TT must honour its war dead, says Gaylord Kelshall

The 60th VE Day commemoration is an international celebration held every ten years to remember the end of World War II against Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945.

It is also held to honour those allied military personnel and civilians, of which TT (Trinidad and Tobago) was a part of, who contributed to defeating Germany during World War II.

Kelshall said there is a monument at the museum with the names of 54 Trinidadians who flew aircraft during World War II who never came home.

A military simulation of a World War II battle was done by members of the TT Defence Force and Coast Guard. President George Maxwell Richards and National Security Minister Martin Joseph also attended the solemn ceremony.

"There were 250 of them and 54 of them lie in foreign fields. They flew the great Lancasters, they flew the immortal Spitfires, they flew the Typhoons, they flew the Mustangs, they even flew gliders. In fact, there were nearly 30,000 people from this country in uniform in World War II and we don’t know that. We do not honour them and this is what troubles me most of all Kelshall said."

He asked passionately why is it that this country cannot remember its dead. He then used the example of the now defunct national railway.

"Let’s for a moment forget World War II and let’s think of the railway. But where is it? It’s gone, the railway is gone, the railway track is gone, the railway rolling stock is gone, the engines are gone and believe it or not, the photographs are gone! We (the museum) have managed to find six of them, six photographs of a railway that ran for a hundred years. If they could do that to the railway, then I understand why they do that to these people," Kelshall said.

He said TT’s citizens have to learn that honouring the war dead and remembering them is what developed countries do.

"We talk about Vision 2020, we talk about becoming a developed country, but if we don’t do that, then we won’t attain it. That’s what they do in developed countries," Kelshall said. President Richards said while the country does not know of military combat in the conventional sense, it is nevertheless fighting a different type of warfare against the drug trade.