VE-DAY, 75 YEARS ON:
Sian Burkitt revisits the memories and diaries of those who lived through one of the most momentous, longed-for days in history
TODAY marks 75 years since victory in Europe was declared at the end of the Second World War.
People across Wales are being encouraged to commemorate the historic day by showing their support for veterans and the sacrifices made by the people of Wales during the war, which raged from 1939 until 1945.
A flyover by the RAF will start at 10.10am above the government buildings and Senedd in Cardiff Bay.
At 11am, at the Welsh Government buildings in Cathays Park, First Minister Mark Drakeford and other officials will observe a two-minute silence in remembrance of the fallen servicemen and women from World War II.
Everyone is encouraged to take part in this act of sombre remembrance of all those who lost their lives in the most devastating conflict in history, which cost the lives of more than 20 million military personnel and at least 40 million civilians. Winston Churchill’s famous speech from VE Day in 1945 will be broadcast on the BBC at 2.45pm, followed by a nationwide toast at 3pm. People are being asked to raise a glass to thank “those who gave so much”.
Residents across Wales and the rest of the UK are planning socially distanced street parties, observing the current lockdown rules, carrying on the renewed sense of community found during the coronavirus pandemic.
Katherine Jenkins will give a concert at an empty Royal Albert Hall on the venue’s official YouTube channel at 6pm today. The event will last for half an hour and Ms Jenkins will sing some wartime favourites.
This evening, at 9pm, Vera Lynn’s famous wartime song We’ll Meet Again will be sung in a national sing-a-long echoed across the nation.
It will be the first time in the Royal Albert Hall’s 150-year history that a performance has been given in an empty auditorium behind closed doors.
Leading up to the anniversary, the First Minister and Deputy Minister Hannah Blythyn have spoken to men and women aged between 94 and 103 who survived events such as the D-Day landings, plane crashes and torpedo attacks at sea during World War II.
Mr Drakeford spoke to Gordon Prime, an army veteran from Pembroke Dock who received the Légion d’honneur medal for his heroism as a motorcycle dispatch rider.
Mr Prime began D-Day in June 1944 at Pegasus Bridge at the heart of the Normandy landings and was still serving when Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945.
He is currently writing a book about his life and experience of World War II and the D-Day landings to pass on to his family.
Asked via a video call about his memories from the time, Mr Prime said: “I was still in Germany then of course, on VE Day. We had a few hairy moments. We had to go and that was it, we had a job to do.”
Another of the veterans, Alan Higgins, 96, from Bridgend, said: “I joined the Royal Navy in September 1939 aged 15, where I started as a boy telegraphist.
“My first assigned ship was the HMS Edinburgh, which partook in the Malta and Russian Convoys. One convoy involved transporting five tons of Russian gold to Britain as payment for armaments supplied by the USA and the UK. At around 4pm there was a terrific explosion and blinding flash caused by three torpedoes from a German U-Boat. Fighting continued for three days before the Edinburgh sank with a loss of 67 men.
“Survivors were taken to Russia, where we stayed for five months, eating little more than black bread and watery soup.”
Mr Higgins would later take part in the D-Day landings on Sword Beach, where he gave medical aid to the wounded and “even had to cut off an injured soldier’s leg”.
ON MAY 7, 1945, a sense of anticipation hung in the air. People across Wales knew the war was coming to an end, it was now just a matter of waiting.
A week earlier, on April 30, Adolf Hitler had killed himself. With their leader dead and with Allied forces closing in on Berlin, it was only a matter of time before Nazi Germany surrendered.
That moment came on May 7, when Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces to the Allies.
As people across Wales sat tuned into the radio on the evening of the seventh, the BBC’s regular broadcast was interrupted.
The following message echoed throughout homes across Britain: “Germany has signed an unconditional surrender, bringing to an end six years of war in Europe, according to reports from France.
“This evening the Ministry of Information has confirmed that an official statement declaring the end of the war will be made simultaneously in London, Washington and Moscow tomorrow.”
The day after was declared a national holiday to mark Victory in Europe Day – VE Day.
Wales could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Communities across the country had been struggling for six gruelling years, with loved ones away fighting, strict rationing and facing enemy bombing raids.
