Why are we only celebrating V.E day?

[nidave]

WW2 was a global war. For example my great-grandfather was posted to China to train Nationalist troops to fight the Japanese, he never returned. Shouldn't we have a day to commemorate the end of all hostilities?

 

[Tetchytyke]

We effectively are, really, but I know what you mean. VJ Day got forgotten in 1945, never mind now.

 

[edwin_m]

Most people celebrating VE day in the UK would have not have been the troops themselves, who were still in their theatres of combat, but rather those who had spent the war on the "home front". For them VE day represented the removal of the direct threat. The Blitz was still in living memory and even more so were the V1 and V2 attacks, which came literally out of the blue after most of the population would have considered that the risk of bombing had gone. I don't know the numbers but I guess the UK had many more troops in Europe than in the Far East, so most people knew their loved ones were safe too. And people would have seen at first hand how the war in Europe affected their homeland, and would expect some sort of normality to resume, whereas hostilities with Japan had very little direct visible impact on the UK.

 

[ilkestonian]

Who's to say there won't be some sort of commemoration of VJ Day?

 

[nidave]

We effectively are, really, but I know what you mean. VJ Day got forgotten in 1945, never mind now.

Most people celebrating VE day in the UK would have not have been the troops themselves, who were still in their theatres of combat, but rather those who had spent the war on the "home front". For them VE day represented the removal of the direct threat. The Blitz was still in living memory and even more so were the V1 and V2 attacks, which came literally out of the blue after most of the population would have considered that the risk of bombing had gone. I don't know the numbers but I guess the UK had many more troops in Europe than in the Far East, so most people knew their loved ones were safe too. And people would have seen at first hand how the war in Europe affected their homeland, and would expect some sort of normality to resume, whereas hostilities with Japan had very little direct visible impact on the UK.

Personally I feel the Japanese nation have gotten away with their war crimes. The Imperial army massacred entire cities, raped millions of women and when fighting the Chinese literally took no prisoners ( there were newspaper articles that held contests such as the first to kill 100 with a sword) and yet there were no reparations, no apology and hardly anyone remembers the horrors of what was happening...

 

[najaB]

Personally I feel the Japanese nation have gotten away with their war crimes.

One of the lessons of WWI was that demanding reparations might not always be the best idea. Japan largely "got away" with their conduct during WW2 because they were an extremely useful ally in the Cold War. I think the fact that they were the only nation to have ever had nuclear weapons used against them also goes a long way in explaining why they have been treated more favourably than the other Axis powers.

 

[Darandio]

I think the fact that they were the only nation to have ever had nuclear weapons used against them

And are still suffering illness from this nearly 75 years on.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Personally I feel the Japanese nation have gotten away with their war crimes. The Imperial army massacred entire cities

The trouble with going down the BOO EVIL route is that it was a war and both sides were as bad as each other. They massacred cities, yes, but then what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, well, the massacre of an entire city. And they're still suffering the effects of the radiation.

Likewise in Germany, boo hiss they bombed London. The Blitz was terrible and the Germans killed an estimated 32,000 people during bombing raids in London during the war. But then we deliberately set fire to the civilian parts of Hamburg and Dresdenin 1943. We killed more people in Hamburg (35,000-40,000) in a couple of nights of Operation Gomorrah than died in the whole Blitz. We literally burned the city to the ground, regardless of who was in it. Children died up to their knees in molten asphalt.

Both sides committed plenty of war crimes. I still consider Operation Gomorrah to be a deliberate murder of civilians, which is a war crime in anyone's book. But I don't hear people demanding we pay reparation to Hamburg. In fact quite the opposite, what we did to Hamburg is glossed over.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

What the Germans and Russians did to each other is also unmentioned- war is horrible.

 

[Tetchytyke]

What the Germans and Russians did to each other is also unmentioned- war is horrible.

Yup, war is horrible. It's why I'm so uncomfortable about how we glorify it with things like the VE Day 75 celebrations. The end of the war is definitely something to celebrate and remember, but the war itself tends to be glorified. War is awful and we should remember that and do everything we can to prevent it.

 

[MotCO]

Who's to say there won't be some sort of commemoration of VJ Day?

Maybe VJ Day will be marked by what should have taken place last Friday, that is if we are out of lockdown by 15 August.

 

[geoffk]

War is awful but also very profitable, which is one the reasons there are still so many going on.

 

[Butts]

What the Germans and Russians did to each other is also unmentioned- war is horrible.

Don't look to closely or you will see Petain and Vichy France , also Gendarmes assisting in the roundup of French Jews to send them to Concentration Camps. Ukrainian SS Divisions whose brutality even made the Germans blanch. Finland allied to Germany. Latvian and Lithuanian SS Divisions. Admiral Horthy in Hungary another despot and anti-semite. The Romanians were up to their necks in it as well. Have we got onto the Ustashe in Croatia yet , no wonder when Tito died Yugoslavia fell apart.

The Germans and Russians were not the only barbarians in Europe.

Moving onto the Japanese, they seemed to engender a hatred in those who suffered at their hands for a long time after the War. As a young teenager working in a paper shop in the seventies , we had a lot of veterans calling in on their way to work. People who had served in the Far East largely had a visceral hatred of "the nips" as they called them. Most of them would not buy anything Japanese and would never forgive them. Those that faced "The Krauts" had a grudging respect for them. "Eyeties" as they called the Italians were treated as a bit of a joke - Italian Tank five gears - one forward and four backwards (cowards).

That generation has almost passed now and their hatred has gone with them enabling reconciliation and forgiveness.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

That generation has almost passed now and their hatred has gone with them enabling reconciliation and forgiveness.

I hope so. I loved my father in law but he served in the war and died in 2005. He was very - racist- and his hatred ran deep.