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Antiques Roadshow Season 48 Episode 4
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00:00On the 8th of May 1945, celebrations broke out across the country to mark the end of
00:12the Second World War in Europe. But for many this was just the beginning of the end. Germany
00:19and Italy may have been defeated, but the war against Japan was to rage on for another three
00:25months. We're at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to trace the story of the Second
00:32World War in what was then known as the Far East. Often referred to as the Forgotten War,
00:39it played out across the vast Pacific Ocean and in the tropical jungles of Southeast Asia. The
00:46war in the Far East and the Second World War itself would be brought to an end by the deployment of
00:51the ultimate weapon. Two atomic bombs dropped by the US on the Japanese mainland in August 1945.
00:59Since then, Victory Over Japan, or VJ Day, has been marked on August the 15th. Eighty years on,
01:09in a special commemorative episode, we'll relive key moments in the conflict through the items you've
01:15shared with us. Given the very personal and moving stories you're going to hear, our experts won't be
01:23offering any valuations on the items you'll be seeing. To the owners, these things are priceless,
01:29and they offer a poignant insight into some of the darkest events of our past. The National Memorial
01:35Arboretum contains more than 25,000 trees and over 400 memorials to those who served in the armed forces
01:42and civilian organizations. One corner is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of British and
01:50Commonwealth troops who took part in the war in Asia and the Pacific. And from here, we'll hear the
01:57stories of those who lived through that terrible conflict. A naval officer who cheated death in Europe and
02:04Southeast Asia. Had we found the Japanese, there's no doubt some of us would have been injured or killed.
02:11A Commonwealth soldier from West Africa who saw action in Burma, now Myanmar.
02:19It was very ruthless fighting. It was beyond anybody's comprehension.
02:25And a survivor of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
02:30Welcome to a special edition of the Antiques Roadshow commemorating the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.
02:44Our story begins in December 1941, with one of the most notorious events of the Second World War,
03:00Japan's devastating surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
03:06Out of the mystic Pacific skies, like tiny locusts, they swarmed in from the sea.
03:13By crippling the US Pacific Fleet, Japan hoped to gain control over the Pacific and expand its empire.
03:21To fuel this ambition, the Japanese needed to secure precious raw materials like oil, tin and rubber.
03:29And so on the day after their attack on Pearl Harbor, they launched an invasion on British and American held territories,
03:36including Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaya, now Malaysia.
03:43The United States and Great Britain immediately declared war on Japan.
03:48Siobhan Tyrrell is intrigued to see a rare item kept by a soldier based in Burma at the start of the conflict.
03:558th of December 1941, people were still reeling from the Japanese attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor.
04:07This was in the Rangoon Gazette the day after that.
04:11Japan at war with Britain and US. Air attack on Singapore.
04:17Where did you find this amazing bit of Second World War history?
04:21Well, we found it when my father had died and he never spoke about the war.
04:26We knew nothing about this and we were just going through his paperwork, his boxes of stuff,
04:31and it was just folded up in other papers.
04:34He was Thomas Perriman Ruddle. He was in the RAF in Burma from about 1941.
04:40So this was a really hot time in the Far East. It was the initial bombing of Singapore.
04:48Civilians were killed and wounded. What was your father doing?
04:52We believe he was a wireless operator. We did have an old photograph of him in a training camp
04:58with 50 people all sitting at terminals being trained. But that's all we know.
05:05So he was kind of a vital communications link during the war out in the Far East.
05:12And we've got another great photograph of him here in his uniform, obviously an RAF signaler with his eagle badge there,
05:19and the Royal Air Force Service and release book.
05:22Yeah. What is amazing, we found this photograph album which documents his journey right from the start,
05:28where he was on the boat going out. And, you know, all these pictures here of planes and the temples charting his route through Burma,
05:37right through India, Calcutta, and even the Taj Mahal.
05:40We've got some wonderful photographs of Rangoon and the temples that he would have seen during that time.
05:47But also right to the very end, when he was homeward bound.
05:51And he was the lucky one that survived.
05:53Our father was always a musician. He used to write music, play the piano, the organ, sing.
05:58And even on the boat going out, he was entertaining the troops. And out there as well, he was doing it.
06:04It wasn't all dark and grim. It was keeping morale up of the troops, wasn't it?
06:08Yes. Isn't it great that he managed to keep this?
06:12I can't imagine there are many that have survived, and it's just an amazing record.
06:17Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
06:21Following its airstrike on Singapore, Japan now planned to invade the island
06:26in order to secure a strategic foothold in Southeast Asia.
06:30As the major naval base for its Royal Navy, Britain believed that Singapore was safe from attack
06:35due to its strong seaward defences. But Japan's advance from the island's landward side
06:40through dense jungle took the British by surprise. And after a short siege in February 1942, Singapore fell.
06:48Winston Churchill called the fall of Singapore the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history.
07:01The battle had claimed the lives of 5,000 British, Indian and Commonwealth soldiers.
07:07And an uncertain fate now awaited the tens of thousands who'd been taken prisoner.
07:13As Japanese forces advanced, brutal prisoner of war camps that would become synonymous with the conflict
07:20were constructed right across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
07:24In Singapore, almost 3,000 British civilians were placed in the island's Changi jail, alongside military prisoners of war.
07:33By the end of the conflict, around 50,000 Allied soldiers would have been held there.
07:38And we've got a rare personal item from one of those prisoners of war.
07:43My father was Sergeant Albert John Morris, and he was stationed in Malaya in Singapore during the Second World War.
