In 1995, it was the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII). Oddly, this brought me into Newmarket Local History Society. Members had put together a wonderful exhibition of artefacts and displayed these alongside accounts by local people who had lived through it, some as Prisoners of War with the Japanese military. This was certainly not forgotten history. It filled “The Stable” community centre hall. The people featured had lived through horrific times but their families had often suffered for years afterwards. NLHS brought this global but still national and local history, back to life for everyone. I could see that the research and recording of such history was very important.

My own father had lived in tanks in the African desert more or less from the beginning to the end of WWII but lots of people knew about those events. They knew something about the evil of the Nazis and they knew a lot about the sufferings of all their victims, as well as the cost to Britain and her allies and the devastation of Europe. However, the War in the East went on past VE Day in May, diverse, widespread and distant. It has often been called “the forgotten war”. As Europe considered how to rebuild and reshape itself in peacetime, the War in the East raged on and seemed not to have a solution.

The Japanese were not Nazis, so what motivated them to attack the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, December 7th, 1941? The primary aim was to destroy the American Pacific Fleet of ships and other equipment. However, many other motivations were behind this. Japan mainly isolated itself from the rest of the world. It had a militaristic structure to its culture and now, it wanted to build an empire of its own. At its head was Emperor Hirohito, reckoned as a god by the Japanese, although the amount of his actual power in events is still debated. Born in 1901, he was Emperor from 1906 until his death in 1989.

VJ Day marks the Anniversary when Japan finally surrendered to the allied forces on August 15th 1945. This only happened after the drastic decision to end the War by dropping the first-ever atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6th & 9th, 1945, respectively). Another factor was the Russian decision to join in fighting the Japanese.

The human cost of this distant Japanese war had been staggering. For Britain alone, 90,000 troops had been casualties. 30,000 had died and 37,500 became prisoners of war, subjected to brutal slave labour.

Many countries besides Britain were involved in this conflict: the U.S.A., Thailand, Burma, and many Commonwealth soldiers from many countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Gurkhas from Nepal, soldiers from pre-partition India. By 1945 the British Indian Army included the largest volunteer force in history of 2.5 million men and women (Source: Royal British Legion).

So, what of Japanese attitudes today? Japan is a peaceful and prosperous country which trades with many others Many people from other lands go to live and work there. However, Japan still has its own identity although it has selectively adopted many western ways. I have often wondered whether resentment lingers? However, relatives from America went recently to visit their son who lives there. It was amazing to hear that ordinary Japanese people had stopped these American strangers in the street and thanked them for the American intervention in WWII, awful as it was. This was because, apart from this, the ordinary Japanese people could see no end to the War and their own, often-forgotten suffering.