Cities in Wales were hit particularly hard. Three nights of bombing in Swansea alone in February 1941 cost 240 lives, and in Cardiff more than 150 people were killed in one night on January 2, 1941.
Judy Tucker, was 11 when the war ended. Judy and her family lived in Princes Street, Roath, an area of Cardiff
that had been hit hard by bombing raids.
“I went to Marlborough Road School and we were bombed, so then we went to Roath Park School. We would have craters in the road and bombs dropping, and sometimes our windows would be blown out by the blasts,” said Mrs Tucker.
She added: “My school friend was killed, Mavis Rees. She lived close to Marlborough Road School in one of the several houses that were bombed one night.”
Like so many others across the country, visits to the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden became commonplace for Cardiff families.
Mrs Tucker described her experiences: “We had an Anderson shelter in the garden. In the night, if it had been raining, we would pass the trellis and there was honeysuckle on it, and I can still remember that smell. When you went into the shelter, down a few steps, there were bunks on either side, and between them was the tiniest little oil lamp you could imagine, no bigger than a small onion. And that was the only light we had.”
She added: “Whenever I’ve heard thunder over the years, it’s reminded me of the whistling of bombs before they dropped.”
Just as vividly as she remembers her experiences during the air raids, Mrs Tucker also has vivid memories of the moment the war ended for her family.
She said: “On VE Day I was batting a ball against a red brick wall on the corner of Princes Street and Connaught Road. My mother came out of our house and went into the telephone box to phone Cunard, the shipping company, to know if my brother had docked in London after having been on his first trip with the Merchant Navy.
“She came out of the phone box, radiant, and she said, ‘He’s coming home tonight!’ That was wonderful news.”
Mrs Tucker’s 20-year-old brother, Norman Patterson, arrived home in Roath later that night, bringing presents for his mum and younger sister.
After months of worrying about their son and brother, the Patterson family could rest easy.
Speaking in 2015, the late former First Minister Rhodri Morgan also recollected hearing the news of the end of the war: “I was at home listening to the six o’clock news on the BBC radio service when it was announced. I can’t remember the day specifically but I noticed a change in my parents...
“I had never seen my parents smile or joke and it was on VE Day I saw them relax for the first time.”
It was also a day of joy for Dorothy Chamberlain. It was her 12th birthday, but she didn’t mind that being eclipsed by the VE Day celebrations.
Today, as she celebrates her 87th birthday with family at home in Whitchurch, Cardiff, she vividly remembers every part of the historic day.
“I can remember being very excited because it meant that we would get a good night’s sleep,” remembers Dorothy. “When the siren would sound at night, my mother had to get four children up and across the road to the bunker on the other side of the Philog, where we lived.”
Mrs Chamberlain’s father was an air raid warden and she can remember worrying about him, especially after the night he was blown through the door of a building when a bomb dropped.
“It was a difficult time, but everyone pulled together, we survived and VE Day was such a happy time.
“I can remember all the tables being laid out with food on the Philog at the bottom of Violet Place, and all my friends being there. It was a sunny day and I was sitting with all my family. There was music being played on someone’s gramophone and it went on until it was dark. There was a Mr Perriam, who did a lot of the organising, and it was a lovely day for everyone.”
The head teacher of Radnor Road school in Canton, Cardiff, wrote in the school’s logbook on May 7: “At 3pm today, the wonderful news that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally was received by wireless. At 4pm a service of thanksgiving was held in the corridor.”
If people hadn’t heard the news on the wireless the day before, they couldn’t miss it the following day.
“TODAY IS VE DAY: The second Great War has ended after 2,094 days – 526 more than World War One,” read the headline of that day’s Western Mail.”
It continued: “The war in Europe is ended and today – Tuesday, May 8, 1945 – is VE Day, the day for which millions of people throughout the free world have been fighting, working – and waiting.”
Schools across Wales and the rest of
the UK closed on May 8. For two days, schoolchildren were to stay out of the classroom and were permitted to celebrate instead.
