TODAY is the 53rd anniversary of VE-Day. The day that marked the end of the war in Europe. On this day in 1945 Winston Churchill told thousands of British people "This is your victory." He was right. It was the ordinary people of Britain, men and women alike, who had pulled together in a magnificent war effort and weathered the long road to VE-Day. The BEN has been speaking to some of Bolton's unsung heroes who helped rid Europe of Hitler's tyranny. BILL Woodward was just 15 when his war began - but the memory is as clear in his mind as if it was yesterday.

Now, Bill - secretary of the Bolton branch of the Royal Naval Association - joined the Navy in 1937.

He was in the thick of the action and suffered his fair share of injuries during a war service which took in the North African campaign, Zeebrugge and the Normandy landings.

He was trained as a sonar detector and is proud of the part he played in detecting the presence of enemy submarines.

Today Bill, a Bolton man for the past 28 years, will remember those shipmates who never made it home.

"Death was a common everyday fact during the war," he said, "but you can't forget people."

One incident is etched on his memory: "I set off one day with a mate. We were sent to collect water in these five gallon drums.

"That's all I remember about it. I came to in hospital. I never saw the fella again. He had been blown to pieces." Some of his worst moments were at Zeebrugge.

"We were under fire round the clock. The bombing and the shelling went on 24 hours a day, everyday. It frightened the life out of you," he said.

"With people dying all around you it was always on your mind. Imagine lying awake on a boat at night, you can't sleep and you're that tired you don't know what to do with yourself.

"But we just took things in our stride. You didn't join the Navy for a cruise in those days," he added.

There were six showers between 200 men and living conditions were rough. They slept in hammocks or on tables, anywhere they could find because the ships were so crowded.

Bill lost two brothers in the Second World War. Killed within six months of each other in 1941 and 1942 it was 1943 before Bill found out.

"You could wait nine months or more before you got a letter," he explained. Some of us have only the history books and cinema to conjure up images of what it must have been like. But Bill doesn't like "Yankee" war films. "They're nothing like it really was. Soldiers aren't brave you see, it's all about fear. We were just doing a job," he said.

So what did it all mean to him then?

He said simply: "I was fighting for a piece of land where I lived." JIM Pendlebury, of Astley Bridge, is Chairman of the Bolton and District Ex-Servicemen and Women's and the Burma Star Association.

He served in the Far East with Bolton's 6th Loyal Battalion. He was just 18 when he joined up in 1942.

Although VE-Day marks the end of the war in Europe, victory over Japan didn't come until August 15 (VJ-Day) and Jim was fighting in the jungle until then.

His thoughts today are with "the fellas who didn't come back."

"There were good times and bad times," he reflects, "but it was tough out in the Jungle. You slept on a rota basis with your mate beside you. It was two hours on and two hours off. We looked out for one another while the other one slept.

"We didn't do too badly for food though, because there were airdrops. But at times we lived off 'hard tack', bully beef and biscuits.

"Most of the time we were busy keeping our heads down because we were under fire from the Japs. You never knew what was round the corner," he recalls.

And were you frightened?

"Everybody was frightened,"he said, "but we wouldn't admit it."

Some of his most enduring memories are of the horrible sights he saw in the two years after the war. He spent this time "fetching home prisoners of war from all the world."

Three days after VJ-Day Jim helped release prisoners from Changi Jail in Singapore.

There were all nationalities, he said including English, Scots, Australians, New Zealanders and some Americans. And he will never forget the sight of emaciated men, some with horrific wounds and missing limbs.

"Yes, I saw some terrible sights," he said.

Jim said all the armed forces had a bad time, wherever they were.

"Someone had to do it so we did it."

And the worst part of the war?

"The killing. You didn't see who you had killed but you knew you had killed somebody."

It's hard to imagine how it must have felt, but according to Jim: "You had no feeling at the time. You were just doing a job that had to be done. If you hadn't killed them, they'd have killed you."

The war claimed thousands of lives but Jim believes that the training he and his fellow servicemen received saved many lives in action.

"We were taught well, and in the field you do as you're told without question."

There are some things he won't talk about. Things that are better left unsaid or that he'd rather forget.

We can only imagine what it was like in the war-torn jungles of the Far East where the fighting lingered on for months. But Jim has put the horrors behind him. He says thoughtfully: "It was just one of those things."

But today is a time to remember. Vital role played by the Royal Navy minesweepers PETER Woods, of Market Street, Farnworth, was a volunteer who joined the Royal Navy in 1945, aged 16.

One of three generations of 'minesweepers', including his father and his son, he spoke of this vital role that not only made British waters safe in the war years but in the aftermath of VE-Day celebrations.

He earned just three shillings a week serving on the HMS Foudroyant at Portsmouth. The ship went minesweeping round the British Isles, Northern Ireland and off the Dutch coast.

"The minesweepers had flat bottoms. They did everything but roll over in rough weather," he said, "and living conditions were atrocious."

Living quarters were on board the HMS Implacable which was "absolutely riddled with cockroaches which would drop from the cracks in the oak beams onto your food."

"We held cockroach races at least three times a week," he added.

Today Peter will be thinking about friends and relatives he lost to the war.

"I think a lot about the people that went and never came home," he said.

His father, Wilfrid, served in the First World War sweeping mines. By coincidence, Peter's eldest son Peter John, aged 42, had the same task following the more recent conflicts in the Falklands and The Gulf. Peter himself caught the tail end of the war joining up in 1945. But the dignity and pride he exudes is typical of these ex-military war veterans who have seen and done so much without question and without objection.

They endured the hardship and many made the ultimate sacrifice. On this special Friday, we remember them all - for they gave us peace.

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