Queen Elizabeth’s death reminder of fading WWII generation: ‘Time is moving relentlessly’

The death of Queen Elizabeth II is a reminder of the broader truth that Britain is bidding farewell to the men and women who fought the country’s battles during World War II.

The long good-bye for Queen Elizabeth II is a reminder of a broader truth playing out with little fanfare across Britain: The nation is bidding farewell to the men and women who fought the country’s battles during World War II.

The queen, who served as a mechanic and truck driver in the last months of the war, was a tangible link to the sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines and others who signed up to do their bit in a conflict that killed 384,000 service personnel and 70,000 British civilians.

But like the queen, even the youngest veterans of the war are now nearing their 100th birthdays, and a steady stream of obituaries tells the story of a disappearing generation.

“It’s extraordinary how that sense of the passing of time is felt very keenly at the moment,″ said Charles Byrne, director general of the Royal British Legion, the nation’s largest armed services charity.

“The queen was a personification of that generation … and with her passing, it just drives home the sense that time is moving relentlessly, as it does.”

That loss is, perhaps, felt more widely in the United Kingdom than a country like the United States, because the U.K.’s very existence was threatened during the war. Bombs fell on cities from London to Belfast, women were conscripted into war work and wartime rationing didn’t end until 1954.

Elizabeth, who famously saved ration coupons to make her wedding dress in 1947, led a ceremony of remembrance for all the nation’s fallen service personnel each year on the anniversary of the end of World War I.

“She is the epitome of that sense of service and stoic contribution,″ Byrne said. “And that is treasured more than ever.”