Veterans pay tribute to fallen comrades (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Veterans pay tribute to fallen comrades

THEIR eyesight might be failing and for some, walking is difficult, but the backs of the war veterans who gathered at Salisbury's war memorial on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of VJ Day were ramrod straight, as Burma Star Association chairman Brian Bennett called the parade to attention.

Standard bearers from the Burma Star Association, the Air Crew Association, the Royal Naval Association, the Wiltshire Regiment, the Royal British Legion, the Royal Artillery Association and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, followed by Salisbury mayor and mayoress Patrick and Mary Paisey, had led the parade into position.

They stood in silence, about 40 men and women, medals gleaming four or five abreast, while Burma Star Association vice-chairman Eddie Burton placed a wreath of yellow roses and carnations on green foliage in front of the memorial.

Mary Paisey left a single poppy at the memorial on behalf of wheelchair-bound Dorothy Gulliver, whose father, Douglas Gurd, had served as an army corporal in Burma.

Traffic noise stilled in the Market Square as former Royal Marine bandsman Jack Dwan (87) raised his bugle to his lips to sound the Last Post, as he has done for the past 25 years or so.

Standard-bearers lowered the standards slowly to the ground in tribute to those who fell in one of the most savage conflicts of World War II.

The Reverend Arthur Addis, the Burma Star Association's 93-year-old padre, led prayers for peace and said that this Act of Remembrance was called in a spirit of thanksgiving and reconciliation.

Later, as veterans moved to Salisbury Cathedral to gather beside the Burma Star commemorative plaque, Mr Addis spoke of the debt that people today owed to "the men and women who felt it their duty to leave the comfort of their homes" to endure terrible conditions fighting a bitter enemy in the jungles of the Far East.

He said that the Burma campaign waged by the 14th Army - known as the Forgotten Army - produced 101 battle honours, including 29 Victoria Crosses, and he read the citation on the plaque, which echoes the epitaph carved on to the memorial at Kohima, site of the one of the fiercest battles: "When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today."