Much has been made over the years about how Bulldog Britain stood alone in the defence of freedom in the early part of WW2 following the fall of France and the retreat from Dunkirk.

But the truth is that we did not.

We still had many allies. Some had sizeable official armed forces stationed here, others operated in the occupied territories as clandestine units and some served as part of British units. Even some individuals from neutral (and in some cases Axis) countries came to our aid. Those often made long and perilous journeys to do that. We ought to be remembering them all.

The list of our Allies included:-

• Australia
• Belgium
• Canada
• Czechoslavia
• Denmark
• France
• Greece
• Holland
• India
• Kenya
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Nepal
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Poland
• South Africa
• USSR
• Yugoslavia

In addition many other countries declared war against the Axis forces, and while these could not spare any part of their own armed services to fight abroad, they did deny their ports to the enemy. These included:-

• Bolivia
• Costa Rica
• Cuba
• Dominican Republic
• Ethiopia
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Iraq
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Salvador

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941 and America was forced into the war China was already fighting the Japanese and so also became an ally.

I strongly suspect that I will look in vain for any of those flags waving proudly anywhere in Britain during these celebrations. And that will come as no surprise to people from those countries either. After the massive and heroic contribution by the Poles who fought from these shores the first ‘Poles Go Home’ graffiti appeared in our towns and cities the very morning after the VE Day celebrations.

Those messages had been written during the night when everyone was celebrating happily together.

A shamefully ungrateful response from our nation.