VE DAY MINUTE BY MINUTE
From the moment Winston forgot his cigars to the saucy star who stripped nude to celebrate. Seventy years on, the untold stories of ... minute by joyful minute
Tuesday, May 8, 1945
12am GMT:
Scores of ships in Southampton Docks are sounding their horns, and a searchlight is flashing ‘V for Victory’ in Morse code. The war in Europe is over.
7am:
Excitement had been building overnight since announcements on the wireless yesterday that the Allied victory was to be celebrated today.
Two hundred Lancaster bombers are bringing 13,000 PoWs home from Europe today, but for Worthing housewife Joan Strange the day begins with the sound of her mother wrestling with the family’s moth-eaten flags that last came out for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. They are both disappointed to see that they aren’t the first in their street to hang flags out — their neighbours got there first.
8am:
In Kanchanaburi PoW camp in Thailand, British officers are listening to the news of VE Day on a secret radio. They must keep their elation to themselves, as their Japanese guards will kill them if they discover they have a radio.
In Berlin, journalist Marta Hillers hears a knock on the apartment door. It’s her neighbour Frau Wendt, who tells her that the last German defence units have collapsed. ‘We have surrendered!’ she says.
The sun is shining. Hillers will spend the day fetching water and washing her sheets. During the last fortnight she has been raped repeatedly by Russian soldiers. In the evening she writes in her diary: ‘My bed is freshly made — a much needed change after all those booted guests.’
10.55am:
A message is being received at Downing Street from Winston Churchill’s wife Clementine, who is in Moscow on a mission for the Red Cross. ‘All my thoughts are with you on this supreme day, my darling. It could not have happened without you,’ the telegram says.
Her husband is sitting up in bed at No.10 working on his victory speech. The Prime Minister earlier received assurances from the Ministry of Food that there’s enough beer in London for the celebrations.
11am:
The crew and actors at Denham Studios working on the film Brief Encounter have a day off. The cameras are needed to record the celebrations in London.
11.30am:
At the Savoy Hotel in London they have started serving a special VE Day themed lunch, including La Coup Glacée des Allies and La Citronette Joyeuse Déliverances.
Midday:
A message arrives at 10 Downing Street from President Harry S. Truman, ‘With warm affection, we hail our comrades-in-arms across the Atlantic.’ Today is the President’s 61st birthday. In a few hours he will write to his mother with news of the German surrender, ‘Isn’t that some birthday present?’
1pm:
Twenty-Three-year-old Corporal Eckart Oestmann — part of a German Army reconnaissance unit stationed in the Bavarian Alps — has spent all morning burning confidential papers so they don’t fall into the hands of the Russians. His phone with a direct link to Headquarters is ringing.
Oestmann picks it up and receives his last order of the war. ‘From now on the Hitler salute will be replaced by the former salute where the right hand touches the cap.’ Oestmann angrily throws the receiver across the room.
1.30pm:
In Norway, Captain Vidkun Quisling, the hated leader of the pro-Nazi puppet government, is giving himself up to members of the Norwegian resistance who have arrived at his home.
Quisling is assured he will be given a fair trial. ‘I know that the Norwegian people have sentenced me to death and that the easiest course for me would be to take my own life. But I want history to reach its verdict,’ he tells his visitors.
Quisling starts packing his personal belongings. In October he will be shot by firing squad having been found guilty of treason, embezzlement and murder.
2pm:
Guards officer Humphrey Lyttelton is among the crowds in front of Buckingham Palace. He left his Caterham base this morning and took a train up to London armed with his trumpet — he’s always up f or an impromptu ‘ blow’. Lyttelton plays wartime hits such as Run, Rabbit Run and We’re Going To Hang Out Our Washing On The Siegfried Line.
2.30pm:
Outside the Cabinet Room where in September 1939 Chamberlain had announced the declaration of war, a large number of typists and private secretaries are eavesdropping on Winston Churchill’s rehearsal for his broadcast to the British people.
‘What are you doing?’ they hear the PM bark at a BBC engineer.
‘They are just fixing the microphone, Sir.’ Churchill then blows his nose loudly.
For the first time since war broke out there was a weather forecast in this morning’s newspapers. Weather predictions had been something only the military had access to, as they can determine the success — or otherwise — of their ground operations or bombing raids. Today, the forecast was wrong — it was for rain this afternoon, but the temperature has already reached 75f in London.
3pm:
From the Cabinet Room, Churchill begins his speech to the nation. He announces that hostilities will officially finish at one minute past midnight tonight, and goes on to say, ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but let us not forget for a moment the toil and effort that lie ahead . . .’ When he says ‘almost the whole world was combined against the evildoers’, a crowd listening via speakers in Parliament Square gasp at the phrase.
From the White House, President Truman is addressing the American people. ‘We must work to bind up the wounds of a suffering world, to build an abiding peace.’ Then he warns, ‘Our blows will not cease until the Japanese military and naval forces lay down their arms in unconditional surrender.’