07:53He was just 21 at the time that he enlisted. The photo I have is, we believe, in First World War uniform
08:00due to potentially the lack of uniforms for the enlisting soldiers.
08:04When Singapore surrendered, he became a Japanese prisoner of war.
08:09And this is his dog tag that was issued to him when he went to Changi jail in Singapore.
08:17It's quite a sharp, rough piece of metal.
08:20And he realised that he would have a much better chance of not scratching his body if he made his own.
08:29So he acquired some scrap aluminium and crafted his own dog tag.
08:36The characters were led to believe simply mean British or English.
08:42And underneath is his prisoner of war number.
08:46On the reverse, on the Japanese version, it's simply got A2.
08:51I'm not sure what that means and his surname.
08:54The one he crafted, he put his full title on there and his unit.
09:00I feel incredibly proud that he served in the way that he served.
09:06It must have been incredibly hard not being able to communicate correctly.
09:10So feeling very isolated must have been very difficult at the time.
09:14He didn't ever talk in any great detail about his time and the war.
09:20But I think it was a really, really tough time, three and a half years being a prisoner of war.
09:26I can't imagine what that must have been like for a young man.
09:30Prisoners didn't just face deprivation and death inside the camps, but also while they were being transported on board repurposed merchant vessels known as hell ships.
09:44With no markings or indication that these Japanese ships were carrying prisoners, many of them were unknowingly targeted by allied ships and submarines.
09:54It's estimated that 23 hell ships were sunk by the allies, with a loss of 11,000 prisoners of war.
10:03Military expert Bill Harriman is with the relatives of one soldier who survived the horror of the hell ships.
10:12Well, we're here at the Hell Ship Memorial, which commemorates those whose lives were lost.
10:18And I understand that you had a relative who was conveyed in one of those dreadful, dreadful vessels.
10:24Yes, my grandfather, Harry Hill of the Indian Army, he was on at least two, possibly three hell ships.
10:30The England Maru and also the Tycho Maru.
10:33He'd been a veteran of World War One, but he was to all intents and purposes a professional soldier
10:39because he'd served in the Indian Army between the wars and then volunteered to go to Malaya.
10:46Despite being 51 years old, Singapore fell to the Japanese on the 15th of February 1942.
10:52He was taken prisoner and ended up in Changi Prison.
10:56From there, he was indeed moved around quite a bit.
11:00The extraordinary thing is that he did have a fantastic comprehensive diary, but half of it was taken and confiscated.
11:08So he started again and he actually did a duplicate of that diary.
11:12Ah, crafty.
11:13Is there any reference to the conditions?
11:16Yes, in fact, there is some reference here.
11:19We marched to the further side of the docks where we hung about in the rain until taken off in lighters to the boat, the Melbourne Maru.
11:26It was dark before they got us all into one hold.
11:30Eight hundred cold, wet, miserable human beings herded worse than any cattle into a hold.
11:38And we were not just pushed into this place, but driven in with hefty blows from bamboo poles and the heavy baggage was put in afterwards.
11:48Unbelievable.
11:49I think the terrible irony of the dreadfulness of those conditions was the fact when you got on it, you were thinking,
11:58well, I'm reasonably safe, that you stood in danger of being killed by an American submarine because the Americans patrolled those routes very vigorously with their submarines,
12:10looking out for Japanese merchant vessels.
12:13So you had a dreadful, dreadful existence and you never knew from one moment to the next whether or not your ship would be torpedoed.
12:21Indeed.
12:22I can't help but notice, and I've seen some weird things on the road too, what is that?
12:27That's a fly swat. It's made from bamboo and leather from his old boots.
12:31But what's inside? We don't know. It's beautifully stitched and I just cannot bring myself to unstitch it.
12:36What do you think might be inside?
12:38Some interesting diary entries, maybe.
12:40Do you know what? Making this as he sat in his miserable captivity, giving it something to do,
12:45and if you have something to do, you're thinking about it, you're not thinking how dreadful the conditions are.
12:50It must have kept him sane.
12:52Yes, I think the diaries did too.
12:57Conditions in the camps were horrific.
13:00Prisoners were not only subjected to brutal punishments from the prison guards.
13:05They also lived on meagre rations, and thousands died from disease and malnutrition.
13:11Burials happened with little ceremony, often in communal graves.
13:16But in Changi Jail in Singapore, prisoners built a poignant structure to honour their dead comrades.
13:23Remarkably, it now stands here in the National Memorial Arboretum.
13:28This is the original Lich Gate at the entrance to the burial mound at Changi Jail.
13:34The gate is made from a hardwood known as Chengal Wood, and it was built in 1942 by prisoners at the jail.
13:41And it was designed by a fellow prisoner, a Captain Cecil Pickersgill, who believed that there should be a gate for dead servicemen to pass through as a mark of their Christian faith.
13:53By the end of the war, the burial ground contained more than 600 prisoners of war who died during their internment at Changi Jail.
14:03In March 1942, Japan seized Rangoon, the then capital of Burma, followed by the islands of Sumatra and Java in what is now Indonesia.
14:14Japan's occupation meant thousands more Allied troops were interned in prisoner of war camps on Sumatra and Java.
14:25At our roadshow at Thirlstein Castle in Scotland, Mark Smith got a glimpse of the dogged determination it took to simply survive.
14:33You came to the military table today and you bought me a coconut, which says Marshall 2629. What is this coconut here?
14:44This was my father's bowl. Eric Marshall, which he used as a Japanese prisoner of war. He had that from a coconut tree in Java.
14:54If you were to survive in a prisoner of war camp, you needed something to eat from. So unless you had some sort of utensil, your chances weren't great.
