VJ Day: why don't we talk about WW2 in Asia?

Summary

History Extra Podcast: "VJ Day: Why Don't We Talk About WW2 in Asia?"
Hosted by Immediate Media
Release Date: August 14, 2025

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Introduction

In the August 14, 2025 episode of the History Extra Podcast titled "VJ Day: Why Don't We Talk About WW2 in Asia?", host Matt Elton engages in a profound conversation with historian Peter Knight. The episode delves into the often-overlooked Asian front of the Second World War, exploring why this significant theater of conflict remains largely forgotten in mainstream historical narratives.

The Duality of World War II: The "Second Map"

Peter Knight introduces the concept of the "Second Map," a term inspired by his childhood experience during World War II. At [02:33], he recounts how his father placed a map of Europe and another of Asia and the Pacific side by side, symbolizing the simultaneous conflicts against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This dual-mapping highlights the complexity and breadth of the war, emphasizing that it was not a singular, isolated conflict but a global struggle fought on multiple fronts.

Dominance of the European Theater in Historical Memory

At [04:15], Knight addresses the predominance of the European theater in historical discourse. He explains that the war against Nazi Germany overshadowed the Asian front for several reasons:

• Proximity to Home: The Blitz and battles in Europe brought the war closer to the British populace ([04:15]).
• Familiarity of Locations: European battles were fought in well-known regions, making them more relatable ([04:24]).
• Simplified Narratives: The struggle against the Nazis was often portrayed as a clear dichotomy of good versus evil, whereas the conflict with Japan was depicted as a clash between two imperial powers, complicating the narrative ([05:00]).

The Campaigns in Southeast Asia: Singapore and Burma

Knight delves into the catastrophic campaigns in Southeast Asia, specifically the fall of Singapore and the subsequent retreat into Burma:

• Fall of Singapore (February 1942): Described as one of Britain's worst military defeats ([08:27]), with 130,000 British, Indian, and Commonwealth troops taken prisoner.
• Burma Campaign: The rapid Japanese advance led to a devastating retreat across treacherous terrains. The evacuation was marked by racial biases, prioritizing white British and European civilians and soldiers over Indians and Burmese ([09:32]).

Human Stories: Survival and Suffering

The episode highlights personal narratives to underscore the human cost of the Asian front.

• Shelagh Brown's Experience ([13:04] - [16:16]): A civilian internee who survived bombings, sea crossings, and internment, Brown's story illustrates the harrowing experiences of those caught in the conflict. Her resilience amidst loss and her efforts to preserve cultural practices under duress provide a poignant glimpse into civilian life during the war.

• Ursula Graham Bauer and the 14th Army ([18:41] - [21:03]): Bauer's role as the first woman to command a combat unit in WWII and the diverse composition of the 14th Army, primarily consisting of colonial soldiers from India and Africa, highlight the often-ignored contributions of non-European forces in the war effort.

Racial Dynamics and Empire

At [05:22], Knight discusses how the war in Asia was not just a military conflict but also a struggle involving the British Empire's racial and colonial dynamics. The participation of colonial troops and the subsequent racialized evacuation efforts reflect the broader issues of empire and racial superiority that complicated wartime and post-war memories.

Obscurity and Memory: Why the Asian Front Remains Forgotten

Several factors contribute to the obscurity of the Asian front:

• Post-War Prioritization of Europe: Victory in Europe (VE Day) was a significant milestone, while the ongoing conflict in Asia (VJ Day) received less attention ([28:30]).
• Racial and Colonial Issues: The predominant reliance on colonial troops led to their stories being marginalized in the collective memory ([21:21]).
• Lack of Oral Histories: As survivors age and pass away, their personal accounts are lost, and historical narratives remain skewed towards the more documented European front ([28:24]).

Japanese Perspectives and Post-War Memory

Knight emphasizes the importance of including Japanese voices to provide a comprehensive understanding of the war. He discusses how Japan's post-war memory has been shaped by rapid rehabilitation efforts by the United States, leading to a delayed and politicized reckoning with wartime atrocities ([30:36]). This contrasts with the Western narrative and further complicates the remembrance of the Asian front.

Confession, Guilt, and Silence

At [33:26], Knight reflects on the emotional and psychological barriers that prevent open discussion of the Asian front. Many families were advised not to speak about their experiences, leading to a generational silence filled with regret and unanswered questions. This "confessional" aspect underscores the deep-seated trauma and the complexities of confronting a multifaceted war story.

