The Burma Star Association Standard to continue to be carried with pride

Greater Manchester Army Cadets, Rochdale Detachment with John Rodgers and May Rodgers and the Burma Star Standard

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The Burma Star Association was officially founded on the 26 February 1951 with 2000 founder members. The rules of the Association were drawn up by Lord Louis Mountbatten and Field Marshal Lord Slim. A branch of the association, Oldham, Rochdale and District, was set up several years later by veterans of the Far East Campaign.

The broad aims of the Association are to promote the comradeship experienced in the bitter fighting in the jungles of Burma, and also to set up a welfare organisation so that members and widows in need can be given poverty assistance in times of ill-health or other debilitating circumstances.

In August 2007 the number had dwindled to six as the old soldiers passed away. The last secretary of the branch associatio, John Rodgers Snr, along with the other five remaining veterans at that time, decided the Burma Star Standard, a symbol carried proudly by members during Remembrance Sunday services for over half-a-century, should be given to the Fusiliers Association (Rochdale) Branch in order to keep the smybol of one of the most vital campaigns of World War Two preserved for the future.

The Fusiliers Association (Rochdale) Branch has carried the Standard for over seven years. It has now been decided to pass this honour over to the Army Cadets.

Mr Rodgers' son, also called John, is vice-chairman of the Rochdale Branch of the Fusilier Association. At the 70th Anniversary of the Victory over Japan Commemorative Service John Rodgers remembered his late father as he carried the standard and passed it over to Cadet LCpl Nataniel Tomasik at a moving ceremony held at Middleton Memorial Gardens.

The Standard will be kept by the Fusiliers Association but will be brought out each Remembrance Day and passed to the Rochdale Army Cadets.

John Rodgers said after the ceremony that he felt proud that the Rochdale Army Cadets were now going to take over the responsibility of carrying the Burma Star Association Standard on Remembrance Parade each year.

SSI Debbie Callaghan, Rochdale Detachment Commander, said: "On behalf of Greater Manchester Army Cadets, Rochdale Detachment, I feel very honoured to have been asked for the Army Cadets of Rochdale to carry the Burma Star Standard on Remembrance Parades. The cadets will carry the standard with pride with the expectation that the memory of the Burma Star Campaign will remain alive forever.”

The ceremony was also watched by the late Mr Rodgers widow, May Rodgers, and daughter Hilary.