15:04And also, he carved his name in it, Eric Marshall and his number, and that's in English, Japanese and Malay.
15:11So it enabled that not to get pinched. He carved that really beautiful item, we think.
15:17And he carried that from late 1942, possibly early 43, when he made that through to his liberation on the 3rd of September 1945.
15:27Where was he captured? Surrendered with the rest of the British Army on Java on the 8th of March 1942.
15:34Did he talk about this? He rarely spoke about it.
15:37But when he did, he spoke about a lot of the brutality, but he was a man who had a great sense of humour.
15:43So he told a lot of funny stories about his time, as well as some of the less funny stories.
15:48So, how long have you known this object?
15:51I never knew Grandad, but I've known that my whole life.
15:56And it's always, well, since I was born, it's been something that Dad would show
16:01and explain to me the importance of what Grandad went through and lived through.
16:06And it's the reason that I'm here, that he survived because of that.
16:10It's actually quite a strange thing to hold, because when you read about what these people went through,
16:18when you think that this is probably the only thing that he actually had,
16:22it makes you shake. Yeah.
16:24It does.
16:26And it's also the people who didn't have one.
16:29Yeah, and they're the ones who didn't come home.
16:31Yeah, absolutely.
16:33Aye, it's amazing.
16:37Prisoners of war didn't just suffer horrific conditions in the camps.
16:43Many also worked as forced labourers.
16:46Most infamously, on the 258 mile long Thai-Burma railway.
16:51Japan's decisive naval defeat by the US Pacific Fleet at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 had cut off sea routes,
17:04and meant they needed an efficient way to transport their troops and supplies by land into newly occupied Burma.
17:10Asian forced labourers and allied prisoners of war toiled through mountainous jungle, enduring inhumane working conditions and cruel treatment,
17:21to build what would become known as the Death Railway.
17:26A haunting memorial here in the National Memorial Arboretum pays tribute to those who suffered and died during its construction.
17:35It's said that a life was laid down for every sleeper.
17:40By the time it was completed in October 1943, around 16,000 prisoners of war and over 75,000 forced labourers,
17:51many conscripted from Malaya, Thailand or Burma, had died during the railway line's construction.
17:59Many of them just buried alongside the tracks.
18:05Much of the railway line was dismantled after the war, but what makes this memorial so especially poignant
18:17is that these 30 metres of sleepers and track come from the original railway line itself.
18:24One soldier who worked on the Death Railway was Jack Jennings.
18:30When he died aged 104, it's believed Jack was the last surviving prisoner of war to have worked on the Death Railway.
18:40Chris Yeo was delighted to meet Jack's daughter and son-in-law and see a remarkable item fashioned by Jack while he was a prisoner.
18:48This chess set was made by my father Jack Jennings and it was made when he was a prisoner of war in Thailand on the Thai Burma Railway.
18:58Also known as the Death Railway.
19:00And amongst the horror of it, your father found the wherewithal to craft a chess set, which really is quite extraordinary.
19:09Yes, he taught me to play chess on this set when I was a little girl.
19:13He did carpentry and joined her as a trade. And then when he joined the forces, he actually did a course in London, a carpentry course as well.
19:23What is it using? It's very light, it's like it's balsa wood or something, I would imagine.
19:27Yes, I think, well balsa wood actually grows very quickly in clearing, so jungle camp would have been the ideal place for it to be lying around.
19:34And Dad said that it was just lying around in the can.
19:37What did he use to carve it with?
19:39He used a penknife.
19:41Were they allowed penknives and things like that?
19:43Well, he said that he acquired it.
19:44Do we know where from?
19:45Not quite sure where it came from.
19:47But at that point in time, you know, there was nowhere to escape to.
19:50So I don't suppose it really bothered the Japanese guards very much if he had a penknife.
19:55This one is natural, it doesn't have any paint on it. These do, so why is that?
20:01That's because when I grew up, they were stained. It was much later when he painted them black.
20:07So we've got the full 32 pieces you would expect of a chess set, but no chess board. Was there one?
20:13He did actually make an octagonal chess board at the same time, and he carried it with him.
20:19But when he was having to move from place to place, it just became too much of a burden, so he just cast it away into the forest somewhere.
20:26You almost think, is this him actually reclaiming his identity as a carpenter?
20:32Yes. The only way that he could survive really was to think of it as his home.
20:37So...
20:38So actually a survival strategy?
20:39It was a survival strategy.
20:41Did he ever talk about his experiences working on the railway?
20:44He never talked about it until, really, to anybody outside of the family, until the 1990s.
20:50Because they were told not to talk about it.
20:53They were actually told they were instructed.
20:55They were actually told, instructed on the boat on the way home, they were told not to talk about it.
20:59The people in this country had suffered far more.
21:02Which flies in the face of everything we now understand about how to actually treat trauma.
21:08Yes.
21:09And you do so by talking about it, not by...
21:11Everything was internalised, and so, yes, he didn't have that outlet, really.
21:16No.
21:17And I understand that he passed away quite recently.
21:20He passed away just over a year ago.
21:22He almost made it to 105.
21:24And the last time I played on this set was with my dad, about two years before he died.
21:30Ah.
21:31So it was with him most of his life?
21:32It was, yes.
21:33Yes.
21:34Yeah.
21:35It was one of his treasured possessions.
21:37It really is the most powerful story.
21:40Thank you so much for coming in today.
21:42It's been a pleasure to meet you.
21:43Thank you very much.
21:44Thank you very much.
21:47It would take decades for survivors like Jack to reveal what they went through.