The head teacher of Cwrt Sart school in Briton Ferry stated in their logbook: “School closed for this day and following day, VE Day and VE+1 Day, to celebrate the cessation of hostilities in Western Europe. School assembled at almost full strength at 9:30am to attend a short service in the assembly hall conducted by the headteacher. Mr PL Griffiths, the senior assistant, read the roll of ex-pupils serving in the forces and Miss G Lord was at the piano.”
Across Wales, street parties broke out, with communities pulling together everything they could get their hands on to make it a day to remember.
“As soon as the women had time and collected the food, there were street parties,” said Mrs Tucker. “I remember one near to St Mark’s Church that we went to, and one in our street.”
She described the excitement of the event: “There was jelly and blancmange for sure, and whatever cake they could get their hands on. There would’ve also been bunting and flags.”
At last, for people across Wales, life could start to go slowly back to normal.
“I remember the night the street lights came on again,” said Mrs Tucker.
“We went down onto Newport Road and we stood there and at 9pm the street lights came back on. It was wonderful, because we’d gone around with torches for six years.”
Even after the celebrations had officially drawn to a close, the jubilation would not just disappear.
Mrs Tucker explained that, in Roath, street parties were taking place some days after VE Day itself, as the community frantically searched for the food and supplies needed while dealing with the restrictions brought about by rationing.
A logbook entry from Ninian Park School in Cardiff, dated May 10, stated: “Just under 50% of the school assembled at 9am. Hall was decorated, and service of thanksgiving held. School closed for day at 10.30am.”
Away from the street parties and thanksgiving services, soldiers also experienced jubilation at the news. Stationed across Wales, members of the forces felt the wave of celebration ripple through their ranks.
Maldwyn Mills, born and raised in Cardiff, experienced the war both as a civilian and later as a soldier in the Far East, before going on to a distinguished academic career at Aberystwyth University in later life.
The late Professor Mills was conscripted into the British Army in November 1944. He had witnessed many of the Luftwaffe’s bombing raids on his home city during the Blitz, before being posted to India and Singapore as part of his service.
Prof Mills shared his experience of the war with the West Wales Veterens Archive in August 2019, before passing away in November.
On VE Day Mr Mills was stationed in Brecon, undertaking basic training. Describing the jubilant scenes in camp on the morning of May 8, he said: “We were woken up by the joyful setting off of smoke bombs all over the camp. In our Nissen hut, which was close to the parade ground, two lively lads had found some smoke mortars and the whole hut was smothered in green smoke. There was a row over the mess.”
Despite the celebration, the war was not over for Prof Mills. Like so many others, he was posted to the Far East to see out the remainder of the war.
Victory in Japan Day, or VJ Day, wouldn’t come for another three months. When it did arrive on August 15, 1945, the global conflict which had seen more than 60 million deaths was finally over.
Looking back at her experiences during the war, Mrs Tucker said: “It gave me tremendous resources for the rest of my life. Things like being economical, being grateful, believing in God.”
Like many in the UK, Mrs Tucker is also spending today commemorating VE Day.
“We’re having a socially distanced sing-song. I live on the second floor overlooking the patio and the gardens, and a man will be there playing the piano. We’re going to have 16 songs from the war, starting with Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again,” she said.
Along with Mrs Tucker, millions of people across Wales and the rest of the UK will be commemorating and celebrating the end of the war, and coming together – social distancing maintained – with neighbours.
Although this year will be unlike any other VE Day celebration we’ve seen before, with people joining in from the distance of their doorsteps, windows and gardens, the sense of community and togetherness will undoubtedly remain unchanged.
Mrs Chamberlain said her daughter, Ruth, is going to make some scones to share from a safe distance with neighbours.
“It will be very different to when I was 12, but we will make the most of it,” said Mrs Chamberlain.
THE end of World War II in Europe was always going to be a cause for celebration.
After more than five years of warfare and the heartache that came with it, the people of Cardiff and the Valleys grabbed the chance to party in style.
As the nation celebrates the 75th anniversary of VE Day, we revisit some of the street parties, parades and festivities held in and around Cardiff to celebrate our victory in Europe.
Out came the party hats and bunting, while long tables laden with sweet treats for the children were the centrepiece of street parties up and down South Wales.
The festivities were balanced out with a more formal victory parade which marched past the City Hall.