VJ veterans remember (From Western Telegraph)

VJ veterans remember

NO-ONE had more cause to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day on Monday than the brave men and women for whom it was a welcome end to the war.

The 24 members of the Pembrokeshire Burma Star Association are chief among those with poignant memories of the black years of war, which ended on August 15th, 1945. Only ten members are still active and they meet on the last Tuesday of every month at the RAOB Club at Haverfordwest.

Secretary Affie Webb, of Goodwick, is typical of the gallant band of ex-servicemen, who served in the Far East. Having served briefly on the GWR ferries between Weymouth and the Channel Islands as a teenager before the war, he joined the hazardous minesweeper service after volunteering at the age of 18 in 1940.

His ship HMS Lord Beaconsfield, a large converted trawler, was hit by armour-piercing shells when three Stuka diver-bombers strafed it during a patrol between Lerwick and Norway.

Fortunately, no-one was killed although two crew were wounded, and Mr Webb is conscious of the luck that saw him through the D-Day landings, beach invasions in Malaya, and escape from the constant threat from magnetic and acoustic mines.

"My claim to fame is that Lord Haw-Haw mistakenly reported that our ship had been sunk," he said.

"When I think that I came away without a scratch from my experiences yet poor Simon Weston was so terribly injured before he had set foot on the Falklands or fired a shot there, I just thank my lucky stars," he added.

Another lucky Burma Star veteran, John Isaacs, of Haverfordwest, went through Burma as a teenage member of an RAF mobile signals unit, providing a vital link with the army as it advanced down to Rangoon and Singapore.

He trained in India and, after frequent attacks from the enemy as the Allied troops advanced, finally heard of the end of the war while sailing on a troopship down the Indian Ocean for a planned invasion of Singapore.

Another of the Burma veterans, Creighton Reynolds, of Pembroke Dock, is the last surviving member to have been imprisoned by the Japanese, an experience he is trying to forget.

Many of the veterans attended Sunday's VJ Day commemorative service at the Haverfordwest Cenotaph.