Call to Action: Preserving Forgotten Histories

In concluding the episode, Peter Knight urges listeners to actively seek out and preserve these neglected narratives:

• Recording Family Stories: He encourages individuals to document the wartime experiences of their relatives before these memories fade.
• Engaging with Historical Institutions: Visiting places like the Imperial War Museum and exploring literature on the Asian front can foster a deeper understanding.
• Educational Reform: Incorporating comprehensive WWII narratives, including the Asian theater, into educational curricula is essential for a balanced historical perspective ([37:30]).

Notable Quotes

• Peter Knight on the "Second Map":
  "There were two maps in tandem... there was the war of Europe... and this other map... that was our war against the Japanese." ([02:33])

• Shelagh Brown on War Memories:
  "It's just the only free thing about them which is such a moving way of thinking about what they were doing." ([17:55])

• Peter Knight on Forgotten Stories:
  "I think that how we'd remember the [14th] army, not just in Britain, but in India too, and Pakistan, had been forgotten in the aftermath of independence." ([22:40])

Conclusion

The episode sheds light on the intricate and often overlooked aspects of World War II in Asia. By bringing forward personal stories and examining the racial and colonial underpinnings of the conflict, Matt Elton and Peter Knight emphasize the necessity of expanding our historical narratives to include all facets of this global war. As VJ Day approaches its 80th anniversary, this discussion serves as a crucial reminder to remember and honor the multifaceted experiences that shaped the course of history.

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Transcript

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[Kavita Puri]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. This month marks the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, when fighting between Japanese and Allied forces in the Second World War came to an end. Yet as broadcaster Kavita Puri argues in her new BBC Sound series, the History the Second Map, this was a messy, complicated conflict that remains largely forgotten. Matt Elton caught up with Kavita to find out more.

[Matt Elton]

Your new series, the Second Map explores what you describe as the other story of the Second World War, which is the war against Japan on the Asian front. Before we go any further, why is the series called the Second Map? And why is that a helpful way some of the things it covers?

[Peter Knight]

It's called the Second Map because I met a man who is now 98, Peter Knight, and he told me that after Pearl harbor happened, he put up a map. Now if I could just set the scene. He was a young boy. He was 14 in early December 1941. He was living in Bromley in Kent, which is a kind of suburb of London. He lived in a terraced house and he been following the war in Europe on a map on one side of his dresser in his living room. But when Pearl harbor happened, he put up another map on the other side of the dresser. And this map was of Asia and the Pacific. And so he would sit down every evening with his mum and his grandparents and he'd listen to the BBC bulletin and he'd hear places that he'd never heard of in this other war on the Asian front that was dealing with British colonies, and he would trace what was happening on that second map. So there were two maps in tandem. There was, let's say, the war of Europe, which was against the Nazis. Of course there were other fronts there, but there was this other map and that was our war against the Japanese.

[Matt Elton]

And that idea of there being almost two conflicts happening in parallel is one that we'll return to later in the conversation. Before we do, I want to talk a little bit about the ways in which the other, other, the war against Nazi Germany has come to sort of dominate how we view this conflict. Why do you think that is? And do you think that we need to understand more about the relationship between China and Japan, for instance, to make sense of the wider war?

[Peter Knight]

I think it's understandable, actually that the war against the Nazis has dominated because that war was close by.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And the place names that people heard.

[Peter Knight]

About maybe fought at in Europe were places that were well known. And if you go back to Peter Knight, the 98 year old I spoke to, he was sitting in his living room with the map on either side of the dresser, that living room had been bombed during the Blitz. So the war was close to home for people. And this other war that was far away, it was jungle terrain, soldiers were getting malaria. It was a complicated war. It's not as neat because the war against the Nazis, we were the good guys. And the war with Japan was essentially about two empires competing with each other. And so it's a much harder story to explain. And it also involved a lot of troops who were then part of the colonies, as well as troops from Australia.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And so again, that is a story.

[Peter Knight]

About our empire, to your point, about Japan and China. I mean, there are historians like Professor Rana Mitter who helped me with the making of this series, who say, actually, you know, we should be looking at the origins of the Second World War, not with Poland in 39, but going far back earlier to the early 30s, and what the Japanese were doing in China. And I think also another bit of this war that we.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

On the second map that we don't.

[Peter Knight]

Really know much about or talk much about was that the Chinese were fighting with the Allies as well. And certainly in some of those big battles that we might be talking about.

