The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is awarding grants through its Heroes Return 2 programme, enabling those who fought for their country in WW2 to make remembrance trips throughout 2009 and 2010 and return to battlefields and cemeteries in the places where they served. The Fund is awarding 129 grants totalling nearly £225,375 that will benefit 398 veterans, spouses, widows and carers across the East Midlands.
Pow Recalls Camp Horror
One of those preparing for the off is Norman Vickerstaff from Nottingham, who receives a BIG grant of £2,000 to make a remembrance visit to Taiwan, where he was a prisoner of war for three years.
A signalman in the Royal Corps of Signals, Norman was called up in May 1940 and served first in the Indian Army and then in Malaya and Singapore. It was there, at Changi Point, that the allied forces surrendered to the Japanese on February 15 1942, and Norman was one of those taken prisoner and shipped to Taiwan.
He recalls:
“I was based first at a camp where we were digging out a huge lake – now the headquarters of the Taiwanese Navy. It was backbreaking work, but at least it was in the open air, and far worse was to come.
“After two years I was transferred to a copper mine at Kinkaseki. It was a ghastly experience. We were working half a mile under a mountain, with no ventilation or lighting, and the temperature could reach 100 degrees.
“Over 100 men lost their lives in accidents, and we lived on three small bowls of rice and vegetable mush a day. Those who didn’t work quickly enough were beaten.”
After six months, Norman was finally freed and shipped home. By then, at 5ft 8ins, he weighed just 7st 2. He returned to his job as a railway clerk, married, and has been an active member of the Far East Prisoner of War Association ever since. Norman will be attending the annual commemorative service at the site of the Kinkaseki mine in November.
He said:
“There’s a marble plinth with the story of the prisoners – the ones who made it home and those who didn’t – a permanent record of our history. I’ve been a couple of times before, and it’s a very moving experience, going back.”
Battle For Malta
Also receiving an award today is Kenneth Holder from Dronfield, Derbyshire, who will use his grant of £1,600 to attend commemorative services in Malta with his wife Beryl, herself a Second World War veteran who served in the ATS.
Kenneth joined the Royal Navy Signallers in 1940, at the age of 20, and served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. His craft was torpedoed during the allied North African landing of 1942, but thankfully they managed to get to Malta for repairs.
Kenneth said: “We acted as a rescue ship, if other crafts were in danger. I remember once going to the aid of a merchant ship carrying ammo, which had been hit. By the time we got reached it, there was nothing we could do – the cargo was going up like a firework display, and I could feel the heat from where I stood on the bridge.
“On another occasion, in 1941, we managed to rescue 24 survivors from the Parramata, an Australian destroyer, when it went down. We were literally throwing down nets and plucking men out of the sea. It was chaos. Sadly over 138 men were lost that day, but we got the survivors to Malta and then on to Alexandria for treatment.”
In 1943, Kenneth returned to Dronfield and met Beryl, herself home on leave from the ATS, in a local pub. They met just three times before deciding to marry in 1944, and arranged the wedding in less than a week.
Kenneth said: “I’ve been back to Malta once before, and it’s a very humbling experience, with the locals coming to shake your hand and thank you for what you did all those years ago. It will be wonderful to see how the country has been rebuilt, after everything it went through.”
Today’s awards are funding veterans throughout the region including Loughbrough, Grantham, Derby, Northampton, Chesterfield, Leicester and Hinckley.
Mick McGrath, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for the East Midlands, said:
“We are delighted to support our veterans to make pilgrimages to the places where they served, and help ensure that the lessons of the Second World War and the sacrifices made by the wartime generation are not forgotten. Veterans from across the East Midlands will be awarded grants to return to foreign battlefields and attend commemorative events over the next two years."
The Big Lottery Fund has already supported veterans through the Awards for All small grants programme with funding over £178,000 to support anniversary trips this year.
Launched to mark the historic 60th anniversary of D-DAY in 2004, BIG’s first Heroes Return scheme awarded £16.6 million to over 39 thousand veterans, spouses, widows and carers to fund commemorative visits to Second World War battlefields, cemeteries and other significant places across the world.
Heroes Return was the centre-piece of the Veterans Reunited programme including Home Front Recall which awarded £19.2 million to support UK-based group events and activities to commemorate those who contributed to the war-effort on the home front, and Their Past Your Future with an ongoing £9.6 million scheme funding a UK-wide schools and education programme to give young people the opportunity to learn first-hand from veterans about their experience of war.