3.10pm:
At the bottom of a lift shaft in a salt mine in t he Thuringian Forest in Germany, an army radio is broadcasting Churchill’s speech. Close by, a team of Allied experts known as the Monuments Men is struggling to force a metal casket into the lift cage. In the casket are the remains of the Prussian king Frederick the Great.
Three weeks ago, the Nazis hid Frederick the Great’s body for safe-keeping in the mine along with Frederick William, the so-called ‘Soldier King’, and the body of Field Marshal Von Hindenburg and his wife. They hoped that future generations would rally around these symbols of Prussian might.
3.20pm:
His broadcast over, Winston Churchill is being driven in an open car the short distance from Downing Street to the Commons. The crowds are so large and enthusiastic that mounted police are having to clear the way.
Churchill is standing on the front seat of the car next to his detective and shaking hands with the crowd as the car inches forward. The engine isn’t running — it’s being pushed by the people all around the car.
In Heemstede, near Haarlem in the Netherlands, eight-yearold John Schwartz is having a
piano lesson at his teacher’s house when one of her neighbours bursts in: ‘the war is over’! People immedi-ately rush into the street waving orange flags. they set up tables and, using flour which has been air-dropped in the last week by Allied Forces, people start cooking pancakes and feasting.
John schwartz’s cousin, and future Hollywood star, 15-year-old Audrey Hepburn, has spent the end of the war hiding with her mother in her grandparents’ cellar. she has become very malnourished, and makes herself ill eating a whole can of condensed milk.
3.45pm:
churchill in the House of commons is reading to the chamber the speech he has just made on the BBC.
4pm:
At german industrialist oscar schindler’s factory in the sudetenland, 1,200 of his workers have assembled on the shop floor. Most of them are Jews who he has protected during the war years.
they have heard reports of churchill’s speech and can hear gunfire nearby and they know the war is almost over, but they are terrified that their ss guards will take them on a death march to escape the Allied armies.
some of the workers are discuss-ing the possibility of using a secret arms cache to attack the guards.
schindler makes a speech telling them to act with restraint and not vengeance. He reminds them how he has protected them and prom-ises to wait with them until five minutes after midnight, by which time the ss will have left the camp and the ceasefire churchill prom-ised will have come into effect.
schindler also gives instructions for everyone to be given from his stores three metres of fabric, one litre of vodka and some cigarettes.
4.45pm:
churchill is back in his car on his way to Buckingham Palace where the King wants him to look over the text of the speech he is due to make at 6 o’clock. then the Prime Minister realises that he has forgotten his cigars and tells his detective Walter thompson to go back to Downing street to get one. churchill knows it is his trademark. ‘i must put one on for them,’ he says to thompson, ‘they expect it.’
5.40pm:
Forty minutes late, churchill is on the balcony of the Ministry of Health in Whitehall. ‘this is your hour. this is your victory!’ he declares to the thousands below him. ‘one deadly foe has been cast to the ground, and awaits our judg-ment and mercy, but there is another foe who occupies large portions of the British empire — the Japanese.’ the crowd of 20,000 boo loudly.
6pm:
the King is speaking to the nation from Buckingham Palace. ‘Much hard work awaits us in the restoration of our country after the ravages of war . . .’ His words are broadcast around the world and via tannoys across London. in and around victoria station, where 100,000 people are listening, the crush is so extreme that women are fainting and are being carried over the shoulders of the crowd.
At the former Panzer training school next to Bergen-Belsen con-centration camp where 13,000 former inmates are being treated, British medical staff are listening to the King’s broadcast. British sol-diers fire anti-aircraft guns in cele-bration, while medical student Michael Hargrave is mortified as his colleagues start singing the rude song eskimo nell — while he’s sit-ting next to the Padre.
6.15pm:
Model and actress christabel Leighton-Porter is on her way to perform at the Kilburn empire in London. christabel is the model for the famous cartoon strip Jane, and tonight, in honour of ve Day, she has decided to pose on stage as a semi-nude Britannia, draped in a union Flag and wearing a helmet the fire brigade leant her.
up in salford, all trams and buses have come to a standstill. Without consulting their managers, the driv-ers and conductors have stopped work to join in the celebrations.
7.00pm:
the King and Queen appear on the red velvet- draped Buckingham Palace balcony, accom-panied by Princess Margaret and Princess elizabeth in a Women’s royal Army corps uniform. the rub-ber shortage means that balloons are scarce, so spivs on the London streets are selling condoms tied to the top of sticks. servicemen and women are buying most of them.
7.45pm:
in an American mili-tary hospital near Weimar, former British PoW RD catterall is having a dinner for two with a pretty nurse from Boston. the rest of the ward is elsewhere celebrating ve Day with a dance and dinner of roast turkey. But catterall was overcome by agoraphobia at the prospect, and so the nurse has arranged for them to have dinner alone, accompanied by a bottle of champagne. catterall wrote later that the evening was ‘very private, full of tenderness and very therapeutic.’
