The WW2 veteran who moved Queen Camilla to tears

Capt Yavar Abbas King III on Friday.

As one of the last veterans, VJ – against Japan – in Staffordshire, he commemorated for the 80th anniversary of the Day – Day. Yavar was about to give a short address about his experience on the Asian front. But he decided to get out of the script.

The audience told the audience that he wished to greet my brave king with his beloved queen despite being under cancer treatment.

The king and the queen became visible emotional. Yavar continued to say that he had survived cancer for the last 25 years and received a applause.

Yavar is 104 years old and when I met him at the beginning of this year, his journey he told me is extraordinary.

The British was born in Charkhari, a state in India, and described it as a “single -horse town”. The date of birth was officially recorded in 1921, but Yavar said he was born on December 15, 1920. In 1939, Britain became a student when Nazi declared war on Nazi on behalf of India.

From the beginning of December 1941, there was a new enemy and a new front. Japan attacked the US maritime base in Pearl Harbor. Hours later, the Japanese forces targeted British colonies in South East Asia. And in just a few months, Japan had taken the region, which has been part of the British Empire for more than a century, including Japan, Malaya (now Malaysia), Singapore and Burma (now Myanmar).

In the mid -1942, Yavar had to make an important decision – the struggle for the independence of the British or India. He could not believe how fast the parts of the British empire fell into Japan. There was a sensible fear that India could be the next.

“I wasn’t the supporter of British imperialism, I actually destroyed it.” At that time, there was an increasing pro -independence movement that wanted the British to “come out of India”, which was brutally suppressed.

Yavar realized that fighting for the British would mean fighting a war in the name of freedom – the Indians survived the colonial administration. However, like many Indian nationalists, Nazism and Fascism did not want to reign.

“I had to choose and hopefully [British Indian] After the war, the army becomes independence, as they are promising. “

Thus, Yavar joined and became one of the about 2.5 million Indian soldiers to register. He initially joined the 11th SIH Regiment and was sent to a “weak place of God” in a remote part of East Bengal and spent his days to protect a strategic site – and disappointed of lack of action.

The attitudes between the British officers disappointed him.

“In a version of the father’s army, I found myself as my officers who see India as a crown colony that they will still have control for the predictable future in the company of white, middle -aged men.”

One day in the chaos, Yavar saw an advertisement in the Ordu newspaper for the training of civil servants as war cameramen. He applied and was soon accepted.

In this role, he joined the newly established British 14th army, whose purpose was to regain the lost region to Japan. The troops of this army were well trained for the forest war and had better equipment. A multinational power would be up to time, including one million troops, including the West and East Africa, often not Indians, but also to other parts of the British Empire.

This army felt completely different from Yavar: “It was a great friendship. British and Indians were mixed with each other.”

As of 1944, Yavar would make films on the front fronts in many major allied-Japanese battles of the Burma campaign. A pistol and a vinten film camera, a tripod and many film rolls that will travel with an assistant in his jeep. He sent their hurry to the drug pages that explained what the shots were. They were organized there and the film was distributed for propaganda or news summits.

Yavar was in the Imphal siege and Kohima War when Japan occupied the strategic northeast Indian towns. Japan’s aim was to cut the ally supply line to China. It was very important to push the Japanese forces in Imphal and Kohima, because the success in receiving these towns may allow Japan to progress deeper into India and expand its empire.

These wars were defined by some historians as the most important of the Second World War. The British, Gurkha, Indian and African troops stopped the attack decisively to India. Tens of thousands of Japanese powers died. Many killed themselves instead of being sentenced to defeat.

He can’t forget after the wars. “It was a terrible view, Japanese, instead of falling into the hands of the enemy with swords that come out of their bodies.” The British progress began to reconsider Burma later.

