Latest news with #WRAC
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The multicultural effort to defeat fascism
Regarding Gary Younge's article (Millions of the black and brown people who fought for Europe's freedom didn't get a VE Day, 8 May), it is refreshing to read about what actually happened at the end of the second world war. But I do resist strongly the framing of the millions of colonised people in the British empire as having 'fought for the allies'. They were the allies. These people, including my late father, were subjects of the British empire, just like any soldier from Liverpool or an Auxiliary Territorial Service recruit from Maidenhead. They were trained as the British army and they fought and died, or survived, just like those from Scotland or Wales. Many British people don't want to hear that millions of the grandparents and parents of those 'foreigners' living here were born and lived under the same rule as any Bristol or Birmingham council estate, but that was the case. The far-right 'othering' of people is a result of a deliberate and hateful ideology aimed at seizing power. The words we use matter. The soldiers and service personnel that Younge is talking about were British subjects and Britain was a complex, global, multicultural empire – not a white bastion of democratic resistance that fought alone from the shores of VertannesChurchdown, Gloucestershire • I read with interest that about 2.5 million personnel from the Indian subcontinent fought during the second world war. They are perhaps not the only forgotten ones. My mother was in India when war broke out. She joined the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC) in India and served throughout the duration, ending up with the rank of captain. Her last days would have been made easier if her service had been acknowledged. On inquiring whether extra pension rights (she had a very small state widow's pension) as a former servicewoman were hers to claim, she was told no records were available for WRAC in India. End of story. And a very shabby end to the story. Quite apart from the financial side, it was as if her service to the nation had simply never Blazy-O'ReillyVilleneuve-la-Comptal, Aude, France
BBC News
07-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Oldest servicewoman reflects on 'sheer joy' of VE Day
Oldest servicewoman, 107, on 'sheer joy' of VE Day 14 minutes ago Share Save Archie Farmer BBC News, South West Share Save WRAC Joan Harrison has been recognised as the oldest Auxiliary Territorial Servicewoman As the country prepares to celebrate VE Day, the nation's oldest servicewoman has shared her memories. Joan Harrison, born in Portsmouth but now living in Cornwall, joined the women's regiment the Auxiliary Territorial Service when war broke out. The now 107-year-old then trained to become an ambulance driver, a role she described as "the best time of her life". Now living at a care home, she is frail and nearly blind and deaf - yet she retains a remarkably sharp mind and continues to follow current affairs, according to the Women's Royal Army Corps Association. 'The war's over' Eighty years ago, "Brownie", as she was known, was serving as an ambulance driver and was on duty when victory in Europe was declared. "I was sitting quietly in the driver's seat at around six o'clock in the evening and everything was still," she recalled. "Then, all of a sudden, he came running down the concrete path to the ambulance and said, 'Brownie, the war's over!' "I said, 'You're kidding?' and he said, 'No, the war's over'. "I jumped out – I don't think I even locked it, which was a crime, and ran with him into the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes where everyone was gathering." 'Hats were flying' She said the celebrations "got a bit boisterous" as they got swept up in the emotion. "Hats were flying in the air, it was all men," she said. "It got a bit boisterous, and some officers came down and called order. "The men calmed down, saying, 'You're still in the army, you know, get to your beds' "But they couldn't do much about the sheer joy of the moment." Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@
