WW2 re-enactor vowed not to forget dad on deathbed

Bill Smith said he was wearing his dad's uniform and medals to mark the VJ Day anniversary

A World War Two re-enactor has told how he is keeping a deathbed promise to remember his father's service in Burma.

L/Sgt Reginald Smith arrived home two days before Christmas in 1945 and moved to Thundersley, Essex, in 1958.

Speaking on the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, Bill Smith, 78, recalled being at his father's bedside when he died in Colchester aged 79 on 14 August 1995.

"He said to me 'You won't forget me, will you?'," said Mr Smith. "Well, I think I'm certainly bringing him to life today - and his mates, it's not just him."

VJ Day, or Victory over Japan Day, marked the end of the war for most, but news of Japan's surrender took two to three weeks to reach the Burmese jungle.

L/Sgt Smith joined the special forces unit known as The Chindits in the 1940s and was tasked with disrupting supply lines to Japan.

Mr Smith said the regiment would march 20-25 miles (32-40km) a day.

Reginald Smith (left) and his regiment (right) in November 1945 before they were taken back to England. Reginald is second from right in the top row

"You had a backpack of 60-70 lbs (27-32kg) with ammunition, rations, explosives, bits and pieces of spare clothing, one groundsheet, one blanket, and you slept on the ground - if it rained you got wet," he said.

"As dad said: 'Everything in the jungle either bit you or stung you, if not both'."

'It was hell'

Mr Smith said he still has the pen of a soldier his dad killed. It was inscribed with Japanese writing and hoped to get it translated.

"I was seven or eight, I said, 'Where'd you get that pen, Dad? Oh, I found it in the street,' he replied.

"I plied him with a couple of scotches and I said, 'Right, I want the truth, where did you really get it?'."

Mr Smith grew up in Walthamstow until the age of 13 and would buy reunion tickets for his dad using money from his delivery rounds. He has attended subsequent events ever since.

"When these guys who were really there know you are the son of a Chindit, they open up, they talk to you and it was hell, absolute hell," he said.