The Wartime Memories Project - The Second World War

The Second World War - Day by Day is a NEW section we are currently building.

From diary entries and letters we hope to build a picture of what it was really like to live through the events of the war.

If you have any wartime diaries or letters please Click here and use the form to add them to this archive.

My father in law Leslie J. Sprigg took the above picture of the 63rd MTB Folitaa from the top of the water tower at Great Yarmouth on VE day in 1945 and as we are approaching the 60th anniversary of that date I thought it may be apt. More info about the picture (and him) can be found on his website at http://www.ml108.co.uk

Pete Cheshire

V.E. Day came when I was a driver in 123Co. R.A.S.C. Chatham. the first thought was celebration in London. Travel to London had been banned, but the idea of having to dodge M.P.s was immediately discarded. There was no problem catching a train, so off we went.

We were immediately caught up in the crowds in the streets, singing, marching, no-one was a stranger, sweets thrown down from the American Embassy, etc.

Time came when we realised we had better head for home, but how? Luckily we met a railway man who took us to the station, commandeered a train, which took us back to Chatham.

On our way back to our Maidstone Road quarters, we passed large crowds outside the Chatham Town Hall, including several sailors climbing the outside of the building.

Elma "Jock" Farquharson. (now Dostine.)

Recollections of V-E night.

Let there be light.

Some God, somewhere, said “Let there again be light.” and there was light.

Searchlights swept magic wands from side to side, parachute flares, brilliant white, floated slowly down, star shells plucked bursts of flame out of the sky, Verey lights arced red, green and orange in pale glimmers near the horizon, tracers dropped red necklaces into the cupped hands of the night. Everybody threw anything that exploded into the sky in an outpouring of joy, of relief, of hope.

It was V-E day; the killing had stopped.

I walked slowly through the disappearing dark of the small Austrian town of Klagenfurt with my pipe and my thoughts; golden druggets of light spilled across my feet as black-out curtains swept aside, shutters burst open, street lights, one in five, sputtered, flickered, then burned strong.

There was light. It was V-E day; the killing had stopped.

What had happened in the five years from a seventeen-year-young’s volunteering at Union Grounds in Johannesburg to an accelerated adult’s watching light spill across his feet in Klagenfurt, a million miles away?

I remembered colleagues who had died next to me, the horror of falling bombs, the sullen surrender of a disillusioned German soldier. I remembered the comradeship, the satisfaction as a Bailey bridge nose-cone dropped on the far bank of another river, uniting another war-split community. I thanked that anonymous God for the smashed, broken factories that had come back to life under our hands in Castellamare and Terni; for the rifle I polished, but never fired in anger; for the hundreds of mines I was able to lift without ever laying one.

For the fact that I, however minutely, had helped, to cast aside the evil dark that had shrouded Europe for so long; for the privilege of being there when the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby broadcast to the world the opening by Brigadier Davey, Chief Eighth Army Engineer, of the Springbok bridge at Pontelagoscuro that we South African engineers had thrown across the wide Po river in a record-breaking ten days.

I thanked that anonymous God that I had not been called upon to take the life of any person, nor caused injury to anyone, in all that horrible time.

It was V-E day; the killing had stopped. I could go home.

Lee Dickman - 11th Field Company South African Engineer Corps

On V.E. night I found myself on duty on HMS Caprice in Liverpool Harbour. My thoughts went back to all those we lost on the H.M.S Sirius and the tragedy of war.

Jimmy Green

Dear Everybody, The news is simply great and we are all eagerly awaiting the announcement of the end of the war in Europe. The fall of Berlin was celebrated here last week. If only the news from San Francisco were better.

Except from a letter to his family from Mr Young, British Liaison to the Free French, British East Africa Command.

I was a small boy of two when my Dad joined the army - as a gunner in the Royal Artillery, Yorks & Lancs regiment. Shortly afterwards he went to fight the Japanese in Burma (via South Africa and India) and I didn't see him again until I was seven and a half years old. He finally returned home in autumn of 1945. Memories of the war included dashing down into the coal cellar in our home in Leeds, during the air raids.

I well remember VE night. I was in tucked up and fast asleep in bed when my Mum wakened me to look out of my bedroom window. A large group of neighbours were gathered together at the bottom of our street of terrace houses, dancing, singing, shouting and celebrating. Mum amd I joined them, with me still in pyjamas and dressing gown. What seems now like just a few days later, Mum took me on the tramcar, after darkfall, into Leeds center, to see all the shop windows ... fully lit up ... the first time I'd ever seen so many lights at night time!

Mr. Terry Whitaker

My Uncle, who died recently, kept a journal. He was 18 in 1945 and worked in Newcastle as a teacher. He had applied for a deferement as he had been called up to be a Bevan Boy.

His entry reads: Tuesday 8th May 1.15 pm

V.E. Day

The war in Europe is over, Germany has unconditionally surrendered to Great Britain, Russia and America, and the allies

His Majesty the King broadcast at 9.00pm this evening and earlier at 3.0pm, the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, declared the end of the European War. People have gone mad in London and all over the kingdom there has been celebrating. In Newcastle, here, the Chronicle Office, St Thomas's Church and the Odeon Cinema were floodlit - the lantern was lit in the Cathedral & lights on the Monument. The ? cinema had coloured lights & floodlights played from the roof onto the dancing crowds below. We walked through the town after visiting relations in Wallsend - and saw all the sights.

Earlier in the day we went to the Cathedral Square to hear the Lord Mayor read the surrender (in the rain) then we went to a service in the Cathedral. And so at the end of this momentous day let us say 'Long live England!' and 'God save the King!'

Deb Spence

Showers not working - Johnny and I went to Commandant to get showers going - heated water all had hot showers - many had lived dirty possibly for months because couldn't get it to work. Just lay on grass in group of 50. Radio loud - heard Churchill say "the war would finish at midnight". 2pm 8th May 1945. Close to toilets - still had Red Cross parcels - eg. tea. Took door off toilet for fire to heat water for tea. Prisoners stripped wood off - building gone between guard walking around. Buried wood under greatcoats. Guard couldn't believe it.

Ossie Phillips, POW, Bischofhopfen.

In Memory of those who died this Day

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Wartime Memories Project - The Second World War - Day by Day

8th May 1945 - VE Day

In Memory of those who died this Day