Key role slowly emerges from fog of war

Just as Russia's key role in the war against Nazi Germany has become accepted after years of Anglo-US bias over who did what, so China's role in defeating Japan is becoming clearer and more widely accepted as the facts become known.

My generation - I was born in 1947 - feasted on tales of the clipped upper-class tones of British young men filling the air waves as they flew their Spitfires and Hurricanes against the German hordes of bombers in the Battle of Britain; for US nationals the diet was of US Marines involved in blood-curdling fights against fanatical Japanese soldiers, backed by kamikaze pilots, in remote south Pacific island chains previously unheard of.

China and Russia's roles were obscured, partly because of the Cold War in the case of Russia and partly because of political upheaval in China that followed 1949.