Twelve years of unspeakable inhumanity initially in Germany and later across much of Eastern Europe but involving people from the whole continent stopped.
Millions of lives lost, many taken brutally.
You see it was the closest guarded secret that my Headmaster, John Smith had been one of its pilots although on the face of it we should of guessed as much by his age, the fact more or less any non essential males in work were called up for service and many returned and were retrained as teachers.
That man did not just run a small school well, laying on lessons many others did not but his strong emphasis on moral conduct, discipline within the unit coupled with humanity going beyond what he had to do to help if needed, setting the standards.
He took us as boys and made a unit of us with bonds that last even until this day, he fought the well intentioned cotton wool some put around me getting me to do everything, learn to be resilient and darn well made a man out of me.
He was a God to us and why?
Cos he had that grit, spirit and determination to overcome difficulties, to give your all, to go down trying rather than giving up his generation needed AND he passed it on.
The reason he didn't let on about exactly what he did was simple: He took no glory from that conflict and did not want us to form the view it was in any way glamourous or desirable that men should fight and kill others. He believed in peace and co-operation but had to defend our country from invasion.
In an era were WW2 was still around us on tv, on film, in our comics and play even, he didn't want us to get the 'wrong' message from knowing all he'd done.
We should be glad of what he and others did defending our country, liberating much of Europe, not least the Germans who too suffered under Hitler and the Nazis, paying our respects. We also shouldn't forget his sentiments which were shared by many returnees.
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