This VE day, meet August Agbola O'Browne, the Nigerian, Polish war hero you've never heard of

O’Browne miraculously survived through to the end of the war. He was among the barely six per cent of Warsaw’s pre-war citizenry to remain on VE Day, writes Nicholas Boston

(PA)

On this 75th commemoration of VE Day it is simultaneously difficult and easy to talk about heroism, always a troubling concept. All around us global leaders and the media are deploying war metaphors and lifting heroes aloft – scientists, doctors and nurses, front line workers – in response to the global pandemic. Indeed, by current sentiment, we’re all heroes, just by recognising one another’s humanness. And keeping a distance from it.

Several groups of WW2 veterans and their supporters are continuing campaigns for more robust public recognition of their contributions to the allied victory. Veterans of Caribbean origin are raising funds to install a memorial in honour of their service at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Polish veterans, were it not for the cancellation of this year’s London VE Day Parade, would have marched in the celebrations, a correction to a longstanding slight.

Another group of over 10,000 African servicemen, 50 per cent of whom were enlisted from Nigeria, and who served in battle against Japanese forces in Burma, are rarely even mentioned.