- GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.co.uk
Men and women who lived through World War Two share their stories of VE Day to mark the 75th anniversary
TOMORROW, 700 men and women who lived through World War Two should have been in London for a free weekend provided by the Royal British Legion to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
Instead of proudly taking part in a parade down the Mall, they will all be at home, many of them in isolation because of Covid-19.
Some of the 700 have shared their VE Day stories with The Sun and we have pieced together that historic day through their eyes.
At 11am tomorrow they, like millions up and down the country, will stand on their doorsteps for the two-minute silence to remember family and friends who were not able to see the end of conflict in 1945.
Then at 11.15am they will log on to the British Legion’s VE Day livestream tribute to the war generation.
- See rbl.org.uk/veday75 – and #VEDay75 and #VEDay75Live on social media during the livestream
03:00
ON board British Navy anti-submarine sloop HMS Crake in the Pacific Ocean, Able Seaman Ken Benbow listens as the ship’s Tannoy announces victory in Europe after five years of war.
But the Crake is steaming rapidly towards the Japanese-held island of Okinawa, where the Americans are locked in a deadly battle with an enemy that refuses to surrender.
Torpedo man Ken, 93, from Preston, says: “All of us on board were relieved for our comrades in Europe and our families at home.
“But as the news reached us, we were heading towards an enemy who we had been told would fight to their last man.
“The Japanese had sworn to their emperor that they would battle to the death over every bit of land.
“No one was looking forward to it. VE Day seemed a long way off to us.”
At that moment US forces on Okinawa cease fire. For a moment there is silence. Then they launch a massive salvo at the Japanese.
US army radio operators tune in to every Japanese frequency and announce that the volley “is in celebration of Victory in Europe”.
05:30
OUTSIDE Exeter, Lilian Cook and a group of pals from 142 Regiment Auxiliary Territorial Service have been given weekend passes and are heading towards London in a lorry.
Suddenly, the driver announces the war is over.
Jubilant Lilian, 18, tells him: “Hurry up and drive faster. I can’t wait to get there.”
07:00
AT RAF Scampton, Lincs, ground crew from 153 Squadron are loading six tons of food in the bomb bay of a Lancaster.
Only a month before, the squadron had lost nine Lancasters and seven crewmen on raids over Germany. Now they are dropping food to starving Dutch people.
In the crew room, wireless operator Flt Sgt Aneurin Owen learns they are the only plane allowed to divert over London on the way to Holland.
07:28
MERCHANT seaman Bill Bennett, 18, steps ashore from HMS Grampian, a converted trawler docked in Folkestone, Kent, after crossing the Channel from Cherbourg overnight. He is unaware VE Day is finally here.
Bill, now 93, from Kidderminster, Worcs, says: “There was a lot of excitement and noise in the harbour.
“We asked someone what all the fuss was about and were told Jerry had surrendered, the war in Europe was over and it was VE Day. We couldn’t believe it.
“It was like a pressure cooker that had the lid taken off. People had been so scared for so long, they’d sent their kids off to the country, they’d lost loved ones, kids had come home to bombed-out streets.
“Suddenly all that fear was lifted, we were safe again. It was over.”
Bill had worked on Operation Pluto (Pipe Lines Under The Ocean) which pumped petrol from the UK to France to fuel the invasion.
Almost a year before, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Bill had landed on Gold Beach without a weapon for protection.
Drinking all day in a harbour-side pub on VE Day, he remembers the noise and the dead bodies he’d seen floating in the water.
09:00
IN his Lancaster above St Paul’s Cathedral, “Taff” Owen looks down to see people dragging tables and chairs into the bombed-out streets ready for a massive party.
Their plane is filmed over Trafalgar Square by a cameraman for a Pathe newsreel that will be shown in cinemas all over Britain now the war is over.
Taff, 96, from Dolgellau, Gwynedd, says: “I’ll never forget the feeling of flying above London on that day.
“There was so much bomb damage and destruction after the battering the capital had taken but people were waving and cheering as we flew over.
