Vera Lynn reunited with WW2 Veterans

Dame Vera Lynn will be guest of honour at this year's War and Peace Show, which promises to be one of the biggest and most exciting ever.

Popularly known as the “Forces Sweetheart”, Dame Vera will visit the Show on Saturday July 25 as part of the celebrations to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces began the campaign to liberate Europe.

The event is held annually at The Hop Farm, Beltring, near Paddock Wood, Kent.

It will be an opportunity for hundreds of veterans to see their wartime idol once again. More of them than ever will attend this year’s show because those who took part in either the Normandy invasion or Operation Market Garden will be given free admission.

Dame Vera won the hearts of soldiers, sailors and airmen during the War, through her radio request programme “Sincerely Yours”, a welcome link with home for those serving overseas.

After joining the forces entertainment organisation ENSA, she insisted on visiting the “forgotten armies” of the Burma campaign, rather than settling for safer options nearer home. Her tour took her to within six miles from the front line during the Battle of Kohima, in which more than 4,000 British and Indian troops were killed or wounded.

“It was just me, my pianist and a driver,” she said. “I was the only female there. We were living in grass huts with just a couple of buckets for washing in.

“We had a little mini-piano which was jolted around terribly along the Arakan Road. During one concert the sides fell off and a couple of soldiers held it together while I did my show.”

Numbers of veterans attending the show on the Saturday will be boosted when 50 cabs of the London Taxi Benevolent Association for War Disabled arrive, with 200 of them on board. Dame Vera is Patron of the Association, which has been helping ex-servicemen and women since 1948.

Vehicle veterans will also be well represented at the Show. These include a Caterpillar D-8 bulldozer, known to have worked on the Normandy beaches, hauling other vehicles ashore and clearing broken down and damaged tanks and trucks.

Also on display will be a Sherman beach armoured recovery vehicle, or BARV, which took part in the invasion. This vehicle can wade into 10ft of water to drag out submerged trucks and tanks, or to re-float a landing craft.

A third, very different vehicle known to have landed during the invasion is a Silver Wraith Rolls Royce used by General Montgomery, who commanded British and Canadian forces throughout the campaign.

The Show will feature military monster trucks and tanks from a range of countries in both static and mobile displays and thrilling mock battles.

Above the showground will be heard the throaty roar of a Spitfire, joined this year by a Messerschmitt 108.

A full entertainment programme will feature once again the ever-popular Jive Aces, and a tribute to Glenn Miller, whose death in 1944 still arouses controversy.

New displays for this year include a First World War trench, showing how ordinary soldiers existed during battles such as Passchendaele. And there will be a reconstructed U-boat conning tower.
More information on the War and Peace Show website

Dame Vera Lynn		1940's or 2009 Families all enjoy War and Peace