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Happy VJ day.

I remember today two men I worked with on the post many years ago. Arthur Marchant and Charlie Bracey were both captured at the fall of Singapore and were treated appallingly until their liberation. Arthur lost his sense of smell due to a guards rifle butt in the face, Charlie suffered n8ghtmares until the day he died.

Arthur never held any malice or if he did kept it to himself, Charlie became extremely agitated and anything that resembled the Japanese culture ( I wore a tee-shirt that had the rising sun and japanese writing on it once at work which really bothered him)

They were good blokes who I raise a glass to today.
 
Yeah he survived the war and ended up a chauffeur for the MD at Ford.Like a lot of brave people who fought in WW2 I never heard him talk about his experiences first hand.I understand that he was painfully thin when he was rescued from the jungle though.
 
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I remember today two men I worked with on the post many years ago. Arthur Marchant and Charlie Bracey were both captured at the fall of Singapore and were treated appallingly until their liberation. Arthur lost his sense of smell due to a guards rifle butt in the face, Charlie suffered n8ghtmares until the day he died.

Arthur never held any malice or if he did kept it to himself, Charlie became extremely agitated and anything that resembled the Japanese culture ( I wore a tee-shirt that had the rising sun and japanese writing on it once at work which really bothered him)

They were good blokes who I raise a glass to today.

One of my first jobs was with Lentern Aircraft, along with many other shrimpers. There was an old boy called Tom who had also been captured at the fall of Singapore. He also had a pathological hated of all things Japanese, despite being a really nice guy. I loved hearing his first hand stories and he spared no details, including beheadings by sword.

I fully understood why he felt the way he did. He also had a similar story as the film Unbroken. From building a railway to transported of a hell ship to mainland Japan to work for their war effort. Their guards had made them dig their own 3 man graves and had great pleasure in telling them they would be forced in the hole and a grenade dropped in to kill them when the Allies landed.

Despite surviving the horrors and starvation for 4 years he gave up at that point.....he knew there was no chance.....Two days later Hiroshima.

The decision to use the bomb saved at least 500,000 allied lives and millions of Japanese.....Not only that some of us wouldn't be around. If my grandfather had been sent to Japan after Italy, rather than home with his family......I doubt me, my sister and all my cousins would exist.
 
One of my first jobs was with Lentern Aircraft, along with many other shrimpers. There was an old boy called Tom who had also been captured at the fall of Singapore. He also had a pathological hated of all things Japanese, despite being a really nice guy. I loved hearing his first hand stories and he spared no details, including beheadings by sword.

I fully understood why he felt the way he did. He also had a similar story as the film Unbroken. From building a railway to transported of a hell ship to mainland Japan to work for their war effort. Their guards had made them dig their own 3 man graves and had great pleasure in telling them they would be forced in the hole and a grenade dropped in to kill them when the Allies landed.

Despite surviving the horrors and starvation for 4 years he gave up at that point.....he knew there was no chance.....Two days later Hiroshima.

The decision to use the bomb saved at least 500,000 allied lives and millions of Japanese.....Not only that some of us wouldn't be around. If my grandfather had been sent to Japan after Italy, rather than home with his family......I doubt me, my sister and all my cousins would exist.



It also cost over 200,000 Japananese civilians their lives and maimed many more.
 
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It also cost over 200,000 Japananese civilians their lives and maimed many more.

Some narrow minded blog that I wont bother reading is not fact. Just an opinion, which is always swayed by extreme politics. Its not worth going into because its banned it and as PM's with you have proved......Your not interested in discussion or the truth, just virtual signalling on here.......Which is not whats needed on this thread as it was a reminder of the most important day of the last century and has shaped all our lifes.... Even if you don't know it.
 
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I have reopened the thread as I have been rightly reminded that it is a memorial thread. Some posts have been deleted but please don't turn this thread into left versus right arguments more than it has been already.
 
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