[Matt Elton]

You mentioned there the idea this was two empires clashing. Do you think we struggle to see the Second World War as also being a story about the British Empire?

[Peter Knight]

I don't think we think of the war as a story about the British Empire. I mean, look, we've talked about this a lot. We don't talk much about empire in Britain. And I do think that part of the reason that we don't talk about it is because the places that were attacked were part of our empire. They had been part of our empire for over a century. I think the losses were humiliating. Winston Churchill said as much. When Singapore fell, I think that a lot of the soldiers that fought and won back places like Burma were Empire soldiers. And it's complicated by the fact that India then became free of empire, but it got its independence in 1947. And so that complicates memory as well.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And so, yeah, it's not a clear cut story.

[Peter Knight]

And I do think that that is one of the reasons that remembrance of it is just a lot more complicated.

[Matt Elton]

You mentioned Singapore there, and by February 1942, Singapore was one of the regions that had been taken. Japan was also targeting Burma. You say in the series that the evacuation of Burma isn't necessarily that well known. Could you talk us through some of complexities of that story and I suppose why the defeat was particularly humiliating after Pearl harbor happens?

[Peter Knight]

And actually what I would say is when people think of the war against Japan, what people say to me is, oh, it was the American War. So we think of it, the book ends to it. So we think of Pearl harbor and Hiroshima. We don't really know much about what happened in between. But what people don't often think about.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Is just a couple of hours after.

[Peter Knight]

Pearl harbor that the Japanese also attacked the British Empire. So Hong Kong, but also Singapore from the air, Malaya, which is now Malaysia with a land invasion. And the Japanese very, very quickly advanced from North Malaya down to the south. And, you know, I see it again and again in the testimonies. You talked previously about two competing empires, but the British saw themselves as racially superior.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And I think that it was hard.

[Peter Knight]

For them to think that the countries.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

That were theirs could be overrun by.

[Peter Knight]

People that they considered inferior.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And they were so deft.

[Peter Knight]

Of course they had superior kind of tank and aircraft, but they had bicycles and they were nimble and they move very, very quickly. And so Singapore falls, as you say, in February 1942, and Churchill describes it as actually one of the worst military defeats in British history, not just the Second World War. And so that was humiliating. And 130,000 British troops, Indian troops, other colonial soldiers, Commonwealth troops, were prisoners of war. It's a huge, huge number. And then Japan sets its sight on Burma, and rangoon Falls in March 1942, and Burma collapses in 1942, in May.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So the kind of. The map changes hugely.

[Peter Knight]

But the evacuation that takes place in Burma, you have soldiers retreating across huge terrains, and it is a devastating retreat. And General Slim, who's leading at that point, the Burma Corps, describes these men who were just completely exhausted. But it's not just soldiers who were retreating, but civilians who are colonial civilians, European civilians, but also Indians. And there was a huge population, around a million Indians who were working there, as well as some Burmese. And so they were afraid of Japanese reprisals, and so they moved towards India and the border. But the evacuation was quite racialized, so that if you were white British or white European, you were given priority, you were given assistance. Probably worth saying, not everyone was, because there were a lot of people who were on the move, but if you were Indian or Burmese, particularly if you didn't have means, you were on your own. And that journey was so difficult.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

You were walking barefoot with whatever you.

[Peter Knight]

Could carry across very difficult terrain, jungles.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

You had very little food.

[Peter Knight]

You were encountering crocodiles, elephants. And when you hear about these descriptions, it's extraordinary. It is an estimated 600,000 refugees were on the move. And at that time, it was the largest movement of people. It's such a huge part of history in terms of people on the move. And I think there was so much going on, not only in the region, but in the war at that time, that for some reason this story has been obscured. And it was really quite difficult for me to find testimonies of people who had made that journey.

[Matt Elton]

And that's one of the themes that the series returns to again and again, the fact that these stories are obscured or overlooked. Do we get a sense of why this specific aspect of these events have not been told?

[Peter Knight]

I think that if you were Indian or Burmese, and you arrived in probably Bengal, which was the first place you were arriving, in a place that was at the beginning of a famine, you were one of many people, you were perhaps in a camp, you might go to other places in India, you were just trying to survive. And then the 40s are a hugely tumultuous time in India.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

You have famine and just before that.

[Peter Knight]

You have the Quit India movement, and then you have the great Calcutta killings, and then you have the violence in the run up to partition. Then you have partition, which, as we've.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Talked about, again, people are on the.

