The Royal British Legion (RBL) is proud to announce the Second World War veterans coming together on VE Day to attend the charity’s 80th Anniversary Tea Party and Service of Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
Around 44 veterans who served their country during the War will be the RBL’s guests of honour at a joyous afternoon of events dedicated to their service and bravery, as the nation thanks those from the Second World War generation still with us today.
They include Britain’s oldest surviving Second World War veteran Donald Rose, who celebrated his 110th birthday on Christmas Eve, as well as veterans who have never told their story before until registering to be with the Royal British Legion on this momentous 80th anniversary.
D-Day veteran Donald, who was attached to the division which liberated Belsen concentration camp said: “When I heard that the armistice had been signed 80 years ago, I was in Germany at Belsen and like most active soldiers, I didn’t get to celebrate at that time. We just did what we thought was right and it was a relief when it was over. I never would have believed I would be remembering this day at 110 years old. It’s meaningful to come here today with the Royal British Legion, to remember the people who didn’t come back.”
Husband and wife veterans Roy and Kathleen Lawrence, who both served in the RAF during the Second World War from 1942-45 and married in 1951, will be in attendance. They are thought to be one of Britain’s oldest living couples. Roy, who was educated in India in the 1930s while his father was the Viceroy of India's orchestral musical director, became a flight engineer on a Lancaster bomber undertaking bombing missions over Dresden and Berlin, while Kathleen was working in a factory before joining the WRAF in 1941 and served in communications.
Roy, who recalls being on a ‘bread run’ on VE Day dropping essential supplies into France, said: ‘‘We’re very excited to be spending the VE Day anniversary with the Royal British Legion and very honoured to be invited. We both joined the RAF before we met and we’ve now been married for 74 years, so quite some time! This celebration is an amazing way to remember and to be proud and to share that with our family, who we know will be delighted to see us being there.”
The veterans at the Arboretum, who served across the Royal Navy, the British Army and the Royal Air Force, will enjoy a Tea Party attended by Al Carns DSO OBE MC MP, Minister Veterans and People, before a Service of Remembrance hosted by Baroness Floella Benjamin OM DBE. The service will feature performances from singers Russell Watson, Carly Paoli and Anthonia Edwards, winner of The Voice UK, and the British Army Band Tidworth, as well as a flypast by a Spitfire and Hurricane.
Around 1,500 guests will watch a film of Second World War veterans sharing moving wartime memories, and heartfelt tributes will be played from leading personalities including Angela Rippon, Ian Hislop, Ross Kemp, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Vine and Elaine Paige.
The charity’s Tea Party will conclude a week of celebrations for veterans which started on Monday in London with a military procession, flypast and Tea Party at Buckingham Palace hosted by the RBL’s Patron, His Majesty The King. Veterans who were present on Monday who will be at the Arboretum on Thursday include Alan Kennett, 100, Bernard Morgan, 101, Jack Mortimer, 101, and Olga Hopkins, 99.
The Second World War veterans attending today’s event include:
Owen Filer, 105, who was called up to join the Army just four months after the Second World War began aged just 20. Originally joining the infantry with the Royal Welsh, he was taken ill with meningitis only six weeks into his basic training. Because he had contracted meningitis, he couldn’t stay with the infantry, so joined the Military Police.
Tom Berry, who turns 101 on May 9, has never told his war story before, until now. He joined the Royal Navy and was posted to a Tribal-class destroyer called HMS Tartar – she was dubbed the Lucky Tartar because of her many narrow escapes. On D-Day, he was protecting the American side, the orders being to shell the German emplacements to allow the troops to land in Normandy. Tom turned 21 the day after VE Day, the War had ended on May 8 but because of the time difference he didn’t find out until his 21st birthday on May 9 – he was already down in Ceylon. Whilst VE Day falls just a day before his birthday, VJ Day is his wife’s birthday.
Tom Hill, 99, has waited until now to reveal he kept a secret war diary which was strictly forbidden at the time. He is a former Royal Marine from Birmingham who served during D-Day when he crewed a landing craft attached to the Empire Battleaxe. Tom and his son, Colin, went to Normandy for the 75th Anniversary of the Normandy landings on the Royal British Legion’s specially commissioned ship in June 2019.
Yavar Abbas, 105, was commissioned into the British Army in India in 1942 as a Second Lieutenant and joined the 11th Sikh Regiment. As a combat cameraman, he was soon documenting the brutal reality of war, from the aftermath of Kohima to major battles in Burma. "I climbed on a tank roof once during the fighting," he recounts. "The tank commander opened the hatch and put me in my place – on the ground. A Gurkha soldier was shot next to me, dying right there. It could have been me." He was in Delhi on VJ Day and later filmed in occupied Japan, including Hiroshima.
