From Conflict to Peace: Celebrating VE and VJ Day - museum launches new exhibition featuring stories of Oxfordshire soldiers

Titled From Conflict to Peace: Celebrating VE and VJ Day, the exhibition will be open to visitors from Tuesday, April 1, until Tuesday, November 18.

It will feature the celebrations that were held across the county at the end of the war and accounts of soldiers from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire who served in the army in 1945.

Included are photographs of crowds dancing in the streets of Oxford, a large bonfire with an effigy of Hitler in St Clements, and thanksgiving services at Christ Church Cathedral.

Alongside the celebrations, it will include harrowing stories of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry regiment, which served alongside the Royal Artillery in Singapore.

After Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942, the regiment was taken as prisoners of war and held in terrible conditions for over three years.

The 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regiment is famed for their role in capturing the Caen Canal and Orne river bridges on D-Day.

The regiment also took part in Operation Varsity on 24 March 1945, which was the largest single-day airborne operation in history and played a part in the Allied forces crossing the Rhine into Germany.

The new exhibition focuses on personal accounts of the people who were there, both soldiers and civilians and will be supported by a programme of themed events at the museum.

One of these events is a free talk by Dr Myfanwy Lloyd on the liberation of Bergen-Belsen on Saturday, April 12, ahead of the 80th anniversary.

Another talk will take place on April 17, by academic Anthony Glees who will discuss the occupation of the island of Alderney during the war, and the Nazi war crimes there that went unpunished.

To celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, the museum will welcome Lt. Col. Mike Tickner to talk about the Savage Wars of Peace.

This talk will provide insight into the situation in eastern Asia following VJ Day and the Japanese surrender and looks at how Gurkha, Indian and British troops became responsible for restoring colonial rule in the region.

For more information, visit: https://www.sofo.org.uk/