It is vital that our narrative reflects the truth. A global soldiers’ coalition won the second world war
For more than two years during the second world war, 158 Squadron of Bomber Command flew missions over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe from RAF Lissett, an airfield near the east Yorkshire coast. Since the 1970s, members of the 158 Squadron Association and their families have met for an annual reunion, including a Sunday morning service at Lissett’s village church; I attended this September. As the Last Post cut through the muggy air, it sounded an especially poignant note – 2021 marked the first 158 Squadron event at which there were no surviving veterans present. It was a deeply moving experience, and emphasised how quickly the second world war is passing beyond living memory.
I used to buy my annual poppy from old servicemen wearing their second world war medals, collection boxes in hand, at my local railway station. It’s noticeable that as these people have left us, Remembrance has become the subject of bitter argument, with annual rows about who is or isn’t wearing a poppy. The Poppy Watch Twitter account, which collates some of the more tasteless examples of commemoration (pull the pin on a hand grenade of rum, anyone?), gets busier every year.
Luke Turner is the author of Out of the Woods
