The Summer of '45

Stories and Voices from VE Day to VJ Day

Kevin Telfer

• Publisher: Aurum
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781781314357
• eBook ISBN: 9781781314746
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern British History
• Index: History

On 8 May 1945 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally announced to waiting crowds that the Allies had accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and that the war in Europe was over. For the next two days, people around the world celebrated. But the "slow outbreak of peace" that gradually dawned across the world in the summer of 1945 was fraught with difficulties and violence. 

Beginning with the signing of the German surrender to the Western Allies in Reims on 7 May, The Summer of '45 is a 'people's history' which gathers voices from all levels of society and from all corners of the globe to explore four months that would dictate the order of the world for decades to come. 

Quoting from generals, world statesmen, infantrymen, prisoners of war, journalists, civilians and neutral onlookers, this book presents the memories of the men and women who danced alongside Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret outside Buckingham Palace on the first night of peace; the reactions of the vanquished and those faced with rebuilding a shattered Europe; the often overlooked story of the 'forgotten army' still battling against the Japanese in the East; the election of Clement Attlee's reforming Labour government; the beginnings of what would become the Iron Curtain; and testimony from the first victims of nuclear warfare in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Combining archive sources and original interviews with living witnesses, The Summer of '45 reveals the lingering trauma of the war and the new challenges brought by peacetime.

Notes

Introduction

1Dickens, Charles, A Tale of Two Cities, Public Domain Books, Kindle edition, 2010.

2Life Magazine, 28 March 1949, p.11.

3Kaczynski, Richard, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, p.511.

4Quoted in Hastings, Max, His Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45, Harper-Collins, London, 2010, p.564.

5Quoted in the Guardian, 24 April 2001, ‘Price war offers cheer as the champagne bubble bursts’.

6Quoted in Wilson, A. N., After the Victorians, Hutchinson, London, 2005, p.390.

7Quoted in Gilbert, Martin, The Day the War Ended, Harper Collins, London, 1995, pp.209–10.

8Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1945, ‘The Victory’, p.4.

9Quoted in Longmate, Norman, How we Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War, Pimlico, London, 2002, p.502.

10The Times, 9 May 1945.

11Ibid, p.501.

12Quoted in the Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1945.

13MOA, File Report 2249: May 1945, ‘Post VE Day Celebrations’.

14‘Japan WW2 soldier who refused to surrender Hiroo Onoda dies’, retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25772192, 8 Feb. 2015.

Chapter 1

1Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord, War Diaries: 1939–1945, Ed. Alex Danchey and Daniel Todman, Phoenix Press, London, 2002, p.688.

2MOA, TC49: Victory Celebrations and parades: 1945–46 (SxMOA1/2/49/1/C: ‘VE Day and the Day After’ 8 – 09.05.1945).

3MOA, TC49: Victory Celebrations and parades: 1945–46 (SxMOA1/2/49/1/C: ‘VE Day and the Day After’ 8 – 09.05.1945).

4Quoted in Schneider, Carl J. and Schneider, Dorothy, World War II, Facts on File, New York, p.394.

5Gilbert, Martin, The Day the War Ended, Harper Collins, London, 1995, p.87.

6Quoted in Gilbert (1995), p.95.

7Manchester Guardian, 8 May 1945, p.2.

8Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1945, p.5.

9BBC Archive, Folder R34/920, 18 October 1943.

10Ibid.

11MOA, TC49: Victory Celebrations and Parades: 1945–46 (SxMOA1/2/49/1/A: ‘Before VE Day: reactions to the end of the war’).

12Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1945, ‘Weather forecasts again’, p.5.

13Ibid.

14Western Daily Press, 9 May 1945.

15IWM, Department of Documents 13624 ‘Private papers of Dr J. J. Beeston’.

16MOA, TC49: Victory Celebrations and parades: 1945–46 (SxMOA1/2/49/1/C: ‘VE Day and the Day After’ 8 – 09.05.1945).

17Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1945, ‘London Day by Day’, p.4.

18MOA, Diarist 5216, 8 May 1945.

19IWM Sound Archive 6221: Interview with Wil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Stories that Shaped the Twentieth Century
• Uneasy Excesses: VE Day in Britain
• VE Day Across the World
• The Future of a Ruined Germany
• The Pendulum Swings: Elections in Britain
• The Potsdam Conference and the New Shape of Europe
• From Belsen to Vichy: Justice and Revenge
• Demob Happy: The Pleasures and Pains of Civilian Life in Britain
• Little Boy and Fat Man: Two Bombs that Changed the World
• VJ Day – The End of the War: Ticker-tape, Kisses and Queues
• Epilogue: Beyond VJ Day
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• Illustrations
• Copyright