[Peter Knight]

Move and you have, you know, a million people dying and then you have a new country.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Somehow this story has.

[Peter Knight]

Has been obscured, even though the fact that it was a racialized evacuation really infuriated a lot of Indian nationalists and actually was one of the reasons, one.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Of the many reasons for the Quit.

[Peter Knight]

India campaign for Britain.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

If we're thinking about our war story.

[Peter Knight]

It'S a very difficult bit of our war story to recall. One retreat and defeat. But then this racialized elements, the kind of the moral underpinnings of empire, is then suddenly taken away.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And so it is a difficult story.

[Peter Knight]

In Britain to recall.

[Matt Elton]

I think in the series you speak to relatives of some of the people who were held in prisoner of war camps, including civilians. Can you tell us about the experiences of Shelagh Brown?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So Sheila Brown was 25 years old. She had been born in Singapore. She'd lived there all her life, and she had a grand life, like lots of colonial families. And by early 1941, in December, Singapore had been largely untouched by the war, unlike back in Britain. But when Pearl harbor happened and a couple of hours later, Singapore was bombed, life changed very quickly for her. But even at that point, she didn't think that she would have to leave. It was only when British soldiers, including colonial soldiers and Australian soldiers, began to cross the causeway that links Singapore to Malaya, and they were part of that retreat and they came into Singapore. Her family then realized that actually things.

[Peter Knight]

Were really, really serious.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And so she then tried to evacuate. It was quite hard. And cut a long story short, she managed to get on a boat with her mum. Her father remained behind and there was a small boat. There were no rations on board.

[Peter Knight]

They just had to leave pretty quickly.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And while she was in the waters, they were hoping to get to Australia. They were bombed from the air by Japan. She managed to get into the sea, into a dinghy. She was marooned at Sea for 19 hours, and then Japanese forces caught up with her and she was captured and was a civilian internee for the duration of the war. In fact, she was still a civilian internee six weeks after war had officially ended because news hadn't got to her. And so her story, which I was very lucky to hear in her own words. So she died a while back, but her daughter had some cassette tapes with her story which hadn't been broadcast before. And it was wonderful to hear her voice. And it's a remarkable story about survival in a camp, being moved from camp to camp. It's a very difficult story to listen to. Her mother dies. But it's also a remarkable story because the women have this vocal orchestra and, and they're doing it without notes and it's, you know, it's really, really moving. Obviously I don't have the recordings that they did, but people have recorded it afterwards. And what's interesting is that they say the Japanese girls didn't like gathering of women. So they would stand outside and listen to make sure nothing was going on, but that she'd say that she could see that they were listening and they.

[Peter Knight]

Were moved by what they were hearing.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So it's a really kind of emotionally complicated story to list listen to. But she is a remarkable woman, but she feels that and her daughter feels that the story of women like her hasn't really been remembered.

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[Matt Elton]

She says that the notes they're singing is the only free thing about them which is such a moving way of thinking about what they were doing.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

It really, really is. And I think that you know you don't know, do you, how you're going to cope in that kind of situation. But these women, you know, the other way that she did, she somehow got little loose bits of paper. She wrote recipes in minute detail, like lavish recipes with cakes with 12 eggs. And the funny thing is, her daughter Margie said she'd never cooked in her life because she had servants in Singapore because they were really hungry and malnourished. It was just a way to kind of channel that, strangely, that hunger.

[Matt Elton]

Moving from one forgotten aspect of this story to another. Can you tell us about the experiences of Ursula Graham Bauer and the 14th army, who I think I'm right in saying were called the forgotten army even at the time?

[Peter Knight]

Yes.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So the 14th army was made up after the defeats of Singapore and Malaya and Burma, and the British knew they.

[Peter Knight]

Had to do things differently.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And so they started this new army, which was led by General Slim. And the army, by its end, had around a million men. And the majority of the men were made up of colonial soldiers. So Indian soldiers predominantly, but also soldiers from west and East Africa as well. And it was a remarkable army, and they really had learned the lesson from before, and these soldiers were treated much better. So the 14th army was part of the army that fought in the. In the Burma campaign. And Ursula Graham Bauer is an incredible story. I mean, we. For this podcast, like, as you know.

