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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special on BBC1: Poignant keepsakes of the Forgotten Army brought a lump to the throat...
Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special (BBC1) Rating: The words are inscribed on war memorials across the country: 'When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today.' But few, perhaps, know the words are sometimes called the Kohima Prayer, named after a battle in a remote part of India in 1944, a turning point in the war against Japan. Unlike Alamein or Arnhem, Kohima is not frequently remembered. Sadly, the courage and the sacrifice of the British and Commonwealth soldiers who defended it, the 14th Army, are often overlooked too. No wonder they sometimes called themselves, with dry irony, the Forgotten Fourteenth. But their story was marked with a mixture of solemnity and sentimentality as some of their descendants brought treasured keepsakes of the war in the Far East to the Antiques Roadshow: VJ Day Special. 'It's history in your hand,' remarked historian Robert Tilney, as he inspected a Japanese officer's shin gunto sword, a trophy from Kohima. 'It's a hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck job.' This episode traced the conflict chronologically, from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. JUGGLING ACT OF THE WEEKEND A dolphin mother taught her calf how to play keepy-uppy with a piece of coral balanced on her nose, in Parenthood (BBC1). The trick was to drop it and catch it again before it hit the seabed. No using teeth or flippers... that's cheating. The names are familiar but the horrors suffered by troops in the jungles of South-east Asia are beyond imagination, as viewers of The Narrow Road To The Deep North (which followed on BBC1) can attest. Children and grandchildren of the survivors all repeated versions of the same line: 'He never talked about it much.' In part, as presenter Fiona Bruce discovered, this was because soldiers who returned from the murderous Japanese prisoner-of-war camps were under orders not to discuss what they had endured. I've always felt there was another, subtler psychological reason: these men had been through hell to protect their families. By making light of what they suffered, they were able to continue giving that protection. There was no doubting the debt of gratitude, coupled with a deep sense of respect, that everyone on the show felt. None of the artefacts was given a valuation — that would have been crass. In any case, how can you put a price on a bowl fashioned from a coconut shell, which was one man's only possession during his long imprisonment? There was no doubting the debt of gratitude, coupled with a deep sense of respect, that everyone on the show felt. None of the artefacts was given a valuation — that would have been crass Many of the items were impossibly poignant, such as a chess set carved from balsa wood with a penknife, or the hat worn by a soldier with the Chindits, an explosives expert fighting deep behind enemy lines. Possibly the most touching of all was a letter from an artillery man to his baby son, and preserved with care for more than 80 years. 'Dear little Jimmy,' he wrote, 'though you won't be able to read this, I hope you'll keep it and cherish it. Be very good for mummy as she's the dearest person in the world and love her just as much as I do.' Jimmy had a lump in his throat as he read it. And so did I.
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- The Guardian
Family of Kenyan woman allegedly murdered by UK soldiers criticise defence secretary
The niece of a Kenyan woman who was murdered more than a decade ago, allegedly by British soldiers, has said her family now believe the defence secretary 'just made a promise for his political gain' when he met them in April. John Healey told the family of Agnes Wanjiru of his 'determination to see a resolution' in the case of her murder, pledging the UK's full support for the investigation. But now, almost four months later, Wanjiru's family say they have been left disappointed, having seen no further progress in their fight for justice. Wanjiru, then 21, disappeared in March 2012, after last being seen drinking with British soldiers at a bar in the Lion's Court hotel in Nanyuki, a town in the east of Kenya, where the army has a military base, BATUK. Her family spent two months looking for her, until her body was found stuffed into a septic tank in the grounds of the hotel. She had been stabbed several times. Six years ago, an inquest in Kenya found that Wanjiru, who was mother to a then baby girl, had been killed by one or more British soldiers. In 2021, several soldiers, who at the time were attached to the Duke of Lancaster's regiment, came forward to name a suspect. One offered startling testimony in which he claimed the suspect, a fellow Duke of Lancaster soldier, had confessed to her murder on the night, and taken him to see Wanjiru's body in the septic tank. While a British soldier is believed to be the primary suspect in the case, under the UK-Kenya defence cooperation agreement, jurisdiction for investigating the murder lies with the Kenyan authorities. Kenyan police have flown to the UK several times, and are believed to have questioned multiple witnesses. In April, Kenyan police said a file had been passed to the Kenyan director of public prosecutions for a charging decision. Yet almost four years on from a suspect being identified, nobody has been arrested or charged in relation to the murder. Wanjiru's niece Esther Njoki, 21, was eight years old in 2012, and said her memories of her aunt drove her fight for justice. 