It was the day when peace broke out across Europe, when a war-weary country threw off the shackles of fear on their great day of redemption.
As King George VI took to the airwaves on May 8, 1945, to declare Victory in Europe, his electrifying words sparked happy bedlam across the streets of Britain as people burst into spontaneous sing-songs and partied long into the night knowing the dark shadow of Nazism was lifted.
Yet, while those back home danced in fountains with newfound abandon, many on the frontline barely had time for a beer.
Others preferred the solace of a quiet corner to contemplate the loss of comrades as they braced for the prospect of a final, gruelling push in the Far East against a defiant Japan.
Now, as the 80th anniversary of VE Day approaches and we prepare to remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we could live as free people in a world of free nations, the Scottish Daily Mail delves into the memories of that now-dwindling wartime generation to present some deeply personal reflections on that momentous day of days.
THE SIGNALMAN
JOHN Mitchell, of the Royal Signals, recalls the moment he learned the war in Europe was over: ‘I was out in a small wireless truck with three men somewhere in Germany.
I don’t remember where exactly,’ said Mr Mitchell, of Darvel, Ayrshire, who is now 100.
‘We were sent to places where they needed communications set up and we were doing our job when we turned on the radio and listened as they reported Hitler’s death and the end of war in Europe. And that was it.’
He found himself in a strange limbo: ‘At the time, the day didn’t really mean anything to us. We were too far away from barracks or anywhere you could congregate as a unit.
And you were not allowed to fraternise with the Germans, so we couldn’t have gone into a pub even if there had been one nearby.’
John Mitchell, 100, was in a radio truck in Germany when he learned the war was over
Mr Mitchell during his time in the Royal Signals during the 1940s
For Mr Mitchell, who took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944, there was at least relief at the news. Like many who took part in Operation Overlord, he has done his best over the intervening decades to ‘eradicate’ some of the worst memories of the conflict from his mind.
After landing on Juno Beach on the night of D-Day plus one, he became separated from the rest of his unit and after being ordered to wait until morning before advancing, he witnessed a truck being blown up by a mine.
‘The Canadian driver drove forward a couple of yards and hit a mine. The truck was destroyed. There are some incidents that you do not forget,’ he said. ‘There was a certain amount of relief that the war was done.’
Soon posted back home, he felt detached from the holiday mood in the country: ‘We were being kitted out for a tour of duty in Burma until they dropped the Atom bomb on Japan.’
Astonishingly, although hostilities were at an end, his unit’s commanding officers took them out on parade and read them the Riot Act. ‘Although there was no discontent, I think they were afraid people were keen to go home right away to see loved ones and they needed to keep us in our place,’ he said.
Mr Mitchell, who remained in the Army until 1947 and later received the French Legion D’Honneur, will be at a VE Day garden party in Darvel, near his home in Ayrshire.
Earlier in the week, he will be among guests at the VE Day 80 reception and concert in honour of veterans at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. He said: ‘There are so few veterans left now. It is a time for us to look back and remember our friends.’
THE MUNITIONS FACTORY GIRL
NANCY Bennett was a month shy of her 15th birthday when war broke out across Europe on September 1, 1939.
Born Nancy McBride, she grew up far from the frontline with four sisters at her parents’ farm at Overton Cottage near Dreghorn in Ayrshire.
Yet even here the threat of attack by enemy forces was ever-present. She remembers soldiers billeted near the farm, and her father donning his special constable’s hat during air raids and the deadly drone of Luftwaffe planes flying overhead.
In 1942, 18-year-old Nancy went to work as a secretary at ICI’s heavily guarded Ardeer munitions factory near the Ayrshire coastal town of Irvine.
100-year-old Nancy Bennett worked at the Ardeer munitions factory in Irvine, Ayrshire, during the war
Mrs Bennett was on holiday on the Isle of Arran when victory over Germany was announced
The UK’s first dynamite factory, its 2,000-acre site had grown during wartime to become the largest manufacturer of explosives in the world, employing 13,000 workers at its peak.
Security was tight with perimeter guards, barrage balloons and sea defences: ‘You had to go through a police gate and if you had matches or a lighter or anything flammable, they had to be handed in,’ said Mrs Bennett, now aged 100.
