VE Day, 1945
All of New Zealand knew victory in Europe had come but, as Tom Hunt reports, celebrations had to wait.
The wedding cake was two-tiered that day at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Wellington. Jean Kemp wore a trained gown of white satin; its body cut with a deep, heart-shaped neckline. Miniature arum lilies held the veil in place.
Despite the stunning dress and the wonderful cake, the wedding between Jean Kemp and Major Geoffrey Rees Mather that day in Wellington would go down as a curious sidenote to history.
That was because May 9, 1945 – 72 years ago this coming week – was the day New Zealand finally got to celebrate the beginning of the end of World War II.
The day would go down in history as Victory in Europe – or VE – Day.
The actual victory, when Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, had come a day earlier at a school house in Reims, northeast France, at 2.41am Greenwich mean time.
Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower was not at the signing but met the Germans afterwards, and the new chief of staff, Colonel-General Gustav Jodl, asked permission to speak.
‘‘With this signature the German people and armed forces are, for better or for worse, delivered into the victors’ hands,’’ he said.
‘‘In a war which lasted more than five years, both the German people and armed forces have suffered more, perhaps, than any other people in the world.’’
Jodl, who would later be executed for war crimes, seemingly forgot the Jewish people on that historic French pre-dawn.
News of the victory came as no surprise in New Zealand, where newspapers had already warned VE Day was imminent, even as the war against Japan continued in the Pacific.
And despite newspapers reporting VE Day had finally come on May 8 (New Zealand time), Acting
Prime Minister Walter Nash insisted that VE Day celebrations would have to wait a day because he wanted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to deliver the news first. Even if it was already known by all.
‘‘I will announce that the New Zealand National VE Day ceremony at which the Governor-General will speak will be held in Wellington at 12 noon this day [May 9],’’ he told mayors and other community leaders.
‘‘Your own local ceremony should therefore not be held earlier than one hour later.
‘‘Bells and sirens should be sounded at 7am [on May 9] and flags and bunting flown and displayed that day and Thursday.’’
On that day – incidentally the same day news reached New Zealand that British bombs were raining down on Miyako in Japan – the country’s population took to the streets.
On the same day that Jean Kemp – with her bridesmaids in powder-blue frocks – was marrying Major Geoffrey Rees Mather – outfit not mentioned – in the capital, Governor-General Cyril Newall was a stone’s throw away at Parliament making a long-awaited announcement.
The war in Europe was officially over. ‘‘The spontaneous exuberance of the huge crowds massed in Lambton Quay and on the sloping grounds of Parliament House was tempered, by the realisation that thousands of New Zealand homes had suffered irreparable loss, and that many of those servicemen who had returned and would return had sacrificed their youth and health for the country,’’ The Evening Post newspaper reported.
The fact that trams stopped running at midday did nothing to halt the crowds flocking into central Wellington.
‘‘The problem of getting home could take care of itself and, in the meantime, they were going to go with the crowd.’’
In Christchurch, people thronged into the city, The Press reported.
‘‘For many ... the occasion demanded high carnival in the gaily decorated and illuminated streets.
‘‘The city was thronged throughout the day in spite of the cold and threatening weather.
‘‘Bands and impromptu community singing, sirens, and peals of bells added to the noise of jubilation.’’
New Zealand was on two days of holidays when news came through that leading Nazi Hermann Goering had been captured in Austria. Adolf Hitler had taken his own life in his Berlin bunker only days before.
Goering ‘‘put on a new grey uniform and all his medals’’ to pose for photographs, it was reported.
‘‘The first thing he asked for was dinner.’’
Back in New Zealand, the joy of military victory was tainted somewhat.
According to NZhistory.govt.nz, there were 58,000 New Zealanders still serving overseas when the war ended. And there was, of course, still the war in Japan.
A newspaper roll of honour, listing the war wounded, on May 10 named 22 New Zealanders. But beneath that were 33 names under the heading: ‘‘Previously reported prisoners of war – now safe.’’