15 Replies to “We’ll Meet Again”

  2. Will there ever be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover again?
    Vera’s story is worth hearing again, as I recently heard it in her own voice.
    She was the music to accompany Winston’s heroic effrontery.
    God bless and remember what is best. Hey, bring it back, even.
    I am game. How about it? Had enough?

  3. Hard to think of the roll she played in today’s terms. But she did it. Bolstering soldiers morel. Chin up.

    Good on ya Vera Lynn.

  5. I finally got a chance to see her in Ottawa in the 80’s I think and altho’ I knew how much the veterans adored her, I was still surprised at the rapport as she came out on stage…it was palpable. I was glad to be there to experience it myself.
    To volunteer to go to Burma as she did to bring cheer to the boys who had been fighting the longest in the worst conditions was truly heroic in my books. The Daily Mail has a great set of photos tonight.

    ‘She sang until her make-up was running in dark furrows down her cheeks, until her dress was wet with sweat, until her voice had become a croak. She was the only star we ever saw in the jungle.’

    Lance Corporal Lindsay wrote from Burma to his sister in London: ‘We went mad. Never have I yelled, bellowed, hollered or clapped so much before . . . we gave her an ovation, all right. She couldn’t sing for ten minutes and she cried, too.

    ‘Broken hand or not, I made it clap . . . I saw blokes crying with joy at seeing our own Vera.’

    In Heaven as word went out that their Vera was coming, I’m sure they all rushed to the gate to welcome her with tears of joy in their eyes. I see Winston and King George VI standing back a bit waiting their turn. What a trio that was. And I was there; gives me goosebumps thinking of those days.

    1. Lovely woman, lovely story. She was a true English Rose.
      Thank you for sharing that Gellen.

      (See my post below @ 1:25 am with photos.)

  6. “We’ll Meet Again”. What a great song from a great time of unity against those trying to bring down civilization.
    Do we have a song? Or unity?

  8. Reading the various tributes to Vera I came across this article about her tour of Burma in 1944.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/vera-lynn-death-burma-world-war-2-troops-japan-india-memoir-a9572766.html

    My Dad was in Burma from early ‘44 til being demobbed in late ‘45, early ‘46 (Dad never much cared for the hoopla over VE Day anniversaries…”My war didn’t bloody end that day“). It took fifty years and a heart attack for my Dad to tell me, through the pre-op discussion with the anesthesiologist, that he suffered a lung injury due to being shot through the chest by a Jap sniper.
    I wonder if Dad saw Vera perform when she was there. Like most, Dad never mentioned the war (hat tip, Basil Fawlty!), and as he’ll have been gone five years next Christmas, I may never find out.
    Of course, til we meet again….

  11. Wow. My first reaction was to tell someone but they’re mostly dead (I’m not that old). An end of a generation. RIP.

    1. Yep. As terrible as the world wars were it reminds me of a time when national pride and kinship with your fellow man existed.

      RIP Vera. Very cool to be reminded of someone who did so much to bring her country together.

  13. Many years ago at the death of my grandfather, I was left the chore of sorting through his things. Tucked in an easily accessible but hidden spot I came across an old fashioned tape and the machine to play it. The only song on the tape with this one. It was obvious the song was really important to my grandfather and he would sometimes take it out and play it for some nostalgic reason. The batteries were fresh as if he had replaced them not too recently. I asked my grandmother about it and she got very upset and told me to leave it be. She refused to discuss it anymore. My grandparents were married in 1938 and their first child was born in 1939 so I don’t think it was about her. My grandfather did not serve overseas because he had a heart condition but he was in the military. He trained fresh recruits right up until the end of the war. Whoever the song was about to him, the secret went to his grave. The sound humanized my grandfather to me because he was the image of rigid adherence to what was moral and upright, uncompromising in his principals and yet this song was so important to him that he has a special machine and tape just so he could hear it once in a while.

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