[Peter Knight]

With my podcast, I speak to people.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Who were there, but 80 years on, there's not that many people left. So we went into the archives and we found this extraordinary interview with her. And, you know, when you hear the way she sounds, like people don't sound like that anymore. But she was a young woman in her twenties from North London. She was a budding anthropologist. And during the war, she was in the tribal region of India in the east, so near to the border with Burma, and she was living with a tribal group called the Nagas when Pearl harbor happened. And so she was recruited with the army at the time to work with the Naga people on intelligence. So just to kind of monitor what was happening across the border. And so in 1944, when the Japanese tried to invade India at Imphal and Koima, her and the Nagas had already been working on intelligence gathering. And she found herself on the front line, and she cabled headquarters for grenades to be armed to fight back if they needed to. And General Slim said, give this woman what she wants. And so a box arrived with grenades in it and guns, and she used them. She wasn't afraid. And I think I'm Right. In saying that she was the first woman to run a combat unit in World War II. She's a remarkably brave woman, but so were the Naga people too.

[Matt Elton]

And one of the notable things about the 14th army is how diverse the groups of people it was made up of. I think I'm right in saying that. You spoke to the military historian, Peter Johnson, who says that it's possibly the greatest army that Britain's ever put forward into the field. Why do you think we don't know about this story?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

Well, as you said, even at the.

[Peter Knight]

Time, it was joked by, you know.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

People like Lord Mountbatten and General Slim that they were a forgotten army. It goes back to what I was saying before because it was a far away war. And I think that even if you look at their headlines in the papers back in Britain, even when they had these absolutely extraordinary successes at places like Imphal and Coima and later on in the Burma campaign, it was around the same time that the, you know, Imphal and Coima of the Normandy landings, which of course dominated the headlines. And so I think that that is a big reason. I think there is probably a racialized aspect to it as well, that the majority of the soldiers in the 14th army were colonial subjects. And so for some reason we haven't remembered them so well. And this epithet. People don't often talk about the 14th army without saying the 14th army, the forgotten army, and have been. And I suppose what I would say is what they achieved, the extraordinary battles that they fought in, the terrain that they did and the conditions that they endured, it is remarkable and maybe we will remember it better. But as I, you know, I spoke.

[Peter Knight]

To the children of some of the.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

People who were in the 14th army and they didn't talk about it much either. And I think that for India after independence, it was hard to remember their soldiers who had fought with the British. That was not the story they wanted to tell about the Second World War. You know, I spoke to a man who is 104 now, Yava Abbas, and he was a captain in the 14th Army. He was Indian at the time, but then his battalion ended up in Pakistan. And so the memory of those men, not just in Britain, but in India too, and Pakistan, had been forgotten in the aftermath of independence. It wasn't a story they wanted to, to recall. And actually when I was looking for oral testimonies, India, Pakistan, they haven't done an oral testimony of these soldiers. It might be kept in families if we're lucky. You know, you think about the number of men that fought hundreds of thousands in those battle. We know it was two and a half million Indian soldiers. And I think that is such a sadness for me that that hasn't been collected. And I know the Imperial War Museum are now trying to do that. It is very late. I was lucky enough to speak to some people who remembered or who are well enough to talk about it. They are so few now. I think about what it will be like at the 85th anniversary. There will be hardly anyone left now. And so it is so important to capture these stories now. But I do feel sad that there are some really important stories that we will never capture now.

[Matt Elton]

Was there a turning point at which people in Britain started to find out about these sorts of experiences?

[Peter Knight]

