The day was bright the cloudless sky brought out the sharp contrast between the rememberers and the remembered, the young and the old, the people who had benefited from 70 years of peace and the old solderers who had helped make that peace possible. Truly on their last legs these late 80 early 90 year old men were probably celebrating and commiserating their last rally with their comrades before their own personal last post is played.
Its hard for us who have never known the threat of war on our doorstep to imagine the emotions of that time. The German war machine was thought to be too powerful for any other European nation and it was only the devastating events on the Russian front and the incoming freshly equipped Americans that sealed the Germans fate.
The people on this island were in poor shape even leading up to the outbreak of the war and in this the leadership of Churchill, his rhetoric, broadcast to the nation, a nation of people who were more inclined to accept leadership and believe what their leaders said was important.
The bombing including thousands of V1 and V11 rocket powered missiles on targeted cities, brought death and destruction to ordinary men women and children, the equal of that experienced by the solderers and of course there were the terrible casualties amongst civilians on the Eastern Front running into many, many millions. Sadly we have no memorial to them.
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