Sorry ‘’muir’’, didn’t mean to sound peevish. As a point of fact though the war was not quite ‘’winding down’’ in 1945. Not really until the end of April anyway. The first three and a half months of ‘45 saw the Royal Army having quite a fight against the remnants of the German Army as it retreated back through Holland and into northern Germany. The young man at 18 or 19 would have seen plenty of combat.
Well, to stay on point, if the fellow had served, the story probably would have identified him as an 85 year-old veteran rather than an 85 year-old pensioner. All of our surmising is just that.