In West London, Remembering Red Square: War Then and Now
This latest post is an extract from a piece I wrote for The New European about a memorial near my home in west London to people killed in a missile strike during the Second World War, on my memories of watching military parades on Red Square, and how those events relate to the war in Ukraine.
IN SPRINGTIME, THE VIVID PINK blossom on the trees that line its pavements, neatly as rows of soldiers, transforms Staveley Road. This street in suburban west London is near where I live. It is somewhere where I walk from time to time, especially after watching the news.
I go to look at a small black monument, its squat shape and dark colour in contrast to the seasonal elegance of the blossom. It was here that the first V2 rocket – an early form of ballistic missile – hit the UK in September 1944. The Second World War had entered its final months, and Hitler’s forces, probably knowing their cause was doomed, were still determined to strike London.
Far to the east, across a continent crushed by conflict, the armies of the Soviet Union were advancing. In May the following year, they raised the red flag in Berlin. Victory there was the Soviet Union’s greatest feat of arms, and one which is celebrated annually with ever greater fervour in a Russia led by Vladimir Putin. This year, Putin called a ceasefire in Ukraine, and invited president Xi to attend the parades in Moscow.
You can read the full article here.