Do you know?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

I'm not sure because when I tell people that I'm working on VJ Day, most people say, what's VJ Day? Or they say, oh, is it the American war? But then they say something else and it's made me realize that this is a story, the story of the other war on the second map. People will say, oh, my granddad was in Burma. He never talked about it and I never asked him and I regret it because now it's too late. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard that. And so there are thousands and thousands of families in Britain, homes in Britain where there is this story and people didn't talk about it. And I know because people have contacted me or I've spoken to people who are opening trunks when a family member has died and discovering letters or, you know, they're finding things out. I was in a house interviewing a veteran, a 98 year old veteran, and he said to me, oh, I've got a suitcase up in my study, why don't you go and have a look? And his daughter came with me and said, I, I didn't know about this suitcase. And we opened it together and it's just kind of like, I don't know if that generation didn't talk about it because they saw difficult things or if they just thought everyone had a war story. What was the point of talking about it? Or was it when they came back? Maybe people wanted to hear about the war in Europe. That's the one we all talk about. Because a lot of families now say we've had VE Day, the celebration, but that was victory in Europe. And for a lot of their family members, the war wasn't over. If you were a prisoner of war, you were a civilian internee or you were in the Burma campaign war was still carrying on. It wasn't over. And Margie, the daughter of Sheila Brown, said, you know, for the 75th anniversary, hers was the only family where she outside in Chichester, they all put kind of flags for VE Day, but she put her flag out on BJ Day and no one knew why. And so she feels that people don't know what that war was about. And so I think that in families, maybe people are discovering it. I still don't think, you know, we know when we teach the war in Europe, we don't talk about the Japanese war. Of course, if you're a military historian, you know about this. But I think broadly, people don't know about the Japanese war and what that war was about and why it was a British war and that our country was connected to it. And also then you have in post war Britain, South Asians coming over who have their own connection to that war. And so it's not just British families, but it's also the diaspora as well. And it's so sad for me that at the moment where people ask questions is the moment when that generation are dying. And it's so sad because if it was five years earlier, we'd be having a different conversation. And I think the thing that I have realized making all these programs is that each generation asks different questions. And this generation is asking that not in a divisive way. They just want to know. And I think that every generation will come and look at the Second World War and ask very different questions. And I think that is happening. I can see it happening. You know, the Imperial War Museum is putting this call out. All these people that I'm talking to about it, saying, I want to know more about it. It's just that when you have the subject that they are no longer alive, it's just harder. And so we will learn about this and we will know about it, but it will be at a time where this is history. It's not living history.

[Matt Elton]

Things are changing. But it's a race against time to capture these stories and these memories.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

It is. It is a race against time. But I think it's almost too late now, which it just even pains me.

[Matt Elton]

To say that going back to one of the stories you just mentioned just there, which was people putting out flags to Mark V J Day and people not realizing why they were doing that. Was there a sense in 1945 of there being two separate conflicts? We talked about this idea at the start of the discussion. Was there the idea that there were two parallel wars, one of which was still very much going on, even as people marked V Day and VJ Day.

[Peter Knight]

In 1945, there was that sense.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And Churchill on VE Day made that really, really clear. And so people did understand that there.

[Peter Knight]

Was this other war.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

And remember, it was a surprise when war ended with the atomic bombs because people were planning for a Japanese D Day equivalent. And people were afraid of that because there were going to be a lot of casualties. And people like Peter Knight, who I spoke to, spoke to about right at the beginning, he was then part of the Navy and he thought he might be part in assisting the Americans in part of that land invasion. So it felt at that time like the war could be one of those never ending wars. Having said that, Britain was moving on. There was an election. The wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill was defeated. You had Clement Attlee who had a completely different vision for Britain and Britain was moving on.

[Peter Knight]

Of course it was.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

How could it not? And so if you had family members, if you, you know, I followed the story of Maurice Naylor, who was a prisoner of war and his family were in Manchester. If you were the parents of Maurice Naylor, you didn't know if your son was alive or not. War was not over for you. And so even though there was a recognition, Britain had to move on, of course it did. But I think for family members who had people out there on that front, the war was definitely not over for them.

[Matt Elton]

And what's the situation in terms of this remembering in Japan? Are these kind of conversations happening in that country?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So it was very important for me on the 80th anniversary to include Japanese voices. And I have a soldier that we discovered in the BBC archive who was a kind of senior officer. He was in Singapore when it fell, but he was also in Burma when it fell, and he was in Falun Koima as well. And so we see that perspective. I also have this wonderful testimony from a young kamikaze pilot. And it's important to think about the Japanese then as the enemy. And you hear the testimony of this young man and you just think, is he the enemy? He's just a kid who wanted to live a life and he was told that he had to do this mission. He wanted to do good things for his country, but he wanted, he wanted to get married, have a normal life. He was, you know, in his early 20s. And so I talk to a Japanese historian of memory and it's quite interesting that India doesn't really remember the Asian Front. We haven't remembered it as well as other fronts. And Japan doesn't really remember the Asia bit of their war. Their war is seen particularly through the prism of America, because America rehabilitated Japan very, very quickly after the war. And so that's the relationship that was important. And I think Tokyo had their war crimes trial, which the Emperor Hirohito was not part of, significantly. So he built the pacifist constitution in the post war years. But he says the expert that I spoke to, that actually took decades for people to even talk about the atrocities and that Japanese forces committed. And even now talking about war, memory has become very politicized. But he does say that the new generation is looking at it now in a different way. I also think, you know, I did say it's hard not to have the people alive and their testimonies, but I do think that when the generation that lived through it are no longer with us, somehow that means that historians and generations can look at this bit of history in a different way. And I think for Japan, maybe they are freer to talk about things that they weren't able to before, because what's happening now in Japan is when the soldiers came back, they were traumatized and humiliated. They were told not to talk about it. And the children of those family are now opening up about the levels of domestic violence that happened. And I do wonder if that story is coming out because they are no longer alive. I think it frees you up as well to ask some really, really difficult questions and also ask difficult questions about your country and the people who led it at the time.

