D-Day to VE Day

The Final Days of the War in Europe

Anton Rippon, Nicola Rippon

• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399056236
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Covers the final year of World War II in Europe. On the evening of Monday, 5th June 1944, the people of Britain went to bed with a sense of great events impending. They knew that any day now would come news of the battle that would forever alter the course of their lives, and the lives of their children and their grandchildren. The following day's morning newspapers and early radio news bulletins were full of the fall of Rome to the Allies, which had been announced the day before. But then, at 9.33 am on that Tuesday, came the brief announcement: Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, had begun landing Allied armies on the coast of France.' D-Day had finally dawned. D-Day to VE Day tells the story of the last year of the Second World War in Europe, from the Normandy landings and on through the hard slog to that long-awaited day – 8th May 1945 – when Britain broke out the bunting, rolled out the barrel, and celebrated victory over Hitler. The air-raid sirens were silenced, the lights could be switched on again, and the boys would be coming home. In many homes, festivities were muted because the war in the Far East was still to be won, but for a few short hours at least, the nation could afford to let its hair down and dance in the streets. Using contemporary accounts – interviews, newspaper reports and official documents – of those final months, D-Day to VE Day looks at life in Britain during those vital months, at the events that brought an end to war in Europe, and at the redrawing of national borders that would shape a new world order.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prelude
• Chapter 1 D-Day – 6 June 1944
• Chapter 2 The Gates of Hell
• Chapter 3 Throes of a Life and Death Crisis
• Chapter 4 The Liberation of Paris
• Chapter 5 One Bridge Too Far
• Chapter 6 Freckleton – a Grim Reminder
• Chapter 7 Inglorious Career, Inglorious End
• Chapter 8 No Colour Bar In This Country …
• Chapter 9 When Do We Get Home?
• Chapter 10 The Battle of the Flying Bombs
• Chapter 11 Service Without Thought of Reward
• Chapter 12 The Day The World Exploded
• Chapter 13 Christmas Returns Again!
• Chapter 14 King, Queen, Everyone Else … Are At One
• Chapter 15 Escape From Camp 198
• Chapter 16 Flying Over a Sheet of Fire
• Chapter 17 Yalta – Unfinished Business?
• Chapter 18 Nothing That Dante Could Conceive …
• Chapter 19 Final Curtain
• Chapter 20 On This Great Day …
• Chapter 21 Deliverance for the Channel Islands
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Plates