21:52Especially as they were urged not to talk about their harrowing war experiences when they returned home.
21:59One reason given was to spare the feelings of the families of those who didn't survive.
22:04From multiple published accounts, and its depiction in films and books, the notorious Death Railway continues to be widely known.
22:14But it wasn't the only long-distance railway that the Japanese constructed to strengthen their military logistics.
22:20In 1944, construction began on a 140-mile railway track on the island of Sumatra.
22:32Another memorial here at the Arboretum pays tribute to almost 5,000 prisoners of war who worked on the Sumatra Railway.
22:39But as Siobhan Tyrrell discovers, it took decades for the full story of this railway to emerge.
22:49We've got a prisoner of war story here relating to your dad.
22:55Tell me about his time during the war.
22:59My dad was John Geoffrey Lee, known as Geoff.
23:02He was in the RAF, the 84 Squadron.
23:06He was captured in Java, Indonesia, on the 13th of March, 1942.
23:13So he was a prisoner of war at that point.
23:14Yes, he was.
23:15And how did he get involved in this railway that most people have never heard of?
23:20We've heard of the Burma Railway, but this is the Sumatra Railway.
23:24He was on a hell ship.
23:26His ship got sunk.
23:27He was then recaptured by the Japanese and was taken to the Sumatra Railway.
23:31And what was the treatment like of the prisoners of war?
23:34Shocking.
23:35Absolutely shocking.
23:36Barely any food, half a cup of rice if they were lucky.
23:40They had to scavenge everything that they needed to eat.
23:43A lot of the prisoners were dying.
23:45Malaria, wasn't it?
23:46Yes, absolutely.
23:47Malaria and dysentery because of the terrible conditions.
23:49Yes, that's right.
23:50And they weren't given any medical supplies?
23:53There was no medical supplies at all.
23:55There was nothing.
23:56The Sumatra Railway was built to cut through Sumatra
23:59so it was a quicker route to get troops across the island.
24:03Yes.
24:04And also to get resources across the island.
24:06And we've got his map here, haven't we?
24:08Yes, that's right.
24:09After the war had finished, the only thing they could do
24:12was try and get back up the line to Peckinburgh up there.
24:16They took the train that they'd actually built to get help,
24:18otherwise they would never have got rescued if they hadn't have done that
24:21because nobody knew where they were.
24:23And we've got this picture of your dad at the end of the war.
24:26Sat there with his back there.
24:28That's as they arrived in Singapore before they went to hospital.
24:31Do you know what waist he was?
24:32It was about six stone.
24:33So they were walking skeletons really, weren't they?
24:36Absolutely were.
24:37When he came back from the war, nobody believed that he'd been on the Sumatra Railway.
24:41Everybody thought he'd been on the Burma Railway.
24:43They'd never heard of it.
24:44Extraordinary.
24:45But he knew that he wasn't on the Burma Railway because he had his pay book.
24:50He had his pay book.
24:51It says here, date and place of capture, Java, but the date and place of recovery,
24:58Pakambaru, in Sumatra at the end of the war in September 45.
25:04This is probably the most important bit of evidence to show he was on the Sumatra Railway.
25:11Yeah, he got that as proof and he started to write then to Imperial War Museum.
25:18And we've got a letter here dated 1978.
25:22They've written back and said, I regret that this library can provide you with no more detailed information.
25:29It really hit home how forgotten this was.
25:33He knew that he had got to do something to get the Sumatra Railway recognised.
25:39And that's what he did.
25:40He went out to Sumatra in 1980 and took photographs and found the trains actually in the towns and in the jungle.
25:49It must have been absolutely crushing to be disbelieved when you come back from such a horrific wartime experience.
25:56But then the really great story is that actually he helped to design this memorial here.
26:05Yes, he did.
26:06He helped raise money for it.
26:08Sadly, he never saw it.
26:09He was too ill and he died in 2002.
26:12But his name is on the memorial.
26:14His name is on that memorial.
26:15Yes, it is.
26:16Which is great.
26:17Thank you so much for telling the story of your dad, Geoff Lee, and the story about the Sumatra Railway.
26:25Thank you very much for the opportunity.
26:27He would be so proud.
26:28He would be.
26:34By early 1942, the Japanese controlled Sumatra and much of Southeast Asia, including Burma, previously a British territory.
26:44In an effort to disrupt Japan's supply routes and communications deep behind enemy lines, a special unit called the Long Range Penetration Force was formed.
26:54Comprising British, Indian, Nepalese and Burmese troops.
26:58They were nicknamed the Chindits, after the Burmese word for lion.
27:02This was guerilla warfare in malaria-ridden jungles, and not for the faint-hearted, as Bill Harriman has been finding out.
27:11You've bought some fantastic items here, including this absolutely iconic hat that just shouts Commonwealth servicemen in the Far East.
27:22And I'm guessing that's his hat.
27:24That's his hat?
27:25That's correct, yeah. That's a picture of my father, Ernie Wainwright, before he went into the jungle.
27:31And it's exactly the same hat that he wore all through the campaign for the six months that he was out in Burma fighting behind Japanese lines.
27:38Was your father involved in the Chindits?
27:40Yeah, he was. He was attached to 54th Field Company, attached to the 7th Battalion of Leicester Regiment.
27:46He was responsible for blowing up railways, communications lines, that type of thing.
27:50So he was trained in it as a demolitions expert as well.
27:53They were really important because they went right behind the Japanese lines and caused absolute havoc.
28:01Blowing up railways, ammunition dumps, attacking any opportunity target they came to.