Mary Cliff, 98, from Crewe, joined the war aged 17 when she was an admin worker based in South Devon. She became increasingly impacted by the air raids and so volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the first all-women’s branch of the British Army, formed in 1938 to support the war effort. She said: “We were 60 miles away from Plymouth but could see it being burnt to the ground during raids. The sky was completely red. It was a terrible sight.”
Donald ‘Bill’ Redston, 100, joined the Royal Navy at the end of 1942, and went on to became one of the youngest officers at the age of 19. In June 1944 he was First Lieutenant on board Motor Launch (ML) 191, part of the Naval Coastal Forces fleet supporting the D-Day invasion. Bill’s boat was originally going to be leading the U.S. invasion of Utah beach but was replaced by an American vessel just four days prior to D-Day. Instead, ML 191 was part of the second wave, which arrived the following morning after the Americans had taken the beach, and their job was to bring over food, water, ammunition, weapons and fuel for the troops.
Albert Lovett, 102, who joined the RAF, noted in his diary records a Lancaster bombing raid on 9 February, 1944 which took off from RAF Methwold, Norfolk, to target an oil and coking plant and railway yards on the banks of the Rhine. On arrival at the target area a large number of enemy night fighters were waiting and after 'bombs away' an enemy Messerschmitt appeared. Following a fire fight, during which the enemy plane fell from sight, they took a hit, one of the crew was seriously wounded and later died, and the Lancaster stalled, nosedived, fell from 18,000 feet and at one stage went vertical but, severely damaged, eventually pulled back. A total of 151 Lancasters attacked the target and two were lost, causing a big setback to the German war effort.
Harry Birdsall, 99, from Wakefield, who served in the Royal Army Service Corps, was called up in 1944 aged 18, just three months before D-Day. He said: “I set off with £2 in my pocket and got on a steam train to Leeds, then on to Richmond for six weeks of basic training. I felt nervous, I knew there were bombs being dropped on London and people were getting killed, but I had to do as I was told. I was put on a ship at Dover, and I was terrified to tell you the truth, cowering in my life jacket, but we all had to be quiet due to submarine activity in the area. We were just outside Cologne when the War ended. An officer came and told us it was over, but there were no big celebrations.” Harry then took part in Operation Barleycorn, the break-up of the German armed forces.
Herbert Pritchard, 100, from Wrexham, was 16 when he entered the Royal Marines and joined HMS Newcastle from Plymouth after his six weeks of training. After a short time in dry dock for their ship to be repaired after it had been torpedoed, they headed to the Burma coast. They met up with a fleet of ships with the plan to bombard the Burma coast and capture the Japanese. Herbert and his fellow marines would be put in small boats to go ashore as bait to draw the Japanese out, and the 14th Army would be there ready to capture them. Herbert remembers big shells coming over the top of them in the boats on their way ashore, and that this bombardment went on for quite some time.
John Fiddler, 100, from Cardiff, comes from a merchant navy family and got called up aged 18 during WWII. He joined the Navy and worked as a Leading Supply Assistant. As well as the important job of issuing the rum to all the officers every day at 11am (up spirits!), he also plotted ships’ coordinates whilst patrolling. John left Portsmouth on D-Day +2 on a tank landing ship taking over tanks and cargo to the troops on the ground in Normandy.
"We’re honoured to have such a large gathering of Second World War veterans with us today who have chosen to spend this historic 80th anniversary of VE Day with the Royal British Legion. What a week of truly joyous celebrations the country has seen, from the Tea Party at the Palace on Monday, to the National Memorial Arboretum, the Royal British Legion is proud to put Second World War veterans at the heart of the commemorations, so the nation can pay tribute one more time to our Greatest Generation. It is a privilege for us all.”
Mark Atkinson, Director General of the Royal British Legion
The RBL’s Tea Party was launched last month when Second World War veterans, including D-Day veteran Bernard Morgan, came together to share memories at The Ritz London, the scene of a touching VE Day story, where Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret slipped away from Buckingham Palace to join the celebrations that evening, in 1945.
The charity is also inviting its members, volunteers and branches to host their own VE Day tea parties, bringing communities together across the UK for the national celebrations and to share stories over tea and cake.
Veterans are attending the VE80 commemorations after the Royal British Legion issued an invitation in January for the Second World War generation and their families to register to join VE and VJ 80th anniversary events.