St.Helens R.F.C. Chairman Eamonn McManus writes a personal tribute to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day), which marked the complete end of the Second World War, and honours the bravery and sacrifices of those who served in the Far East and Pacific during the conflict.
It is both poignant and touching that the Club will join with Huddersfield Giants to recognise the immense sacrifices of the Allied forces in the Far Eastern campaign against the Imperial Japanese Army as we remember the 80th Anniversary of VJ Day at our match on Sunday.
My own father Thomas McManus was captured at the fall of Singapore in February 1942 and incarcerated in its infamous Changi Prison. He was a survivor of eighteen months on the Thai Burma Death Railway, which claimed the lives of 12,000 Allied POWs and which is still remembered the ultimate symbol of cruelty and brutality. He then went on to survive the sinking of the POW transport ships back to Japan in the final months of the war and was eventually liberated on 15 August 1945 in Saigon, Indochina: modern-day Ho Chin Min City, Vietnam.
As with many, he had previously been declared “ lost believed killed”, but his family in Haydock received a postcard from the Dai Nippon Army in late August 1945 with a coded message written byhim. Below it reads: “21-8 -45. Sending you this little bird! Whitewashed and eye washed. In god’s pocket – yet! Best regards to all at home. In the best of health – yet.” Loosely translated as: physically and mentally broken, don’t know if I’ll make it but hope so. He returned home to his family in St Helens the following month.
His brother Billy joined the original SAS under David Sterling in North Africa. In 1943 he was transferred to Orde Wingate’s Chindits – the Allied Special Forces operating behind Japanese lines in Burma. He was killed by the Japanese in 1944 and is buried in the British Military Cemetery in New Delhi, India.
I often think of the deprivations and sacrifices of my father Thomas, and his brother Billy, and of the wholesale brutality and cruelty which they experienced and witnessed when they unquestioningly fought for our nation. I certainly will be on Sunday when our Club and Huddersfield Giants come together to remember and recognise the suffering and losses on our behalves of so many brave members of our armed forces.
This Sunday afternoon, St.Helens R.F.C. will acknowledge the 80th anniversary of VJ Day collectively as a community at the Saints’ home fixture against Huddersfield Giants. The visiting West Yorkshire club will also be part of this commemoration.