28:07Just sent in there, saying, set the place on fire.
28:10And they were so important, not just because of their military effect, but because of the morale for the rest of the army.
28:18They were really upsetting the Japanese and that the Japanese were just simply not getting it their own way.
28:24Before that, it was thought that the Japanese were invincible.
28:27Yes.
28:28And it changed the whole morale of the country and the fighting against them to say that they could be beaten in a territory which they were used to fighting in.
28:34So I think that alone justifies the whole campaign.
28:38Of course, the Chindits had a terribly, terribly high attrition rate, largely from disease.
28:45So, you know, it's a remarkable thing that your father survived it.
28:48How did your father actually get out of the jungle?
28:52The unit that he was with at the time were carrying an enormous amount of casualties, so they needed to evacuate.
28:56And to do that, they needed to defend a high pass to a lake where they were being evacuated from.
29:01It was a walk of around 500 miles in total.
29:04And then he was rescued from the lake by an American light aircraft pilot who saw him carried into the aircraft and he was then flown out into a SAMHSA hospital.
29:14He had very, very typhus, couldn't use his hands and feet, lost all of his teeth and lost three stone as well in the six months he was in the jungle.
29:23We've got the usual four suspects amongst the campaign medals.
29:27And I'm delighted to see the Burmstar.
29:29Indeed.
29:30The representative there.
29:31Yeah.
29:32That one's a little bit tatty on its ribbon.
29:34Yeah, it is.
29:35My father took part in a VJ match where the Duke of Edinburgh led the parade back in the mid-90s.
29:42And it wasn't quite how he wanted it, the medal set.
29:45So it's typical of my father, he hand-stitched it.
29:48It's a bit sassy but he was a bit make-doin men so we kept it like that because that's really typical of who he was as a person.
29:54I think that's just wonderful.
29:55Did your father ever say whether he enjoyed his time as a chimney?
29:59Well, the funny thing is he always talks about the real hardship and how difficult it was.
30:04But when he was in hospital we had a final chat about it and he told me that he really wished he could live through it again.
30:09It was one of the best things he ever did and that was amazing to hear that he actually felt like that about it.
30:15And staggered.
30:16Yeah.
30:17Great to see everything that you brought here. Thank you very much.
30:20Thank you very much and thank you for bringing him back to life.
30:32The Chindits achieved some success in unsettling the Japanese.
30:36But ousting them completely would require a greater show of force.
30:41So in late 1943, the 14th Army was formed under the command of Lieutenant General William Bill Slim with the aim of retaking Burma.
30:52Largely overlooked by events closer to home in Europe, the 14th Army would come to be known as the Forgotten Army.
30:59But it was one of the most diverse in history. An estimated 40 languages were spoken as troops from India, Nepal, Burma and numerous countries in Africa joined their British counterparts.
31:12Among them was Private Joseph Hammond.
31:14Among them was Private Joseph Hammond. Now aged 100, he still lives in his hometown of Accra in Ghana.
31:21I was 16 years when the war broke out. I was then at school. I loved the army very much. So I decided that immediately after my education, my schooling, I would join the army.
31:39Joseph was one of tens of thousands of soldiers from countries in East and West Africa who joined the 14th Army in Burma.
31:49Once there, they faced punishing conditions.
31:52Joseph and his comrades saw action in the Arakam, a key coastal region in western Burma, where the troops depended on the land.
32:02Joseph and his comrades saw action in the Arakam, a key coastal region in western Burma, where the troops depended on the land.
32:21airdrops to deliver food.
32:24And then, in the place that dropped our food, the legs. Everybody was hungry. We were fighting. No food. And then we get lizards, frogs and we toasted and eat it.
32:41It was ferocious fighting. It was beyond anybody's comprehension.
32:47Something that I have never seen before in my life. It was terrible. I felt I was going to die. We were part of the 14th Army. You see, all these people come together from different nations. We live happily like brothers. We eat together. We do everything together.
33:11I, Joseph, I stay humble. I'm very proud that I do part.
33:18A few months after the 14th Army was formed, the Japanese crossed the border from Burma into India, then still under British rule.
33:33They planned to hinder British reinforcements by capturing the key allied base at Imphal and cutting off the main route to it at Kohima.
33:45It was an audacious move, and one designed to give the Japanese a strategic foothold in India, from where to launch a further offensive.
33:54The ensuing battles between March and July 1944 saw some of the worst close quarter fighting of the war.
34:04At one point in Kohima, the opposing armies were separated only by the width of the town's tennis court.
34:11But with the help of reinforcements, the 14th Army prevailed. An important victory that halted Japan's ambitions to expand into India. It was a turning point in the war.
34:25At Felstein Castle in the Scottish borders, Robert Tilney came across a weapon used in that pivotal battle.
34:32This is a Shinguntu. Shinguntu literally means new sword. It's Japanese, Second World War issue. How have you got a Shinguntu?
34:46My great uncle brought it back from Kohima.
34:51Japanese had to go through Kohima and Imphal. If they'd got through, they were then to Assam and the Indian Plain. All the British supply dumps were there.
35:01Yep. They had to be stopped.
35:03He was in the British 2nd Division. The British 2nd Division and 33 Corps, along with the Gurkhas and various others, were assigned to relieve the garrison at Kohima.
35:14But they did that by smashing their way up through the Kohima Road and retaking the garrison.
35:20My great uncle was amazed at the devastation when they actually got into the town. There was nothing left and it did look like a World War I battlefield.
35:28There are pictures and it looks...
35:30Terrible.
35:31Exactly.