A stray spark from a cigarette would have been disastrous, but other dangers lurked in the skies above. ‘The Germans attempted to bomb it. Once they dropped three bombs, but all three missed their target – otherwise, there would have been a lot blown up,’ she said.
When VE Day was announced, Nancy’s family were on holiday at Lamlash on Arran: ‘We heard it on the radio news. And the Navy had some ships in the bay and I remember the cacophony of their hooters going off in celebration and the sailors came ashore and we celebrated with them as they had a dance and drink. They were glad to come ashore for a while.’
Such joyful memories are tinged with sadness.
‘It made me think of my schoolfriends from Kilmarnock Academy who went off to war and never came home’, she said.
In June 1949, she married former merchant seaman Jack Bennett, whose family ran a licensed grocers in Irvine. ‘Jack was in the thick of the war. On one occasion, his ship was next to another one that was blown up,’ she said.
‘Another time, he had to swim between two ships during a blackout when they needed supplies, but nobody warned the gunners on the other ship that he was coming so they started shooting at him and he had to dive underwater to avoid the bullets from his own side.’ In 1961, the couple moved into the house in Irvine where Mrs Bennett still lives and where they raised their two daughters, Kay and Isabelle.
This year, she said she will observe VE Day ‘quietly at home’ with her memories and ‘no fuss’.
THE BOMBER PILOT
HAVING flown on some of the most hair-raising bombing raids across wartime Europe, RAF pilot Harry Richardson was 5,000 miles away on active service in India while Britain – including his wife – celebrated VE Day.
For Captain Richardson and the rest of 159 Squadron, however, there was only brief respite from their mission fighting the Japanese by destroying ports and transport lines in south-east Asia in their Liberator-class bombers.
RAF pilot Harry Richardson, now aged 107, flew numerous bombing raids during the Second World War
Mr Richardson flew Wellington & Liberator bombers during the conflict
‘We had a few pints in the mess when the news came through on the radio – probably more than a few actually. Even the commanding officers joined in – after all, they were still normal guys,’ said Mr Richardson, now a remarkable 107 years old.
‘It was quite a relief, but we still had a job to do, although we thought once Europe was finished the rest would follow pretty quickly.’
Among those carried away by the national euphoria was his wife, Margaret, who travelled to central London from the family home in Wembley to party in Trafalgar Square.
She was accompanied by Mr Richardson’s two brothers, Stan and Ken, who had recently been repatriated from German PoW camps.
‘My wife told me later she had a lovely time with my two brothers,’ laughed Mr Richardson. Now one of the last surviving Second World War bomber pilots, Mr Richardson completed 62 dangerous wartime missions when he was expected to carry out only 30.
His record is all the more impressive considering the grim 46 per cent death rate among aircrew in Bomber Command. In one close shave in 1942, he cheated death when he and his six crew came under heavy fire from German anti-aircraft guns while flying over the Hague at 8,000ft.
He escaped by corkscrewing down to just a few feet above the rooftops to fly under the searchlights ‘all the while keeping an eye out for steeples’.
Their ordeal continued when a flak ship opened up as they reached the North Sea.
‘One shell exploded inside our cabin, putting holes through the navigator’s seat, table and one of his maps, and through the hydraulic tank, which we sealed with chewing gum. We lost a door but we landed safely,’ he said.
Mr Richardson left the RAF with the rank of Flight Lieutenant and a chest full of medals for outstanding bravery, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, before going on to a long career as an air traffic controller at Prestwick airport.
On Thursday, Mr Richardson will travel to London from his home in Ochiltree, Ayrshire, as a VIP guest at the VE Day 80 commemorations at Westminster Abbey and the concert televised live from Horse Guards Parade.
‘This year’s celebrations feel special. There’s so few of us left and I want to remember the other lads, the ones who can’t be there.’
THE RAF HAIRDRESSER
RENEE MacLean joined the RAF in 1942 as soon as women were allowed to enlist.
She wanted to be a driver, but when the force found out she was a qualified hairdresser, she was ordered to pick up her scissors and cut and style the new intake of female recruits.
‘I was annoyed because I liked the idea of driving the officers around,’ said Mrs MacLean, 103.