Yavar was about 30 miles (50 km) from Mandalay when there was a brush with death. He tells me how the Japanese showed a harsh resistance and the allies could not progress, so they covered up in shallow trenches. He had a Gurkha unit, but he continued the film. A sniper thinks he saw his camera and hit him towards him. Gurkha next to him was shot into the temple and died. Yavar’s camera was shattered.

“I’m lucky to be alive,” he says.

The Mandalay War was a very important war for the Allies. If they managed to take it, the road to the capital Rangoon (now Yangon) would be open to them. He was a slow tank and decided to better hit the action. “I just climbed on the baggage and started to shoot.”

TARET was opened and he was told by another officer to go down for his own safety. “It was a stupid thing to do, but that’s what you did when you were young.”

The arms war was intense, and the aim was to capture the castle of Fort Duffferin. Yavar brutally bombed the enemy positions from the air.

“They continued to shoot, hit, hit them,” he remembers.

I went to the Imperial War Museum in London and found the images of Yavar that day. Even without sound, raw, unprocessed, black and white images are as dramatic as Yavar describes. I returned home to show him the images he had never seen.

While watching, events in the 80 years return and indicate the screen while remembering.

“This is my shot,” he says, the British flag has increased victory against strategic Fort Duffferin.

He shakes his head while watching the images. “It’s strange to sit here and watch all this and to think I’m in the middle.”

Now he says he can’t believe he’s happy to attract Japanese forces with his camera and gun 80 years ago.

“I’m not proud of this,” says Yavar, “but you feel that when you’re in front of it.”

Yavar has something to show me, he found that morning. It releases a pale notebook with age with loose paper leaves. His diary from the front front. He was carrying a ink pot with him in the war and he wrote to the diary with a fountain pen. He reads an entrance from the day Fort Duffferin fell on March 20, 1945.

“Thank goodness everything is over and I’m still alive. I can hear the noise of the bombardment that is still not too far. Maybe the Japanese weapons that shoot in the castle. I will learn tomorrow. Two hours in the morning, and I have to sleep.”

Yavar is wondering how he sits and how he found time to write when he had to get up in the middle of the morning in the middle of the war.

I ask him if he thinks he’s brave. He’s looking at me like a strange question. “Absolutely no,” he says.

And the day, May 8, 1945 – when the war ended in Europe – Yavar attracted the recent capital in Rangoon. However, it was so insignificant that he did not note in his diary. For him, very little changed.

The war against Japan was still continuing. But then, in a completely unexpected way, he dropped atomic bombs to America, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 15, 1945, the day of the VJ day marked every year.

After the war, Yavar was sent with 268 Indian Brigades as part of the British Society Occupational Forces under the general command of the US Gene Douglas McArthur. He went to Hiroshima months after the bombing.

Yavar says he sees the land and people with terrible injuries.

“There was no building, it was only one tower. Otherwise everything was flat.”

Since we first said Yavar’s bearing changes – as he remembers, he has a fear of fear.

“It still bothers me, or he says. “I couldn’t believe people could do it to each other. Hiroshima was a terrible experience.”

As Yavar hoped, the British left India. In August 1947, India was divided and two new states were born: Hindu-India, often Pakistan.

Yavar Kanlı later witnessed and his heart was broken in his decision to divide India. Two years later he came to England.

For many years, he worked as a news cameraman who traveled the world in the BBC. It would continue to be a famous independent film producer who won numerous awards.

VJ Day – not a day on August 15 – Yavar celebrated. Current events are heavy on him. Yavar’s message, one of the last survivors of the Second World War, is clear.

“War is a crime. War must be banned. I think crazy. We really failed anything.”

At that time, he says he felt that he was part of a precious thing for humanity – now he doesn’t feel it.

Wars that swallow the world for 80 years – especially in Gaza – in mind.

“We didn’t learn anything,” he says to me. “The killing of innocent men, women, children and even babies continues. And the world is watching quietly, except for some honorable exceptions …

“Everything was empty, because it’s still happening. We didn’t learn anything.”