British Legion Poppy Appeal 2012 and the debt that we owe

Regular readers of this website will know that I am immensely proud of the fact that my father John Woodward Senior went to war at an age before he could legally drink and spent years of his young life in the jungles of Burma and Rangoon fighting the Japanese Army so that our generation could be free.

As the British Legion launches it’s Poppy Appeal this year please take 5 minutes to think of those who died in the two World Wars, those that fought in those wars and lived to tell the tale, and those who are currently serving our country in Afghanistan and other distant theatres of war in the fight against terror so that we can remain free, and dig deep into your pockets for a donation to the appeal.

Dad was one of the “Forgotten Army” in the Far East who fought formidable foes in awful conditions during monsoons and tremendous heat and humidity. At times he and his comrades had to eat snakes, bananas and rice to survive and to this day just the smell of rice or a banana turns his stomach. He was a member of the Royal Engineers and part of his job was to destroy bridges and railways, built by the Japanese Army to transport supplies to the front, by explosive demolition so maybe that is where my love of demolition comes from.

There is little footage of the Burmese campaign around to show what these men endured and interviews have been few and far between because they all swore a vow of silence when they returned from the front. But now some footage has emerged and interviews have been conducted with some of the few remaining men as part of a new DVD called “For Your Tomorrow”. I would urge you to watch the trailer for the DVD below and then, if you think you would like to know more, purchase the DVD and see what my Dad and others did for a living when they were young. A percentage from the proceeds goes to the British Legion Appeal.

The Director of the film Don Clark sums it up as follows:-

I hope my film will take you on an exploration of how we value the actions of a group of now elderly men who fought for our freedom in the middle of the last century. It's a different approach to the subject of war, examining how much (or little) modern youngsters know about the incredible experiences of their grandfathers' generation, and I hope you'll find it thoughtful, moving & yet uplifting.

Ben, 19, is an intelligent & likeable young man. Although he knows that his great-grandfather was killed in Burma during 1945, he knows very little else. Pamela, 28, is a vivacious & creative artistic director, who is putting on a play about wartime experiences in her local town. Her late grandfather fought in Burma, & she also knows little of his experience.

For Your Tomorrow examines the torrid Burma campaign of World War Two, of the men who fought & of the 21st Century youngsters whose freedom they guaranteed.

The defence of Burma & India against the seemingly unstoppable advance of a ferocious Japanese military was an event which helped turn the course of the Second World War, yet was, & still is, almost unrecognised by much of the free world. The Forgotten Army, as they became known, were fighting a formidable enemy, often in awful & alien tropical jungle conditions, & handicapped by undersupply.

Many of the surviving men still suffer today from diseases & parasites which they picked up in the jungles & swamps of Burma nearly 70 years ago. Many survived only because they adopted a 'kill or be killed' attitude. Many did have to kill. Most lost friends & comrades. I was privileged to be allowed to conduct interviews with a group of these wonderful men. I was often the very first person to whom they broke a code of silence which they had held ever since the war ended- not even their wives & loved ones had heard their tales. I recorded their testimonies, on camera, originally with the intention of merely creating some sort of archive so that future generations would know something of the story of these unknown heroes of Burma. But it became obvious over the 6 years that I spent time, on & off, with these men, that there was an urgent need to not only preserve their individual interviews for posterity, but to ask questions about our society's knowledge of the enormity of the sacrifices they made for us & the generations still to come.

We were able to take Ben & Pamela on a journey which connects them to the generation whose bravery made their society stable & secure. Men who are now in their eighties & nineties, but who were perhaps Ben's age when they were conscripted, come alive when they talk of 'their' war, & the youngsters are stirred from their personal comfort zones. We as viewers all participate; we all learn.

For Your Tomorrow is a 68 minute film, available to order now for its release immediately after its world premiere at Wolverhampton's Light-House Cinema on 24th October 2011. The DVD of For Your Tomorrow contains about an hour of bonus features, which will not be available to see either in the cinema showings or TV broadcasts of the film.

I'd love you to order a copy of our DVD, because I think you'll enjoy it, but also because it means that at least one more person gains a greater knowledge of what this group of heroes went through. For us. For our tomorrow.

When Dad finished in Burma he then was posted to Japan and saw at first hand the devastation caused at Horishima and Nagasaki after the atom bombs fell and the war in the Far East came to an end.

Wikipedia says about these events:-

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945 and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9.

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki,[1] with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima prefectural health department estimates that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a U.S. estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from flash burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness.In both cities, most of the dead were civilians.

Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II, as Germany had already signed its Instrument of Surrender on May 7, ending the war in Europe. The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament.[9] The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s ethical justification for them, as well as their strategic importance, is still debated.