Renee MacLean wanted to be a driver for the RAF but was ordered to cut and style the hair of female recruits
Mrs MacLean, pictured here during her time in the RAF in 1942, is now 103 years old
Posted to Jerusalem, she found that even a humble hairdresser could not escape the horror of war. ‘One of my officers was a very wealthy American whose husband had returned from three years in Burma. So I did her hair and she always give me half a crown, which was a lot of money in those days,’ she said.
‘She used to joke that she’d adopt me and I would go back home with her.’ That day, the American’s husband came to pick her up in a taxi and as she left ‘she waved to me and smiled’.
That weekend, Mrs MacLean was serving as duty corporal in the guardroom when two policemen arrived with grave news.
‘They said the American couple had gone to church on the Sunday morning and the building had suffered a direct hit and they were both killed,’ she said.
‘They told me I needed to come and identify her. ‘I had never seen a dead body in my life, but I went and the sheet comes off and I said, “Yes, that’s her”. It was
very sad.’
Originally from Cardigan in Wales, she had already met her future husband, Neil MacLean, from Glasgow, who served with 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, and was an uncle of comedian Sir Billy Connolly. ‘I’ve met Billy a few times, although I must say he never made me laugh,’ said Mrs MacLean firmly.
VE Day was already two days old by the time the news filtered through to Jerusalem: ‘So, we were still working away when somebody said, “The war’s finished”, and I said, “Does that mean we don’t have to do guard duty any more?”’
Rather than undiluted joy, there was only muted relief. ‘People could see the war was still going on in Japan and we were more worried about that than what was happening in Europe,’ she said. ‘A lot of the men thought they would have to go to Japan rather than be demobbed.
But by the time they were trained up and due to ship out to southeast Asia, it was all over. The bomb had gone off and Japan surrendered.’
After the MacLeans married they settled in Glasgow, in the same home where Mrs MacLean still lives, and had two sons – both of whom became Wing Commanders in the RAF – and a daughter.
Mrs MacLean, who expects to attend the VE Day 80 Service of Thanksgiving at Glasgow Cathedral on Thursday, said: ‘We may not have celebrated much then, but it is important not to forget.’
THE NAVY VETERAN
A YEAR before VE Day, Albert Lamond was a fresh-faced 18-year-old Naval signalman on board the frigate HMS Rowley as the battle for the Normandy beaches raged about him on June 6, 1944.
The horrors that he witnessed have lived with him ever since.
‘D-Day is very difficult to talk about,’ he said. ‘We could see all the men trying to get ashore, not knowing what was waiting for them. All we could do was watch, hoping to defend as many of them as we possibly could. We understood the importance of what we were doing and why we had to do it. But it didn’t make it any better.’
Albert Lamond, 99, was a signalman on board the frigate HMS Rowley during D-Day on June 6 1944
Mr Lamond, right, was also a veteran of naval battles in the Atlantic and the Arctic convoys
A veteran of Atlantic sea battles and the Arctic convoys, by May 1945 Mr Lamond had already been despatched to the South Pacific on HMS Bonaventure and was fighting the Japanese forces when VE Day was declared.
His nephew Martin Lamond said his uncle, who is now 99 and in poor health, was unable to dwell on news of the Nazi capitulation. ‘He was mainly involved in precarious close-quarter sabotage of enemy ships. VE day, although welcome news for the crew, wasn’t something they got time to celebrate on board,’ he said.
‘In fact, it brought Albert potentially even greater danger than the enormous danger he had already faced in Europe.’ Due to the Japanese refusal to surrender, Mr Lamond’s ship was dispatched to invade Japan within the American Sixth Fleet – the only British vessel to take part in this mission.
‘The first atomic bomb, however, allowed the fleet to turn back before they reached Japanese waters. VJ day therefore has more resonance with Albert than VE day does,’ said his nephew. Even then, Albert Lamond’s work was not finished as his ship was used to evacuate people from territories occupied by Japan.
Awarded many medals for his service, Mr Lamond, who married his late wife Margaret in 1950, left the Navy and spent 40 years as a train driver.
He now lives at the Erskine Home, set within Erskine’s Veterans’ Village in Renfrewshire, which is hosting a street party on Thursday. Mr Lamond, who hopes to attend, said recently: ‘It’s vital we teach future generations the true cost of freedom and ensure they never forget the horrors we faced. It’s our duty to keep the past alive, so history does not repeat its darkest days.’