35:32This tassel and the colours denote it was taken from an officer. These are the Japanese imperial symbol, the three chrysanthemums, repeated there.
35:41Unlike everybody else in the Second World War, these are not ceremonial swords. These are fighting swords.
35:47But I think that is a standard issue shingunta with a full length fuller.
35:53So that would be standard imperial army...
35:55Issue, yeah.
35:56Right.
35:57All the fittings are issue.
35:58Kohima was so appalling as a battle. There's the Kohima prayer.
36:02Yes.
36:03Which is, when you go home, remember us.
36:08Yes.
36:09And say, for your tomorrow we gave our today. So that...
36:14Comes from there.
36:15From Kohima. I mean that's just...
36:17It's history in your hands.
36:18It's a hairs on the back of your neck job.
36:20Yeah.
36:21The battles of Imphal and Kohima left more than 50,000 Japanese troops either dead or missing.
36:31And claimed the lives of 17,000 men from the 14th Army.
36:35More than 80 years on, we've got a rare opportunity to hear how events unfolded from both sides.
36:42Robert and Akiko, the children of soldiers who fought on opposing sides, are meeting for the first time today.
36:49Akiko and Robert, both your fathers served in the Kohima campaign in 1944.
36:57On opposite sides, Japan and Britain.
37:01Let's start with you, Akiko. This is your father here.
37:05That's right.
37:06His name is Taiji Udayama.
37:09He became Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion, 31st Regiment and 31st Division.
37:16He was stationed at the outskirts of the Kohima village, so stationed at the hillside shooting against the actually opposite side of the mountains where the British headquarters was.
37:29So he was being fired at and firing upon them, but he never actually saw them?
37:33No.
37:34Robert, tell me about your father's role. You've got a picture of him there.
37:38This is my dad, John Shotton, on a horse in India in 1943.
37:43He served in the Kohima campaign all the way through to the end of the war.
37:47He was part of either the 5th or the 9th Field Regiment of the Royal Engineers who were attached to the Cameron Highlanders,
37:53who were in the relief of Kohima as they fought their way down to Imphal.
38:00At Kohima, the Japanese underestimated the skill and determination of the 14th Army.
38:06And with a battle all but lost, Akiko's father and his comrades were called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.
38:13What did he experience then?
38:15Because everything is run out.
38:17But all the ammunition is run out.
38:19Ammunition is gone and the food is gone.
38:22And then they were told to prepare to do a suicidal charge.
38:26So he was going to be part of a suicidal charge against the Allied forces?
38:31That's right.
38:32In which he would have certainly lost his life?
38:33That's right.
38:34Everybody was prepared and really charged up.
38:38But very early morning they received the orders to retreat, which was an unthinkable order.
38:46They were so shocked.
38:47And that's what saved his life then?
38:49That's right.
38:50So for your father coming back there was enormous hardship?
38:52Yes.
38:53Most of the survivors had never been respected because they were regarded as losers
38:59and they didn't want to know about them.
39:02And then, you know, for your dad...
39:04At BJ Day in England there was no street parties.
39:07There was no parades, welcome home or anything like that.
39:10He just got off the ship and...
39:13There you go.
39:14Get on with your life.
39:15It was a sort of forgotten war, wasn't it, for many?
39:17Well, they always used to say it was the forgotten 14th, didn't they?
39:20Yeah.
39:21Now you are chair of the Burma Campaign Society
39:24and part of that is fostering peace and reconciliation.
39:27Do you think it's important to be able to have meetings like this?
39:30Of course, yes.
39:32We need to talk about each other's father's experience.
39:36I met quite a few Kohima veterans already.
39:39One of them told me,
39:41when you go back home to see your father,
39:45tell him,
39:46be proud of yourself...
39:48Wow.
39:49...that you survived.
39:51And I realised everybody had a survivor's guilt.
39:56Gosh!
39:57And what do you think?
39:59Your fathers would think of you two meeting here for the first time?
40:04I think he would be quietly pleased, I think,
40:07that, you know, that we've moved on generations,
40:10times have moved on.
40:11I'm married to an Englishman
40:13and when we decided to get married,
40:16I asked my husband to go to my father's for permission.
40:21And what he said was,
40:24my gosh, I got caught by British because we lost the war.
40:29Now you got caught.
40:32That's what he said.
40:33By his daughter.
40:34He had no grudge and never talked so much about hatred or anything like that.
40:41I'm very moved, I'd say, by hearing both your stories.
40:45And thank you so much for sharing them with us.
40:48Thank you for having me.
40:49Thank you and nice to meet you.
40:51And you, thank you.
40:57Following its success at Imphalan Kahima,
41:00the 14th Army advanced into central Burma
41:03and by February 1945,
41:05it had made its way across the Irrawaddy River,
41:08Burma's main waterway and supply route.
41:10Fighting through the jungle in searing heat was a gruelling ordeal.
41:16But Siobhan Tyrrell is finding out
41:18how a personal item from home sustained one young soldier.
41:23We've got quite an eclectic mix of items here,
41:26obviously a group of Second World War medals.
41:30These were my dad's medals.
41:32He was George Spreeks.
41:33He was in the Royal Artillery
41:35and in the 1st Survey Regiment,
41:37which is where they look for the flash of the gun
41:41and listen for the bang.
41:43And using complicated mathematics,
41:45they can work out how to set our guns in opposition.
41:49And if you're in the no man's land, as he was often,
41:53it can be catastrophic if you get these sums wrong.
41:56What battles was he involved in, do you know?
41:59My dad was in Kahima and Imphal
42:02and went down the Irrawaddy River.