'The reason why I'm passionate about this case and that I've been fighting, it's what she did in the family,' she said. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion 'She used to take care of me when my mum was not there. She used to cook, braid my hair, everything. So that's why I'm so passionate to fight for her rights.' 'She was always jovial, smiling, hard-working. We were always laughing because of her jokes and everything,' she added. 'It's very heartbreaking. She was kind, she was everything, we miss her.' While in opposition, Healey called for more to be done to 'pursue justice for Agnes and her family', but Njoki says they are disappointed that more has not been done in the year since Labour came to power. 'I think he just made a promise for his political gain,' Njoki said, 'I think he's taking us for a ride.' 'They hide behind investigation,' she added, 'because every time we raise any issue, they say 'investigation, investigation', we don't know the status of the investigation.' Njoki, who is studying communications and acts as a spokesperson for the family, is currently raising funds to come to the UK in the autumn in order to meet with campaigners, hold a press conference, and lobby politicians directly. 'I want to come and lobby there, so that they can take this matter seriously,' she said, 'because they know the family can't come to UK to seek justice there.' Justice, Njoki said, would mean closure. Her family believed that the government could do more. 'They have power, but they have refused, and it's heartbreaking,' she said. 'Agnes was a human being.' 'I think if she were around right now, everything would be so perfect,' she added, 'but now that she's not there, we are left to seek justice for her, with our hearts broken, being frustrated, and it's the worst thing.' Tessa Gregory, a partner at the law firm Leigh Day, who is acting on behalf of the family, said: 'It is now 13 years since Agnes' body was found in a septic tank, the Kenyan criminal investigation has been ongoing for years, and while the file was reportedly sent to the [Kenyan] DPP months ago, a charging decision is still awaited. The family are frustrated with both the lack of progress in the criminal proceedings and the lack of engagement from the British government.' She added: 'They hope that the secretary of state will do everything within his power to ensure that those held responsible are brought to account swiftly and that the role of the British army in Agnes' death, including as to why nothing was done for nearly a decade after the murder, is thoroughly and independently examined.' A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: 'Our thoughts remain with the family of Agnes Wanjiru, and the defence secretary has long recognised the tragic circumstances of her death. 'The jurisdiction for this investigation lies with the Kenyan authorities. The defence secretary welcomed the confirmation that the case file had been handed over to the director of public prosecutions for a charging decision during his visit to Kenya in April 2025. 'We will continue to work closely with the Kenyan authorities for the justice the family deserves. In order to protect the integrity of the Kenyan investigation and in the interests of justice for Agnes Wanjiru's family, we are unable to comment further.'
Times
02-08-2025
- Times
British Army will tell Kenyan children their soldier fathers' names
The names and addresses of 11 British soldiers will be handed over to the children they are suspected of fathering while stationed on a base in Kenya. In an unprecedented legal case defence officials, as well as those from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue & Customs, have been told to disclose the last known contact details for the men by a High Court judge. The oldest child in the case was born in the 1990s, the youngest is still an infant. While the initial ruling covers the cases of only 11 children, lawyers believe there could be hundreds more who have been fathered by British soldiers posted in Kenya. Some may not know that they have children. The children are also seeking to bring legal action to have the fathers named as their legal parents, which will be ruled on at a later date. If granted, the decision could mean the children are entitled to British citizenship, as well as inheritance rights and child maintenance payments.
