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Author: Christiana Gregoriou, Professor in English Language and Stylistics, University of Leeds
Original article: https://theconversation.com/my-cypriot-grandfather-was-one-of-millions-of-foreign-servicemen-who-fought-for-britain-now-im-telling-their-stories-252697
The second world war veteran community is far more ethnically diverse than many people realise, with over 3 million foreign servicemen serving with the British armed forces during the conflict.
Second world war memoirs are vital records of how these servicemen remembered the war. They offer insights into their relationship to trauma and resilience and their search for meaning in life.
May 8 2025 is the 80th anniversary of VE Day. As we mark it, it’s important that we celebrate this ethnic diversity and highlight how much this community’s memoirs can teach us about the joy of making sense and finding lessons, however challenging life may be.
My research into second world war memoirs uses original archival materials including the memoir of my grandfather, Cypriot sergeant Phylactis Aristokleous (British Army). He was a prisoner of war (PoW) and one of the thousands of colonised Cypriots who volunteered to serve in the army’s Cyprus regiment at the time.
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My colleague George Rodosthenous is currently adapting my granndfather’s memoir into a theatrical monologue. It will form the basis of a lecture-performance which will tour Yorkshire heritage sites in May as part of a week commemorating VE Day. All are welcome to attend.
Though his story is one of deprivation and difficulty, Aristokleous’ war experience was also one he took huge pride in. He believed his time had been beneficial and felt a strong need to share his story with others.
Memoirists are narrators of the history they bore witness to. Though their stories appear to be individual and personal, they are in constant dialogue with their readers, and with each other, informed by experience that is rich, historic and detailed.
The stories in these memoirs are part of a web of experiences shared with and influenced by others. Read collectively, a culturally dominant story emerges of survival and determination.
The war experience
My grandfather believed that serving in the allied forces and writing about his experiences in his memoir shaped the rest of his life. He claimed that his war experiences determined his outlook and prepared him for the life he led after service. All the while, he was aware that his time had also split his sense of self into parts – some of which he left “behind”.
Even though this positivity might well be more of a feature of his character rather than the war experience itself, it is nevertheless telling. Aristokleous selected many individual incidents to write about, and my analysis of his memoir focuses on them. He acknowledged that only some of them were incidents he had witnessed firsthand, the rest were stories that others had shared with him.
The authenticity of the stories he shared tended to be driven by his belief that collectively, and in the war specifically, groups of people from the same nations behaved in the same sort of way.
In one instance, for example, he accepted the authenticity of a story about Australians being courageous only on the basis of him witnessing a random Australian being courageous at a different point in time entirely. The story concerned two Australians who – after killing a German guard – shot each other so they would not be arrested. He believed this story because of an incident he witnessed himself – an Australian PoW who avenged the killing of an innocent British PoW by killing the German guard responsible, only to then be killed himself.
Even though my grandfather’s stories were compellingly told and retold over the course of several decades, writing them down helped him organise and conceptualise them into a narrative life-story. In so doing, he added unlikely connections between incidents across his life and PoW journey. He made sense of incidents that happened at one point in place and time by linking them to another place and time entirely.
In one chapter, for example, he talked about winning bread in a raffle, a moment he linked back to having previously asked God for forgiveness for having given a hungry British sergeant dry biscuits that were not his to give away. He deemed his winning a response to prayer.
He also drew on analogies for the prisoner experience found in the natural world, which speaks to his dehumanisation during that time. There’s the story of a prisoner’s pet-crow, Jack, for example, who hid cheese the PoWs gave him in the snow for when he needed it. From this, he suggested that the PoWs needed to do the same themselves. These connections helped him to construct sense and rationale around what he went through, and even find closure and catharsis.
Analysis of his many anecdotes also reveals a tendency to dissociate, by using “we” instead of “I”, for instance. He also distanced himself from what was happening by using direct quotes from others in mostly foreign languages. This lends his stories an air of authenticity.
The memoir also uses proverbs specific to his Greek Cypriot culture. This enabled him to find another purpose to his stories – to turn them into life lessons for others, particularly his own children and grandchildren.
An enduring legacy
Most of the second world war veteran community is no longer with us. But their experience in the form of memoirs is, and so is the enduring legacy they left behind.
The most cynical of us may argue that life is chaotic, futile and devoid of meaning, but what these memoirs, and my grandfather, may teach us is that we can craft ourselves a narrative to help make sense of it.
Perhaps most importantly, this multicultural veteran community serves as a powerful reminder that, despite the global conflict they endured, it was through diverse nations uniting across ethnic lines, that they were able to defend their freedom, lives and livelihoods from those who sought to destroy them.
Christiana Gregoriou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.