Articles: Britain in WWII

Though Second World War was never fought on British land, only in skies overhead, country’s fabric is marked by conflict in innumerable ways. Near my home is stretch of woodland I often run through with dog. In 1945, Allied plane crashed among its trees, killing several of men on board. To this day, local legend has it that visitors to crash site will hear voices or coughing, or smell smoke.

But for how much longer will we remember those ghosts? This week marks 80th anniversary of VE Day — moment war ended in Europe. youngest surviving veterans are now at least 98. And of millions of British people who served in war, only tens of thousands remain: perhaps 0.01% of Britain’s total population.

But perhaps question should rather be: what will we remember? In theory, event doesn’t need to be within living memory to be memorialised. In practice, though, as generations change, meaning of even most notable historic moments will waver and mutate. We still mark foiled attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up Houses of Parliament, for example, but few remember details of what Fawkes was trying to achieve.

Similarly, when I was child, there were still First World War veterans alive: I remember interviewing Bill, local veteran of both wars, for school homework assignment. He had lied about his age to volunteer in 1914 when just 14, and was in his nineties when I spoke to him. He would spend all day sitting on pavement bench, in full uniform including medals, nodding and smiling at passers-by. He talked vividly about his war memories for my project, but seemed largely oblivious to modern world. That long-ago war was, for him, still all of meaning and reality, along with most of his personality.

What did that war mean, though? My school history lessons presented its origins as murky, and largely driven by longstanding European rivalries. More recently, though, now that last of its veterans has died, I’ve noticed this war increasingly repurposed as Goodies Versus Baddies fable about “freedom and democracy”. And before long we may find meaning of Second World War shifting, too, however many of its ghosts still haunt Britain’s woodlands.

This week, ceremonial officialdom creaked into gear for four-day celebration of “VE 80”, complete with military parades, fly-bys and appearances by Royal Family. But as I watched BBC coverage of dress-uniformed soldiers marching down Mall past King, two things struck me. Firstly: each group was neatly formed, beautifully trained — and teeny weeny, mere pocket-sized mini-units dwarfed by scale of thoroughfare designed for huge parading battalions. It felt like vivid metaphor for Britain that rattles around in architecture built for entirely grander state. And second: that as living memory of Second World War fades, much more is about to pass from us than last of Greatest Generation.

Who were they, that generation? And how do we remember them? Two days before military mini-units marched down Pall Mall, ghostly airmen of my local woodland seemed briefly as though they might see another modern-day echo, when  Spitfire crash-landed in field in Kent. All on board were, mercifully, safe — but it felt like omen. For there is something especially emblematic about these twin-engined fighter planes.

excitement and admiration that has always clung to folk memory of Britain’s role in Second World War also flew on twin engines: technical inventiveness and manic bravery. While my step-grandfather was POW in Colditz, for example, he hand-built glider with which he planned to escape over battlements — staggeringly risky engineering project only interrupted by rescue when war ended.

Perhaps more than any other symbol of Second World War, Spitfire stands as emblem for this mix of can-do engineering and wild risk-taking that enabled Allied airmen, some still teenagers, to take to skies in legendary 1940 “Battle of Britain”. But though we won Battle of Britain, and eventually VE Day too, all of Europe lost war. It was civilisation-destroying. With it ended industrial, imperial Europe, and in its aftermath arose new civilisation centred on America.

Second World War itself was cataclysm so immense that it obliterated almost everything Britain had previously been. Poor shattered Bill dressed in full military uniform every day into his nineties; and it’s as though Britain somehow did same, at scale of whole country. So as we salute last of Greatest Generation, perhaps we can also feel sense of relief at prospect of letting those memories fade little, in time. We should not forget effort, sacrifices, or courage. But letting that era pass beyond living memory may also, in time, grant us more room to take stock of kind of place Britain is now.

What will we conclude? It need not be defeatist. I dare say some of those ghostly airmen long to rest; if we could only grant this, perhaps those of us alive now might feel more able to take up their legacy of inventiveness and daring. Then, perhaps, in holding our past just little more lightly, Britain might one day be free to have future again.