Telegraph
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Afghan fiasco shows how badly the last Tory government let you down
The lifting of the superinjunction this week has exposed gross failings committed by those trusted to keep us safe. The truth about how and why this happened must come out. It must never happen again. There are some basic facts which the public needs to know and should have known from the start. Firstly, if a court issues an injunction relating to government business, Ministers are prohibited from speaking publicly about it for fear of being held in contempt of court. Anyone who is claiming that those who have left Government, could or should have 'blown the whistle' before the injunction was lifted does not understand our legal or political system. Like the media, many of us have been unable to speak on this for a long time. Secondly, and for context, the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was launched in April 2024 for those Afghan nationals affected by the leak. This was after I had left the Government and I was not involved in its set up or functioning. The ARR should not be confused with the Afghanistan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) which was set up in 2021 to rescue soldiers and translators who had served alongside our brave British soldiers that fought and died in Afghanistan. Thirdly, the mistaken data leak came from inside the Ministry of Defence. There is much more that needs to be said about the conduct of and competence within the Ministry of Defence and the House of Commons is the right place to do so. I hope we have the opportunity soon. Lastly, any plans to bring in 24,000 Afghan nationals are wholly wrong for our country. Many of these people will not be genuine in their claims to have helped British troops, many of them will pose a public safety and national security risk to the British people and we simply do not have the resources to accommodate them. What's worse is that all who have now arrived here will be able to bring their families under Article 2 of the ECHR. As Home Secretary, I tried my best to fix the crisis but ultimately failed. 40,000 migrants had crossed the Channel by the end of 2023, over 100,000 asylum seekers were being processed through our slow-moving system and tens of thousands were being housed in hotels all over the country – all this costing the taxpayer £6 million per day. It was out of control and still is. Whilst I managed to reduce the number of hotels used by asylum seekers, much more was required. What we needed to do – as I argued at the time – was to leave the ECHR so we had greater powers to detain and deport. If we had taken those steps in 2023 when we were in power, the Rwanda scheme would have been up and running and the small boats problem would have eased, if not been fixed entirely. We would have had much less pressure on the system and the costs would have fallen. We would have been able to refuse admission to 24,000 Afghans affected by the leak as they would not have been able to rely on Article 2 (right to life) rights or we could have worked with other nations like Pakistan or Rwanda to take them. In all this disgraceful betrayal of the people by their own government, I feel only shame. I, and a handful of others, fought this: but we failed to stop it. This is why on election night last year I apologised for what we had got wrong. This is why I warned about the direction we were heading in back in 2023. The last Conservative government let you down. The cover-up was wrong, the super injunction was wrong, and the failure to stop unwanted mass immigration has been unforgivable. So I am sorry: the Conservative government failed you and its leaders let you down. It wasn't good enough then. It's not good enough now. This episode exposes everything wrong with the Westminster establishment. The State apparatus thinks it can hide its failures behind legal technicalities while ordinary people pay the price. I understand your anger, and I share it. The people who have run this country so badly need to take a long, hard look at themselves. Those responsible must be held accountable, and the system that enabled this cover-up has to be dismantled.
Daily Mail
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Horror of the Korean War revealed by 'forgotten' British veterans 75 years on: Bridges made from corpses, troops fighting without guns and Chinese soldiers blowing themselves up
Ken Keld is sitting in the lounge of his immaculate one-bed bungalow outside Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Aged 91, he is a gentle and softly spoken Yorkshireman who still walks a mile a day. Given his warmth, it is hard to place him into the events he is describing. 'The shelling seemed to stop dead, you could have heard a pin drop. Within seconds they're there on top of us, we're outnumbered five to one,' he says. 'They were fanatics, they'd jump in the trenches and blow themselves up. It was hand-to-hand combat, it was practically every man for himself'. The great grandfather-of-two is a veteran of the Korean War, a conflict which, over the course of three years, claimed the lives of 1,100 British soldiers - more than in the Falklands, Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined. As the world marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the war, MailOnline has tracked down Ken and two other British veterans of the war. All in their 90s, their stories shed light on a horrific conflict seldom taught in schools and one which, despite the enormous sacrifice of ordinary British conscripts, is nicknamed the 'Forgotten War'. Many young men who had been sent to fight were only there because of compulsory National Service; some were still teenagers. Ken Keld, 91, is a veteran of the Korean War. He spoke to MailOnline from his home in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. He remembers how Chinese soldiers would jump in trenches and 'blow themselves up' By the end of the war, up to three million civilians had been killed. But historians generally view the conflict as one of the major success stories for the West in the post-War era; defending democracy and ensuring the safety of the South Korean people. Sir Michael Caine's memories of fighting in the Korean War Sir Michael Caine was called up to fight in the Korean War after enlisting for compulsory National Service. He recalled his experiences in an interview with the Daily Mail in 1987. Commenting on the tactics employed by the enemy, he told of 'attack after attack, you would find their bodies in groups of four'. 