“We knew the second we saw it all that none of us on that plane would forget that flight as long as we lived.”
Later they will fly at 300ft over the racecourse in the Dutch capital, dropping food supplies as people wave from their windows and balconies.
After their relief mission, the crew will rest at RAF Scampton rather than join the celebrations.
Taff remembers: “We were exhausted. There had been rumours for days the Germans were going to sign the ceasefire but we’d been dropping food to Rotterdam and the Hague, all with German guns trained on us as we flew.
“I remember going for a long walk on VE Day, I played table tennis with our rear gunner, we had a few beers in the mess but it took days for it to sink in and properly celebrate.”
Shining light
AFTER celebrating in London, anti-aircraft gunner William Edmonds crashes out on the roof of an air raid shelter.
People are sleeping everywhere and it is the only spot he can find. When he wakes, it is still dark.
“In the distance, St Paul’s was bathed in floodlights,” he recalls.
“It is one of my most cherished memories – it was so moving and uplifting.
“For so long we had been forced to spend nights in darkness so the enemy did not find their targets.
“Suddenly, as if the veil had finally been lifted, the area was brilliantly lit. It was wonderful.”
10:15
PRIME Minister Winston Churchill, sitting up in bed at No10 Downing Street working on his victory speech, receives the news he has been awaiting from the Ministry of Food — there will be enough beer in London for the celebrations.
10:45
GRACE CROSSLEY, nine, her sister Rene, 13, and their mum clamber on to a bus in Islington, North London, heading for St Paul’s.
Grace, 84, says: “My mother was a good woman. The morning it was announced, Mum told me and my sister that we were going to church.
“Mum said, ‘The war’s over and we’re all still here. We need to say thank you’.” And that was that.
“She was a tailoress and had made us both yellow dresses.
“I remember Rene couldn’t find the belt for her dress so Mum gave her mine and I wore a red, white and blue ribbon round my waist instead.”
12:00
FOR the first time since the war began, the weather forecast can be published. And it is wrong.
The day is sunny and in the 70s (Fahrenheit) at noon.
A message arrives at 10 Downing Street from US President Harry S Truman.
It reads: “With warm affection, we hail our comrades in arms across the Atlantic.” It is the President’s 61st birthday.
15:00
AFTER lunching with the King, Winston Churchill addresses the nation.
He announces that hostilities will officially finish at one minute past midnight tonight and says: “We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but let us not forget for a moment the toil and effort that lie ahead.”
At a munitions factory in Birmingham, Betty Morris, 19, stops work at the furnace to listen, then downs tools and goes out partying.
Betty, now 94, says: “I partied all day, dancing, drinking and enjoying the atmosphere. Everyone was so happy and jubilant.
“People lit bonfires in the town centre and danced around them. It was marvellous.
“But by the time I got home, it was pretty late, I’d had a few drinks and my parents were waiting up for me wondering where I had been.”
Betty’s late-night celebrations ruin a surprise planned by her fiancé, soldier John Morris, 19.
She says: “The minute I got in, I clocked a jacket on the chair and realised that John had come home on leave early to surprise me that day.
“He’d waited all day until he got fed up and went to bed. He forgave me the next day though and we went out to celebrate together.”
The couple would marry the following year.
15:15
AFTER church, Grace and Rene join a street party outside their house in Islington, North London.
Grace remembers: “There was dancing and singing, so much excitement. People brought out chairs and tables.
“When the street party finished, Mum took us up West and we got a bus to Pall Mall.
“Rene and I were beside ourselves, we’d never been into town at night. It was getting dark but there was such a celebratory atmosphere.”
While Grace celebrated in Pall Mall, her older sister Lilian celebrates with friends in Trafalgar Square.
Lilian, 94, says: “There were people everywhere and you had to just move with the crowd.
“I remember people dancing in the fountains but it seemed too cold to do that. There was such relief on everyone’s faces. We’d been through so much as a country, six years of war.
“Everyone had lost someone or knew someone who had. The bombings had ruined a lot of London. Finally we were free from all that.”
