Xiong Shouming. [Photo by Huo Yan / China Daily]

"Many of them had frostbite on their feet. My job was to amputate in the worst cases," he said. "I can't forget one 8-year-old boy whose mother had typhoid. He begged us for the medicine to treat her, but all he could do in the end was pray by her side until she passed away." The retired doctor, who worked at a public hospital in Nanning after the war, said he was happy to take part in the parade because "the Chinese people no longer need to drift from place to place, homeless and miserable".

Xiong Shouming, 99, a flat-fire gunner in Myanmar and Guangxi in 1944, who was also traveling on the train, said he was proud, too, and felt lucky to have survived the conflict.

"My scars are the best military medals. No one can take them away," added Qiu Bingji, 96, a former artilleryman, who was shot twice, in his buttock and foot, while fighting in Yunnan province in 1944.