'We heard them talking and we knew they had sussed us…Our officer shouted run and by chance we ran towards the Chinese. Which is what saved us; in the dark we lost each other,' he added. The actor, now 92, went on: 'I remember the boredom and the bull. 'I also remember the sheer naked terror of finding that I, a kid from the Elephant and Castle, actually had to go out into a paddy field, at night, while Chinese soldiers were trying to kill me.' At the end of the Second World War, Korea – previously occupied by the Japanese – was divided along the 38th parallel, an internal border between North and South based on a circle of latitude. Determined to bring the entire Korean peninsula under communist rule, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and grandfather of tyrant Kim Jon Un, invaded the South on the 25th June 1950. With the support of the Soviet Union and later, China, whose maniac dictator Chairman Mao saw the conflict as a threat to his own security, soldiers poured over the border as a United Nations coalition of 21 countries rallied behind the South's Republic of Korea Army (ROKA). The invaders quickly took the capital Seoul before a back-and-forth that would see both sides gain and lose territory in chaotic seesaw fashion. By August, British naval personnel and troops were on the ground supporting the US army. 'I'd never been abroad... there was a Cockney on my ship who had never seen the sea before', says fellow 91-year-old Mike Mogridge from his home in Henley, Oxfordshire, as he recalls his eight-week journey by ship to Korea. Peckham-born and bred, Mike had been called up for National Service by the Tower of London-based Royal Fusiliers in early 1952. Among his fellow recruits were East End gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who Mike knew from the boxing world. After storming out one day, the twins would go on to be dishonourably discharged from National Service. A certain Michael Caine found himself in the same regiment as Mike, too. In early 1953, following six weeks' training in Hong Kong and a stint at Pusan (modern day Busan) in South Korea, Mike - now aged 19 - found himself on The Hook, a strategic area near Panmunjom so named for its shape. There, British, American, Canadian, Turkish, Thai and Republic of Korea Army (Roka) forces had been facing down the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA). Conditions were horrific. While winters plunged to -40°C, summers could hit 40C. As the bodies of dead Chinese and allied soldiers lay on the battlefield, the rats moved in. 'When you go to sleep, it was overrun with rats', Mike, who still goes to the gym three times a week, recalls. 'At first you'd brush them off, eventually you didn't bother, they were very big rats because they were feeding off the dead bodies.' Korea was a war fought largely at night, with fairly uneventful patrols into no-man's-land where the enemy would occasionally open up on their positions. Days were spent dodging mortar and sniper fire, which the allies returned with devastating effect. Artillery was the game of Brian Parritt. A 2nd Lieutenant of the 20th Field Regiment in the Royal Artillery, he had joined the Army in 1949 and passed out of Sandhurst in February 1952. Having arrived in Korea that December, Brian was tasked with shelling enemy positions across The Hook. Located on a back line, his artillery pummeled the Chinese with VT shells that would explode above ground and devastate units of Chinese soldiers. Brian, now 94, was Mentioned in Despatches for his exploits on The Hook, a map of which hangs in his house. It is stained with his own blood following a mine incident that killed three men and blew him into the air. But Brian is keen to downplay his role in Korea. He instead highlights his superiors, three of whom had served in the Second World War and, as luck would have it, were sent to Korea just five years after the end of the war. 'They'd tell the men, "you think this is tough, son? You should've seen Normandy"', Brian recalls. He adds: 'There was great respect for them, there is no bull******** when you know your Sergeant Major had fought his way from El-Alamein, up through Italy and on to Monte Cassino.' Conditions were tough, Brian admits. 'It was bloody cold. By the time you made a cup of tea and raised it to your lips, it would get stuck to them,' he said. When a Chinese defector called Hua Hong, who had once fought against Chairman Mao's Chinese forces as a sergeant in Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalist army, was captured by allied soldiers, he revealed how a major offensive to take The Hook was being planned by the PVA. 'He knew everything, all the details of the attack, apart from the date', Brian says from an office filled with ephemera from a 37-year career in the Army. The Chinese, who had already been practicing the attack, had tried twice in the autumn of 1952 to seize The Hook but failed after being held back first by the US Marines, then by the legendary Scots of The Black Watch. It was during those battles where the allies witnessed the true horror of Chinese 'human waves', sent forward in their thousands to be mowed down before more elite units would follow through. Some of those in the first waves were unarmed and, when killed, were used as corpse bridges over barbed wire by the units which followed behind. 'When the Chinese attack, they come in three waves, one to destroy, one to take and one to hold, with tremendous numerical strength, and our artillery start to shell them... They lost hundreds before they even got to us', Mike grimly remembers. Following Hong's revelation of a third planned offensive, the allies were prepared for what was to come. It is estimated that around 9,000 PVA shells hammered allied positions on The Hook between May 19th and 28th. The allies returned as many in a volley of artillery which devastated the land. Ken Keld and his comrades from the Duke of Wellington's Regiment had been sent up to the frontline to relieve the Black Watch earlier that month. In position, he was the forward most platoon at The Hook. 