42:04And we've got a pair of baby shoes here.
42:07My baby shoes.
42:08Your baby shoes.
42:09Tell us a story about that.
42:11Well, one is very discoloured.
42:13I can see that.
42:14That was the one that was actually sent to my dad
42:16and he carried it in his ammunition pouch.
42:19And when he came home in January 1946,
42:24he brought that home and it was reunited with the other one.
42:27The only trouble was I didn't know who he was.
42:30So I'd been shown a picture and constantly told,
42:34this is your dad.
42:35And then when dad actually arrived home
42:37and they said, this is your dad, it confused me.
42:40I said, well, what's going to happen to the picture?
42:42And that's something at three years old, I can actually remember.
42:47And we've got a lovely letter here.
42:49Can you perhaps read it out for us?
42:51I'll try.
42:52This was written on Christmas Day, 1942.
42:56And at that time I would have been about three weeks old.
42:59Dear little Jimmy, though you won't be able to read this,
43:03I hope you'll keep it and cherish it.
43:05Be very good for mummy, as she's the dearest person in the world
43:09and love her just as much as I do.
43:12A Merry Christmas, Jimmy.
43:14And let's hope I'm home to see you in the new year.
43:17All my love, Daddy.
43:19Oh, heart wrenching, isn't it?
43:21I'm immensely proud of what he achieved.
43:24He was taken from a small office,
43:27suddenly thrust into an army and fighting battles all over the world.
43:32Came back home five, six years later
43:35and was told not to talk about it
43:37and just sent back to work in his little legal office.
43:40And the two shoes were reunited.
43:43Must have been a very good luck charm.
43:46Oh, absolutely.
43:57In March 1945, after months of intense fighting,
44:01Allied forces succeeded in capturing Burma's second largest city, Mandalay.
44:07And by early May, the 14th Army took back the then capital of Rangoon
44:11with minimal resistance, ending the Japanese occupation.
44:16The son and daughter-in-law of one soldier
44:17had brought along a poignant memento from the campaign to retake Burma.
44:22My father was Walter Taylor.
44:25He joined the Yorks and Lakes Regiment when he was 17 years old.
44:28He was a private and an engineer.
44:30And he found this flag tucked into the tunic of a dead Japanese soldier.
44:35The flight's covered in writing and inscriptions.
44:38And we think that the large writing at the top of the flag is the name of the soldier.
44:43And that the rest of the writing would have been written by the local priest
44:47who would have put in messages of goodwill and hope for the future,
44:51names of relatives and things that the soldier might want to carry with him.
44:55But we don't know for sure.
44:57He was very keen to stress that there's no glory in war.
45:00He felt that what we need to do is to use war to make us into better people.
45:07And he said that the soldier that this belonged to was a soldier just like him,
45:12who had sadly fallen.
45:13And for him, he saw it as a symbol of hope.
45:17And he encouraged us and everybody he met really to live every day
45:22and live every minute in it.
45:27After months of fierce fighting,
45:29Allied forces continued to drive the Japanese east
45:32towards the border with Thailand.
45:34One of those joining the Burma campaign in May 1945
45:39was 20-year-old Bill Redstone,
45:42who became a first lieutenant in the Royal Navy Coastal Forces.
45:46Now aged 100, Bill is one of the few surviving veterans
45:51who saw action in both Europe and Southeast Asia.
45:55You were at the D-Day landings, weren't you?
45:57Yes, I went over on D-Day with the Americans.
46:01They said the Americans won't be pleased
46:04if the British coastal forces lead all the Americans onto France.
46:11So we're going to have to get an American boat to do it.
46:15Once they have been established on the shore,
46:18we're expected to come in at track of dawn the next day.
46:23D plus one on Utah Beach.
46:26When we landed the other side,
46:28we said what happened to the American boat?
46:31And they said she was blown out of the water in the first half an hour.
46:35So that was a narrow escape for you?
46:37Yes, that was lucky that they changed the order,
46:40otherwise we could have been blown out of the sea.
46:43So you narrowly escaped death at the D-Day landings.
46:47Yes.
46:48You then, as the war progressed,
46:50you were then sent as part of the war effort in the Far East.
46:52Yes.
46:53What were you doing there?
46:54We went with a convoy.
46:56We journeyed over 7,000 miles.
46:597,000 miles?
47:007,000 miles, yes.
47:02And where did you end up?
47:04We ended up in Burma.
47:06How did it feel going to Burma, then, when you were 18?
47:09Personally, I was excited, really,
47:11that we were actually going to go in and do something.
47:15They said the Japanese are staying in the tops of all these buildings here,
47:22six-storey buildings,
47:23and if you're not careful,
47:25they will pick you out as being foreigners and kill you.
47:29So he said, well, that's a fun way to start, isn't it?
47:33And what was your job there?
47:36Our course, really, was to keep the airworthy clear
47:39with the same boat that landed in D-Day.
47:42One of the places we stopped, they said,
47:45we think there are Japanese that are hiding in the woods behind the village.
47:51So we went into the woods.
47:54I was 6, 10 yards from my next neighbour,
47:58and I saw some footprints.
48:00I thought it was a Japanese,
48:02and so I immediately caught my rifle and followed these.
48:08Lo and behold, the figure appeared,
48:11and it happened to be the man who was walking on my right-hand side,
48:17and he was an Englishman as much as I was.
48:21That was a close escape, then,
48:22because thinking he was Japanese, you could have shot him.
48:25I could have shot him, yes, I could have shot him.
48:27Or he could have shot you.
48:28He could have shot me, yes.
