Bainsford 80th anniversary VJ Day

Dawson Park, Bainsford War Memorial. Friends of Dawson Park holding a short service to mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.

Transcript

00:00The names of Imphal, Pohima and Mandalay that I am still not widely recognized.

00:08And even at the time, leaders of the South East Asia Command joked that the 14th Army was a forgotten army.

00:16They must not remain forgotten, which is one of the purposes of today's ceremony.

00:21War in the Far East ended with the dawn of the atomic age.

00:25This is the key learning for us all right now, as the presidents of the United States and of Russia

00:32meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, and as rogue states seek to acquire the capacity to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.

00:40It feels that the nuclear taboo and the moral revulsion that has helped control the proliferation of nuclear weapons is weakening,

00:50and that the likelihood of nuclear war is growing.

00:54There are just a handful of survivors of the horrors of the 6th and 9th of August 1945,

01:00after Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered the blinding flash and ferocious postage of the nuclear bomb stroke on earth by the United States.

01:09It is estimated that 210,000 people died as a result of nuclear bombs.

01:16Prior to the bombing, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan's unconditional surrender or face prompt and utter destruction.

01:27The bank's failure to respond definitively to this ultimatum of 1927 to use atomic bombs.

01:37The survivors of the atomic bombs are known in Japan as hibakusha, and they do their best to keep the nuclear warming to mankind alive.

01:47One, Tanaka Shigunitsu said recently,

01:51The danger of nuclear weapons being used has never been as imminent as anything during the past 80 years.

01:59The association of these survivors saw one of them achieved the Nobel Peace Prize last year,

02:04and the work was linked to the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons,

02:09and it came to persuade the United Nations to adopt their chiefly barring the development, acquisitions,

02:15stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons.

02:18These efforts by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve their support.

02:24There is still hope, though, that through the sacrifice of those who commemorate today,

02:31we can do our bit to draw the world back from its own destruction.

02:35Captain Ernest Gordon and Duke Captain Leonard Cheshire D.C.,

02:41who witnessed the dropping of an atomic bomb in Nagasaki,

02:44went on to dedicate their lives to humanitarian work.

02:48These examples of human compassion being forged from the horrors of war

02:53give us at least some hope for the future.