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VJ Day 80: We Were There

VJ Day 80: We Were There

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Summary

As Britain marks the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, this documentary gathers first-hand accounts from the last veterans, many of who are now more than 100-years-old. Rachel Burden traces their stories, from the invasion of British Malaya to the horror of Hiroshima and Japan's surrender in August 1945. Former prisoners of war forced to work on the notorious Burma Railroad speak the brutality they endured

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Review

David Butcher

On 15 August 1945, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who’d succeeded Winston Churchill a few weeks earlier, announced the end of the war. “Japan has today surrendered. The last of our enemies is laid low,” he declared on a BBC broadcast. “Peace has once again come to the world.”

Then the parties started, with revellers on British streets and that timeless image from the celebrations in Times Square, New York, of a sailor and a nurse kissing. As with VE Day before it, the relief and elation were immense, but they were mixed with other emotions, too, as we hear in the latest of Rachel Burden’s excellent oral history programmes.

Since 2019, the project has been gathering first-hand accounts from veterans, many now over 100 years old. For this edition, Burden hears from servicemen who fought in Europe, only to be sent to the Far East for the final months of the war. Former prisoners of war forced to work on the Burma Railroad recall their brutal treatment. And we hear the harrowing story of Olga Henderson (née Morris), taken prisoner in Malaya as a ten-year-old and kept in barbaric conditions for years.

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rolenamePresenterRachel BurdenProducerSimon ListerExecutive producerMatthew Shaw

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