 years we defeated an enemy, that enemy no longer exists. We are now more integrated as Europeans than we ever were. My son works for a German pharma company and will they be putting up bunting and having fireworks?

Is it a celebration of freedom?

We celebrate that every day, don't we, in our lives? (Current restrictions excepted).



I won't be celebrating. Maybe I'm another Victor Meldrew, so be it.

Today is a totem I guess. Its the Regimental associations, VMH, the British Legion and so on, they do the supporting, day in, day out, for veterans of all conflicts. As do the Vets themselves. We do (or did) tens of thousands of miles each year to raise funds and support for our friends and our comrades. Because these maybe wars that are over for todays generations, but for those who lived through them, they can't ever forget the legacies.



Celebration of freedom? I guess so. WW2 has few alternatives as clear cut right and wrong conflicts in all of history.



To soldiers, it is a shared bond that can't ever be erased. Its in the salute when the wreath is laid, a moment of quiet and dignified respect that can't ever be replicated in civilian life. A dignity that even death can't take away or diminish. Its a mark of respect of the covenant that exists (or at least, used to exist), for those who serve or served, with their country. That's all. I agree, civilians shouldn't feel compelled to join in if they are uncomfortable with it. In the end, its a choice. I'm sure that observation isn't lost on any of us.

[Borchester]

Unfortunately, T00ts, only a small flag would fit on my downpipe, so I've decided not to put one out at all.  :thup:

I get the impression we are being asked to have nostalgia for something we never experienced.

My grandfather, who saw service in both world wars, celebrated Remembrance Sunday by getting shitfaced drunk, which was he said, how he and his friends had celebrated the original one in November 1918. I was thinking of doing the same thing today, but both my wife and doctor hate to see me happy and have cut off my tap.

[johnofgwent]

I'm sure there is a section of this country's current population who find it necessary we are 'reminded'.



Is anyone who took part in the events still alive ?



I ask because I do not know.



One street across the main road and up the hill is hanging out bunting.



No one here is.

[Barry]

Unfortunately, T00ts, only a small flag would fit on my downpipe, so I've decided not to put one out at all.  :thup:

I get the impression we are being asked to have nostalgia for something we never experienced.