Victory

Victory in Europe or VE Day on 8^th May 1945 was a huge public celebration to mark Germany’s surrender and the end of World War 2 in Europe.

 

“The mission of the Allied Forces was fulfilled at 02.041, local time May 7^th 1945.” 

This message was sent by ATS Sergeant Susan Hibbert from a schoolhouse in Rheims, France; the temporary HQ for the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower.  The German General Alfred Jodl had signed the Act of Military Surrender, with representatives of all the Allies present.

Later, on 8^th May, there was a formal ceremony in Berlin with Marshal Zhukov of the USSR also receiving a signed Act of Military Surrender from the Germans.

The Act contained the clause:    

“All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European Time on May 8^th 1945.”

The war in Europe was now over - on 8^th May in the US and Western Europe (VE Day) and on 9^th May (Victory Day) according to Moscow time.

 

Facing inevitable defeat by the Allies, Adolph Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker below Berlin on 30^th April.

German forces in northern Italy began to surrender on 2^nd May (Mussolini had been captured and killed by Italian partisans on 27^th April) and on 4^th May Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (‘Monty’) received the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Holland, north-west Germany and Denmark.

52^nd Recce had been involved in the successful assault on the city of Bremen on 27^th April. Their war was at last now over.

 

VE Day must have been very bitter sweet for Chotie.  She was ill and she had to stay on in the Army (which she hated by now) while wives, whose husbands had survived, were released to welcome them home.

 

Nothing ever is ‘the last post’, of course.  Life goes on with the memory of those we’ve lost and it is up to us to

"keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more” (Tolkien).

 

A reading from Chotie and Dick’s last letters is to be included in the VE Day 70 Concert at Horseguard’s Parade, London on the evening of 9^th May.