15:20
CHURCHILL is driven in an open car from Downing Street to the House of Commons, where he will read the statement he made on the radio.
The crowds are so large, mounted police have to clear the way. The engine isn’t running, the car is being pushed by the people surrounding it.
15:25
IN Leicester, 16-month-old Brenda Hargrave is bounced on a neighbour’s knee while her mum Doris takes a picture of the street party on Saffron Lane, Aylestone Park.
Brenda, 76, says: “My mum and dad Stan said it was a day they’d never forget.
“My parents loved to party and they always said VE Day was the best of parties. The war had ended and the sun was shining.
“The singing and dancing lasted until after midnight.
“The photograph Mum took became a cherished memory of one of the happiest days of their lives.”
15:45
PC John McHugh takes colour cine film of a lively party in Fleming Street, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
Among those captured in the terraced row — decked in flags and with tables groaning with food — is 13-year-old Edna Bousfield.
Her grandson, Dean Felton, 38, a machine operator, says: “The pictures brought memories flooding back of sitting with Granny and listening to her talking about the war and that VE Day party, which she recalled with joy.
“She was a staunch royalist and she and my grandad Norman liked to holiday in Germany.
“I am not sure why but they loved the country.”
16:00
IN Wismar, on the Baltic coast of Germany, paratrooper medic Fred Duffield is surrounded by refugees fleeing from the advancing Russian troops.
Fred, 94, from Leek, Staffs, says: “Unfortunately we were in a dry town without any beer or wine but the Germans that had surrendered and retreated left their horses behind.
“There were loads of them, so we decided to stage an impromptu gymkhana of sorts.
“We had races round the field we were in, it was a lot of fun.”
With Fred’s sergeant as bookie and using German money, the horse meet goes on well into the night.
Fred says: “We built a huge bonfire with timber we found at a nearby railway, piled it all up and doused it with petrol.
“Then the colonel galloped down on one of the horses with a lit torch and set the whole thing up.
“It startled his horse though and he just kept galloping away from us — he’s probably still galloping now.”
Fred, who was demobbed in 1947, says: “The country I came back to was a very different one to the one I’d left. For a start, more girls smiled at me, which was nice.”
18:30
IN Milan, Italy, Auxiliary Territorial Service girl Barbara Hurman, 19, is trapped in a hotel on her way to Naples by military police who refuse to let her out to join partying in the streets.
D-Day veteran Barbara, 94, from Aylesbury, Bucks, says: “It wasn’t until years later I realised they’d probably kept us inside because they thought the soldiers might go a bit barmy celebrating.”
19:00
THE King and Queen appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth wearing her uniform.
Because of the rubber shortage, balloons are scarce, so wheeler-dealer spivs are selling condoms tied to the tops of sticks.
“Servicemen and women are buying most of them.
Among the huge crowd outside the palace is Lilian Cook, who finally arrives from Exeter.
Lilian, 93, from Bristol, recalls: “I was in my uniform like Princess Elizabeth and that made me feel especially proud.
“I was so excited I threw my hat into the air, only it got stuck on a lamppost.
“Thankfully, a lovely young sailor standing next to me came to my rescue and climbed up to retrieve it for me and afterwards we all went on a pub crawl.
“There was so much dancing and singing, everyone was so happy, the atmosphere was incredible.”
21:00
THE King’s speech from Buckingham Palace is broadcast around the world and via Tannoys across London.
At Victoria Station, where 100,000 people are listening, women faint in the crush.
21:15
AS bonfires are lit all over Britain, in Schneverdingen, Germany, RAF Sergeant Bernard Morgan puts the top-secret telegram he had received 36 hours earlier announcing the war is over into his top pocket.
It would be 75 years before the telegram would be in public again.
MOST READ IN UK NEWS
Bernard, from Crewe, says: “Myself and the other code-breakers usually kept to ourselves because we were all sworn to secrecy but that day everyone celebrated together.
“A huge bonfire was lit, wine and spirits appeared from somewhere, and the men quickly organised a concert where everyone sang songs that had sustained us all through the war.
“It was a night I’ll never forget.”