'We're getting thin on the ground': Captain Sir Tom Moore interviews a fellow Japan war survivor on VJ Day

NHS fundraising hero Captain Sir Tom Moore has sat down with a fellow Second World War veteran to discuss their experience of the conflict.

Sir Tom and Peter Heppell, both 100, fought against imperial Japan in southeast Asia. Japan's defeat, 75 years ago today, marked the official end of the war.

“To say it was unpleasant is an understatement, but I don’t think any of us make a great fuss about it," Sir Tom said during the conversation broadcast by the BBC on Saturday.

"It was unpleasant but we were there, and both of us have come back, and that’s something in our favour.”

Mr Heppell, who volunteered for the Chindits - special operations units for the British and Indian armies in Burma - was wounded during the brutal campaign in the jungle. At one point he was reported missing in action.

To make matters worse, the fellow centenarian said he contracted malaria before he even began the fighting, and ended the campaign in a hospital in India.

"All the other officers agreed that was a good place to go because that would give them a good chance to meet a lot of English girls as nurses," Sir Tom said of hospitals during the war.

“All the friends that I had, because you’re with people so long, you become a team, you’re mates, you really are. You’re friends whatever rank you are. You are all friends in the same battle.”

Mr Heppell, who revealed he "lost very good friends" in Burma, responded: "At least they were doing, as it were, a grand job, and they were appreciated and remembered."

Sir Tom said: "It's a great pleasure to meet you because we are getting thin on the ground - the people who were there - so we've got to stick together, what few of us are left."

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