48:30Had they been there, there's no doubt some of us would have been injured or killed,
48:36but fortunately we didn't find any Japanese in the woods at all.
48:41When you had to do things like that, what was going through your mind?
48:44Were you frightened?
48:46No, no, I think we were excited more than anything else.
48:51Well, good for you, Bill.
48:53What an amazing life you've lived, my goodness.
48:55In some ways, a lucky life.
48:57There were at least three occasions when I could have been seerlessly injured or even killed,
49:03and some of my mates were killed or wounded.
49:08For three years, the Allies had fought tirelessly to defeat the Japanese
49:18and take back the territories they had occupied.
49:21While British and Commonwealth forces had largely been concentrated on the mainland,
49:25America had waged an unrelenting campaign against Japan in the Pacific,
49:30deploying almost two million troops at the height of the conflict.
49:35By the end of March 1945,
49:38American troops had taken control of the small but strategically important island of Iwo Jima.
49:44With its three airfields and proximity to the Japanese mainland,
49:49it provided the USA with an ideal base from which to launch bombing raids.
49:54But despite this, Japan refused to accept defeat or consider unconditional surrender.
50:01America wanted a swift end to the war,
50:04without launching a costly land invasion in which many of its troops would perish.
50:09They also wanted to show the Soviet Union that they developed a deadly new weapon.
50:13On the 6th of August 1945,
50:17America detonated an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima on the Japanese mainland,
50:23killing 120,000 people.
50:30Three days later, a second bomb over Nagasaki left a further 73,000 dead.
50:37A shocking and unprecedented act of war, it changed the world forever.
50:4296-year-old Michiko Hattori is one of the few survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima.
50:49When I was 16 years old, I was 16 years old.
50:56I didn't forget about that day.
51:01Michiko had graduated from school early and trained as a nurse.
51:05And at the time of the bombing, she was at work, about two miles from the epicenter of the explosion.
51:12The heat from the atomic bomb was so intense that some people simply vaporized, vanishing without a trace.
51:27The blast destroyed more than five square miles, and the heat from the explosion sparked fires across the city that lasted for days.
51:34Michiko escaped unharmed and was set to work tending the injured.
51:41Michiko Hattori says,
51:55So, there are many people in the city who say,
52:01help me, help me, help me, help me, help me.
52:08They come.
52:09When you see it, it's like a face of hair,
52:13and it's like a face of hair.
52:20It's estimated that tens of thousands of Hiroshima's residents
52:23were injured in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.
52:26One of the many people Michiko tried to help that day
52:29was a small boy.
52:53Michiko and her family all managed to survive the bombing,
52:57and little over a month later, they left for Tokyo.
53:00But like most survivors of the atomic bombs,
53:03known as Hibakusha, they faced discrimination from many,
53:07who feared that radiation sickness was contagious
53:10and could cause long-term health defects.
53:14My family and my family were in Tokyo.
53:17We had to serve him in Tokyo.
53:20But the first time I got out of the war,
53:22I didn't want to die.
53:24I thought I was going to die.
53:27I thought I was going to die when I was in the border.
53:29The person who was the one who was the first person.
53:33When I was dead, I would have died.
53:44I can't express it. I can't express it. I can't express it.
53:51I can't express it. I can't express it.
54:02I can't express it.
54:13The atomic bomb was controversial, not least because some critics argue that Japan was on the brink of surrender when it was deployed.
54:21What's not disputed is that more than 200,000 perished in the immediate aftermath,
54:27and thousands more died from radiation sickness in the years that followed.
54:33Among the memorials here at the Arboretum is one to those who lost their lives.
54:38This cairn in the Anglo-Japanese garden was dedicated in 2012, and on top of it is the Hiroshima stone.
54:49And it was taken from the pavement outside the old city hall in Hiroshima, which was just a kilometer or so from where the bomb detonated.
54:57The memorial was initiated by Major Philip Malins, a veteran of the Burma campaign.
55:03And it was his dying wish that this be placed here as a symbol of reconciliation.
55:09And when you read the inscription around the base, it remembers the millions of people who died and suffered in the Second World War.
55:16It gives thanks that the world has since been free from World War, and with hope that there will never be another.
55:23And that the people of Britain and Japan will be forever united in friendship.
55:27On the 15th of August 1945, just days after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered unconditionally.
55:42This day would become known as VJ, or Victory Over Japan Day.
55:46The formal surrender ceremony took place on the 2nd of September, on board the USS Missouri, docked in Tokyo Harbor, beginning with a speech by General Douglas MacArthur.
55:59We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.
56:16The Allies looked on as the Japanese Foreign Minister signed the official surrender documents.
56:22After six long years, the Second World War was finally over.
56:31On a muddy-coloured day in September 1945, in a city called Tokyo, an American flag which had been made by machines in Camden, New Jersey, rose slowly into the Japanese air, and there was peace.
56:46The campaigns in Asia and the Pacific had witnessed some of the most brutal fighting of the war.
56:56For many, peace came at a terrible price.
56:58But 80 years on, the personal items left by those who endured this forgotten war are a reminder of their individual bravery and extraordinary resilience.
57:11We've heard so many moving stories today about the war in the Far East.
57:22So for all those who endured years of suffering and captivity, soldiers and civilians, and those who gave their lives, you are not forgotten.
57:32From this special edition of the Antiques Roadshow, bye-bye.
57:36By the way, продолжin' beat the University of the North, I stand by his minister's minister and staff.
57:38Goodbye-bye.
57:39Before we continue, let's see who� determined the correct law comes to the correct law vehicles.
57:44Bye-bye.
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