Seventy-five years ago today...

[Methuselah]

Not much left at Devizes now. Hopton Barracks is an industrial estate and Le Merchant Barracks is mostly housing.

Yes, I went into Google earth some years ago and couldn't find anything. I was at Waller Barracks which I think is a housing estate now.

 

[Methuselah]

Reading the VE media it just struck me how National Service is still such a recent thing but yet couldn’t be fathomed for the games console generation.

I am firmly opposed to it bus curious as to your experience of what is recent times.

Depends how you view 'recent times'. National Service ended in 1960 - 60 years ago. The 'youngest' National Servicemen are now 78!

 

[tommye]

This was brilliant - I am sharing here. Read the whole thing.

It was noon on August 15th, 1945. The Japanese Emperor had just announced to his people that his country had surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers.

To those of us being held at Ohashi Prison Camp in the mountains of northern Japan, where we’d been prisoners of war performing forced labour at a local iron mine, this meant freedom. But freedom didn’t necessarily equate to safety. The camp’s 395 POWs, about half of them Canadians, were still under the effective control of Japanese troops. And so we began negotiating with them about what would happen next.

https://quillette.com/2020/08/15/on...from-a-pow-camp-then-us-pilots-saved-my-life/

Cheers Mezz, cracking read that. ♡u