'We were the ones going in first', he says. At around 8pm on May 28, 1953, following days of shelling by the PVA and the allies, the battlefield fell silent. In the distance, the sound of Chinese bugles rang out. That only meant one thing. As Ken, then 19, looked up from his position, he could see wave upon wave of Chinese soldiers coming towards him. Moments later, 'all hell broke loose'. 'There were just waves of them coming... The tanks would put on their spotlights and you could see Chinese running down hillside, so they started on them with the machine gun', he says. 'The Chinese didn't all have weapons, they picked weapons up from someone who had been killed.' At the back of the battle, Brian was pounding the Chinese positions with artillery fire. 'It was a most intense battle', says Brian, 'the barrels of the guns were red hot. 'Someone put a damp towel over a gun and it caught fire, it was an exhilarating experience'. As the Chinese edged closer, the fighting became more and more vicious. Ken, while holding them off, was running out of ammunition. Within moments, the Chinese had stormed his trench. 'We were in the trenches and they were just dropping in, they're blowing themselves up and whoever's with them... our number two Bren gunner Mick Connor was just mowing 'em down until he was killed himself.' 'It was practically every man for himself, it was more or less back-to-back, covering up for your other man, it was chaos.' Ken was pushed back into the tunnels which had been dug by the Black Watch before the Chinese ordered their surrender, promising good treatment. Recounting what the Britons replied to the surrender demand, Ken laughs and says: 'The second word was "off".' 'We were in there when they blew the ends in, all you could hear was thumping of things, Chinese voices, all you are thinking about is how long we're going to be here, are we going to be eating rice three times a day as prisoners!' With Ken and his comrades buried alive in the tunnel with just a Sten gun and one grenade, the Duke's outside launched a heroic counter offensive on the Chinese trenches. By 3.30am, they had taken control of The Hook. It was a resounding victory but one which had come at a devastating cost. By the end of the Battle of The Hook, just 17 out of 45 men in Ken's Duke of Wellington's platoon had survived. Among the dead was his friend from back home in Yorkshire, Dennis Smith, aged just 19, whom he points out in his 'In Memoriam' book. Around 2,000 PVA soldiers had been killed or wounded in just seven hours of human wave attacks and suicide missions. The Hook was a 'mess', Ken says, adding: 'We were offered a meal but there were so many bodies we didn't want it. 'The worst of all was the stench, buried, decayed, limbs and bodies. There had been so much fighting, it was like being sent to death row.' Ken was sent to a rear position following the battle of The Hook and Mike's Royal Fusiliers - who had been at the battle but in a rear position - took over. A month later on July 27, the truce, now known as The Korean War Armistice, was signed at Panmunjom, where the modern-day Demilitarized Zone now stands separating North and South Korea. When news of the truce got out, Brian heard the Fusiliers in their trenches singing Vera Lynn's 'There Will Always Be an England'. The rest of the battlefield soon joined in. As well as the 1,100 British dead, there were 3,000 wounded, and more than 1,000 missing or taken prisoner. For all of the horrors of Korea, the three men hold no hatred towards their former enemy. For Ken - who in 2023 received an MBE for his work with Korean War veterans - he respects the bravery of the Chinese on the battlefield, noting that on balance they were 'good soldiers'. For Brian, humanity shone through when, towards the end of the war, he met two Chinese soldiers in no-man's-land. They shook hands and took photos. He says: 'Having seen the consequences of war, I believe in jaw jaw before war war".' For a former Brigadier who spent nearly four decades in the Army, and whose service in Cyprus and Northern Ireland with the Intelligence Corps earned him an MBE and CBE respectively, it is a seismic comment. Korea, for Brian, was a resounding success and a victory which is still appreciated by South Koreans to this day. But it was the reception that met British soldiers on their return to Britain in 1956 that all three men struggled with. Mike, whose TV presenter daughter Fiona McLean starred in Grange Hill and whose son later joined the Army, explained: 'When I got back my father took me for a pint at our local, I remember one of his mates asking me "where have you been?" 'I told him I'd been in Korea, and he said, "oh, did you have a nice time?" And that was that.' Ken feels much the same about the 'forgotten' nature of Korea and the sacrifice made by ordinary Brits, many of whom were teenagers on National Service. He says: 'We had to pay for our own memorial, £40,000. You can't understand it. We've had to fight for everything to get recognition. I was getting shot at for a quid a week.' It is accepted among the three men that Korea became a forgotten war in part due it's sheer distance from Britain - 5,600 miles - but also thanks to a fatigue present amongst Britons so soon after the fight against Hitler. 'The appetite for more war was just not there', Mike admits. Brian, who is the only British soldier to be awarded the Order of Civil Merit (Moran) medal by South Korea, concludes: 'You'll go round the world looking at gravestones, a lot of them young National Service boys and there's a feeling, what the hell were we doing there? 'In historical terms it is not recognised what the army did in the post-War period. 'I do feel that in this period that the British Army tried to move from Colonialism to independence. I don't feel that is recognised.