[Matt Elton]

There's a line in the series that really struck me, and I wonder whether this is part of that story. You say that of the people who did know the reasons that Britain and the Allies were fighting Japan, the people almost say it to you like a confession. And I wonder, is there something here about this idea of it being a confessional? About there being something that's really difficult to struggle with, grasping, and that's part of the reason this story is obscured in all of these nations. Is that part of this?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

I think it's a confession because it's hard to talk about and it's hard to talk about for loads of reasons. One of the reasons which we haven't really touched upon is the traumatic nature of it. So whether you're a POW or you're a civilian, but also what you saw if you were in battle. And I do think that for the people who came back home, they didn't talk, but people didn't ask. I know I've spoken to family Members who were told they were explicitly told not to ask to talk. You need to be asked a question. And now, because people didn't ask, there is a regret. And that's what I meant by confession, that. That it's very loaded. They know something happened. They know a relative saw something. It was probably not a good thing. They never spoke, but they never asked. And so I think there is a guilt in not asking and now not being able to ask.

[Matt Elton]

Who told them not to ask?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

I think that Maurice, when Maurice Naya, POW came back, his family were advised, don't talk to him. It's too much for him. And then when his daughter found some sketches that had been made of a prisoner of war camp, she asked her mother, what is this? And her mother said to her, don't ask your father. He was in a camp in the war and he has nightmares.

[Peter Knight]

Don't talk.

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

So it was kind of generations of not being told not to ask. But also I would say that for people to speak, and I've seen this so many times now, you need a public space for people to speak, but people have to know. And if your children are not learning about it in school. So the daughter who was told your father was in a camp, she thought it was a Nazi concentration camp, because that was the only camp that she knew or had learned about. She didn't even know that there were Japanese prisoner war camps. And I think that kind of collectively, you have to know a little bit of that history in order to then ask those questions.

[Matt Elton]

We've talked a little bit about some of the reasons that these stories haven't been told. We've talked about the humiliation of some of the experiences that people felt about them. We've talked about the distance. We've talked about some of the racial overtones. Are there any other factors that you'd like to highlight that perhaps explain why these stories aren't better known?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

We talked about why India doesn't remember and the complications of empire. But then, you know, that post empire world, that post colonial world where Britain didn't rule India anymore. And so remembrance was then a lot more complicated, the racialized, you know, element of remembering. There's a lot of things at play here. But I think that, you know, the narrative that we tell ourselves about our war story is a kind of we fought the Nazis, the Nazis were bad, and, you know, we were good and we were heroic, and that's not wrong. But there was this other war that we fought. Professor Lucy Noakes says this very well. If we are, you know, we are a post imperial society. To understand the complexion of the society that we live in, you kind of have to understand that that war too. And as I always say, Matt, I don't think we have to do this in a divisive way. But that war happened. We can't pretend it didn't happen. And I do think that as part of our war story, we should just know it better because it touched many, many families in our country.

[Matt Elton]

And I suppose, finally, what would you encourage readers and listeners to do as we mark VJ Day this year, what would you encourage them to do?

[Snack Enthusiast 2]

I would encourage them that if they have any family members and wherever they fought and you don't have to have fought, you could have just lived through the Second World War, I would ask and I would record them because you'll never regret that. And I would take a trip, if you can, to Imperial War Museum or Imperial War Museum north, because their Second World galleries are really, really brilliant. And there are some really fantastic books about the Asian Front front and the Burma Campaign. I would read some of those too, because it is a complicated war, but it's a really interesting war and it's really one we should know better.

[Kavita Puri]

That was Kavita Puri, a journalist and broadcaster for BBC Radio 4. Her BBC Sounds podcast 3 Million charts the 1943 Bengal famine and won gold in the new podcast category at the 2024 British Podcast Awards. You can hear Cavita's latest series, the History podcast, the Second Map on BBC Sounds now.