8pm:
the blackout over, across the country people are turning their house lights on, pulling back their curtains and standing in the street to see what it looks like. Firework parties for children who never knew Bonfire night are starting.
in oxford there is a bonfire by the Martyr’s Memorial and in the High street where students are bringing out wood from the colleges to burn — antique furniture and even a piano are thrown into the flames.
some children are eating oranges for the first time. teenager Peter Bennett is sick after eating orange peel — he had no idea that you threw that part away.
Princesses elizabeth and Marga-ret are allowed to mingle with the crowds in front of Buckingham Palace accompanied by two guards officers. ‘Poor darlings, they’ve not had any fun yet,’ the King will write later in his diary.
8.40pm:
corporal Bert ruffle of the rifle Brigade has been a POW since he was captured at Dunkirk in May 1940. He’s a prisoner in stalag iv-c, an all-British camp in the sudetenland. tonight he is with about 100 other POWS crammed into a hall in the heart of the camp.
A squaddie singer is in the middle of a song when a soldier runs onto the stage and shouts: ‘it’s over, lads. the war is finished! We are free!’ chairs go flying as all the POWS stand up and shout their heads off. A picture of Hitler on one side of the stage is torn down and a picture of george vi appears from somewhere to replace it.
two men walk on stage and unfurl a union Flag and the whole hall starts singing the national anthem. Bert and all the other men have tears running down their faces.
9pm:
The crowds in front of Buckingham Palace have spilled into green Park. Deckchairs and park benches are being passed along a human chain and being thrown into a massive bonfire.
In Berlin, 26-year- old russian intelligence agent Yelena Rzhevskaya is clinging on to a red box. Word has got out that the germans have surrendered to the Western Allies and russian troops in Berlin have started to party.
Rzhevskaya is pouring drinks with one hand, but she won’t let go of the box. she has been told that she will pay with her life if the contents are lost. the box contains Hitler’s charred jaw bone. eight days ear-lier, the Fuhrer had poisoned and shot himself in his bunker and his body had been burned by his staff.
Rzhevskaya has succeeded in tracking down the Fuhrer’s dental records in order to confirm that the jaw is Hitler’s.
9.45pm:
on the banks of
the River Elbe, Polish troops who have been given orders not to interfere with demobilised German soldiers watch as they march past, heading home. But sometimes shots ring out in the dark accompanied by a shout of ‘Za moju mat!’ (For my mother!) or ‘Za mojego otca!’ (For my father!) as the Poles take revenge. The targets are often German Army officers or SS women officers. The bodies are then pushed into the Elbe.
10pm:
In Berlin discussions between the Allied and the German delegations about the final formal unconditional surrender of German forces has come to an end. ‘I ask you, have you read the document on unconditional surrender? Are you prepared to sign it?’ Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder asks the German delegation.
Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of the Combined General Staff replies: ‘I am prepared to sign,’ and removes his right glove to adjust his monocle.
As soon as the signing is over the Western Allies start shaking hands as the Russians exchange bear hugs. Gunfire sounds out across the city and Marshal Zhukov of the Red Army starts to dance.
10.05pm:
St Paul’s Cathedral is floodlit, and behind its dome the sky glows red from the bonfires in the East End. A telegram is being sent from Downing Street to the British Chargé d’Affairs in Moscow.
Last month 16 Polish underground activists had gone missing on their way to Warsaw for a meeting with Red Army generals about the future of their country. They are now in prison in Moscow. Churchill no longer trusts Stalin. ‘We are utterly indifferent to anything the Soviets say by way of propaganda. No one here believes a single word,’ the telegram reads.
In Edinburgh the pubs are running out of beer.
10.30pm:
For 22-year-old Alfred Kantor, one of the survivors of a death march which set out from Schwarzheide concentration camp on April 18, the night is being spent in one of two open railway carriages which have been at a standstill in the German countryside for two days. Now the SS guards suddenly leave.
Kantor counts the survivors and will later record that there were 175 out of the 1,000 men who set out three weeks ago. A Red Cross truck appears and collects the weakest. Kantor is one of those who remains behind. The war is over. It feels like a dream.
11pm:
In Wakefield a hearse containing an effigy of Adolf Hitler is being pulled through the town by 50 British servicemen and women, towards a park where a bonfire is waiting.
Walking alongside the hearse are the mayor, and actors playing Winston Churchill, President Truman, General de Gaulle and Joseph Stalin (who, the local paper will note, was particularly popular with the local ladies).
When the cortege reaches the park, Hitler’s body is unceremoniously bundled out of the hearse and into the flames. This spectacular event i s being staged by the members of the Wakefield Operatic and Dramatic Society.
The Royal Family make their sixth appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, which is now lit by spotlights. In the crowd below, Humphrey Lyttleton is playing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow on the trumpet.
Midnight:
After celebrating VE Day in front of Buckingham Palace, Noël Coward is walking back to the Savoy Hotel (where he’s lived since his home was bombed in 1941) with his friend the composer Ivor Novello who has a flat nearby.
Coward writes in his diary later, ‘I suppose this is the greatest day in our history.’