Catch up TV

Series 48: 2. VJ Day Special

The roadshow marks the 80th anniversary of VJ Day with a special episode filmed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, featuring interviews with veterans and the families of those who took part in the victory over Japan.\n \nThe episode features interviews with two veterans of the conflict, both aged 100: Bill Redston, a naval officer who narrowly escaped death in both Normandy and Burma (now Myanmar), and Joseph Hammond, a private who travelled from Ghana to join the Fourteenth Army and was involved in some of the most ferocious fighting of the conflict. There is also a poignant interview with 96-year-old Michiko Hattori, who survived the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima by the USA on 6 August 1945. \n \nMembers of the public share moving stories and cherished items that provide a personal insight into what is often referred to as the ‘Forgotten War’, including several objects made by prisoners of war, such as a food bowl carved out of a coconut, a fly swat made from old boot leather, and an intricate chess set crafted by a soldier who was forced to work on the notorious ‘Death Railway’ between Burma and Thailand. \n \nFiona Bruce meets the children of veterans who fought on opposing sides at the Battle of Kohima in 1944, which proved to be a turning point in the war. Bill Harriman hears the gruelling story of a member of the Chindits – a special operations unit for the Allies that went deep behind Japanese lines – and Siobhan Tyrrell is moved to see a pair of baby shoes, one of which the infant’s father carried with him as a good luck charm through the jungles of south east Asia.

Source: BBC 2