Addingham Display to mark 80th Anniversary of VJ-Day

Following the successful V-E Day display earlier in the year, Addingham Heritage Group created a new display to mark the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War.

The display included a number of models courtesy of the Keighley Model Club who once again came up with an interesting and varied selection of models, including of the two atomic bombs, Fat Man and Slim Boy, which were used to such devastating effect to end the war. The models were displayed in a case kindly loaned by Ilkley Library.

The display included numerous reports from the Ilkley Gazette about events in Addingham and about local men who were fighting the war in Asia against the Japanese and there was also a contemporary photograph of the children of the Wesleyan High School in Addingham taken at the time, all of whom will have lived through the war.

A number of Addingham men fought in the Far East, Ernest Turnpenny, the father of Beryl Falkingham (who co-authored the book ‘Addingham in World War Two’ with Richard Thackrah) died in a prisoner of war camp in Thailand. His story is told in one of the display boards.

Hedley Adams, the father of James Adams who runs H & J Adams on Main Street in Addingham had joined up in March 1940 as a bandsman and was on board HMS Exeter when she was sunk by a combination of shelling and torpedoes in the Battle of the Java Seas in 1942. He was taken prisoner and eventually freed in 1945, writing home from Australia to say he hoped to be home by the Christmas.

Roy Richardson, a sergeant in the RAF was a PoW for three and a half years but survived the jungles of Sumatra and wrote that he too hoped to be home by Christmas. Walter Millman, a signaller, was taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore and imprisoned in a camp in Taiwan along with his friend Alfred Houghton, both of whom were members of Addingham Cricket Club. Jack Stones, a gunner, was reported missing in Malaya having served on three ships that had been sunk.

The Ilkley Gazette reported that Private Scott was in Burma and had been making cakes from captured Japanese flour and sugar after a successful thrust across the Irrawaddy where they had captured a good deal of provisions, including tea which was brewed up in 42-gallon vats from a local brewery. One observer commented that the tea was ‘excellent’!

The display ran throughout August and September so there were a lot visitors who showed a great deal of interest in both the displays and the models. We were particularly pleased to receive a ‘thank you’ letter from our local MP, Robbie Moore who had visited and was impressed by the exhibition.