Professor Tim Luckhurst reflects on how Britain celebrated Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) in 1945, and how British newspapers reported the celebrations.
I have fond memories of the 70th anniversary VE Day Party held on Saturday 9 May, 2015. Richard E Grant read wartime advice from the Ministry of Information. Robert Lindsay offered fine versions of two Winston Churchill speeches. VE Day itself was much less organised.
The formal surrender of all German forces was agreed at Reims on 7 May 1945. However, Marshall Keitel, chief of the German High Command, did not sign the instrument of unconditional surrender until shortly before midnight on 8 May.
Working among the crowds in central London on the evening of 7 May, reporter Guy Ramsay of the Daily Mail captured popular reaction to this delay: 'London, dead from six until nine, suddenly broke into victory life last night. Suddenly, spontaneously, deliriously. The people of London, denied VE Day officially, held their own jubilation'.
In the 8 May edition of The Times, a parliamentary correspondent explained why 8 May 1945 is recognised to this day as the official end of the war in Europe. The Prime Minister would make 'the official announcement' at 3pm'. There would be simultaneous announcements in Washington DC and Moscow. This, of course, would take time to arrange and The Times duly reported the previous evening's festivities:
Although by 9 o'clock last night the expectation of a victory declaration by the Prime Minister had been dispelled by official warnings of its postponement, civilians and service men and women thronged the road and pavements carrying flags and paper hats. Cheering demonstrators climbed the roofs of buses; the only people the crowds would make way for were lines of shouting, singing girls arm-in-arm with service men waving flags and yelling at the top of their voices.
On the evening of 7 May, London was ringed with bonfires and many public buildings were floodlit. A. J. Cummings, a writer for the mass-market liberal News Chronicle mingled with the London crowds and detected a spirit of decency and order as well as elation. He believed people were experiencing a release from years of strain rather than intense excitement.
The Guardian offered an international approach. 'Nations Rejoice at Victory' it reported. In neutral Switzerland 'Allied flags were unfurled and crowds jammed the streets of Geneva'. Meanwhile, King Gustav of Sweden had broadcast 'warmest congratulations to Denmark and Norway now that our Nordic neighbours have once again become free and independent nations'.
The Guardian paid particular attention to another neutral country, Ireland. In Dublin, it reported 'passers-by were surprised to see students at Trinity College hoisting the Union Jack and the Red Flag over the main entrance to the University'. Next, 'the students assembled at the windows and sang 'God Save the King' and 'Rule Britannia!' amidst an outburst of booing from the crowd'. Police had to be despatched to prevent a violent confrontation between the students of Protestant Unionist Trinity College and the majority Catholic republican population of the Irish capital.
Many newspapers reminded their readers that the war against Japan continued and that British, American and Chinese servicemen were being killed or wounded every day. The King would emphasise this point in his official VE Day address to the nation. George VI reminded millions of listeners that 'in the Far East, we have yet to deal with the Japanese, a determined and cruel foe. To this we shall turn with utmost resolve and all our resources'.
The atomic bombs that would end the campaign against Japan were unheard of. It would be months before their appalling power was revealed. In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that British servicemen, fully expecting to be transferred from Europe to the Far East, sought entertainment. The immensely popular Daily Mirror offered it.
The Mirror celebrated Victory in Europe with a banner headline declaring: 'Public Holiday Today and Tomorrow - Official!'. However, it tempered triumph with realism reporting that 'In a final burst of fiendishness, S.S. troops in Prague were firing the last shots of the war on helpless Czech civilians'. But candour about the brutality of the war was not the Mirror's speciality.
This was demotic humour, often in the form of cartoon beauty Jane who cartoonist Norman Pett depicted in a daily cartoon strip as a beautiful girl-about-town. She became a potent symbol of British cheerfulness, described by Winston Churchill as the country's secret weapon.
On VE Day Jane appeared in uniform holding a glass of champagne and the hammer and sickle flag of the USSR - a nod towards Mirror readers' admiration for the Red Army. A male friend stands in the doorway. Jane declares 'Victory at Last, Smiler, I shall soon be out of my uniform now'. She is immediately mobbed by British squaddies demanding 'a souvenir' of their favourite pin-up girl. Jane emerges naked except for a discreetly draped Union Jack. The punch line: 'You've said it Jane - You've been demobbed already'. Wartime humour did not conform to modern concerns about stereotypes.
- How the University is marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
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