Posted on 05/08/2016 8:25:08 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
1 . On hearing the news on the radio, anxious Brits began the celebration on May 7 - without waiting for the official party the following day. People went out on the streets, hung bunting and began dancing.
2. King George VI and the Queen appeared a total of eight times on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the official celebrations on May 8.
3. Half a million homes had been destroyed across Britain during the war
4. The initial suggestion for the Armistice Day silence came from Percy FitzPatrick, a South African author and politician, who was inspired by the daily silences observed in Cape Town during the Great War.
5. The two Princesses - Margaret and Elizabeth (now Her Majesty the Queen) - mingled with the crowds outside Buckingham Palace during the celebrations.
6. Despite the war ending in 1945, rationing carried on until 1954 - nine years later
7. Victory in Japan day (VJ Day) - which signalled the final end to the hostilities of World War 2 across the world, didn't take place until 15 August. Japan surrendered after atomic bombs were dropped.
8. Although he had led the country to victory, Conservative Winston Churchill was ousted as Prime Minister in the 1945 general election - just two months after VE day
9. In the US, victory took place on President Harry Truman's 61st birthday.
10. Many countries, including Russia, celebrate Victory in Europe on May 9. Hordes of people gathered in London on for a big party on May 8 and at 3pm Winston Churchill made a radio broadcast.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
Active Duty/Retiree Ping.
I had an older English co-worker just describing this to me; years after the war was over, she and her siblings would get candy once a week - and the family had to use sugar ration cards to get it.
The carnage between 1914-1945 brought on by the lunacy of the Kaiser and Hitler resulted in Europe’s genetic best being lost forever. VE day is as good as any day to mark the end of the beginning of the destruction of European culture.
I am not sure Britain ever completely recovered from WWII.
At one time they could have lines of battleships plus cruisers, battle cruisers, carriers, etc.
Now they only have a handful of small ships.
I actually remember the day.
We kids marched up and down the street banging pots and pans.
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Nice!
Correct.......and when sweets (candy) was de-rationed, there was such a rush to buy it that the gunmint reinstated rationing for another year or so.
Remember, as a small child, going out and walking around town to see the novelty (to me) of street lighting.
And very few actual mdn apparently.
I guess when you see what they do to a person (man, woman,child), it kind of sticks with you.
Ed
Watching the VE-Day Parade in Moscow. Very impressive. Russians remember their history.
We are trying to forget ours for the sake of PC.
.... and now London has a jihadist loving mayor who represents the decline into “Londonistan”.....
That’s a romantic myth which is periodically trotted out but which has little or no substance. The losses, terrible as they were, were nowhere near large enough, and were concentrated in too narrow an age range, to seriously affect the gene pool. The genes of those who died survived in older or younger siblings too old or too young to fight, or in children conceived before their deaths. The industrial scale of the killing meant that whether you died or survived was random, and your bravery or otherwise were irrelevant. And most of the casualties in all combatant armies were conscripts. Conscription does not select for bravery or anything other than minimal physical attributes.
My father was a radio mechanic on Guam in WWII, and learned both from his comrades and personal experience to hate the Japanese. Two decades later, he took a three-year stint in Japan, working alongside Japanese to protect them and us from the Soviets and the Red Chinese. Until 9/11, I never understood what sacrifice it took to be able to set aside his well-founded hatred to accept Japanese as allies--and to see his son become enamored of the culture that he had fought against, as I have been for the last half-century.
Wow; that must have stunk for the kids (getting a lot after deprivation, then having the spigot turned off again).
Yep ...it was tough - but a good time to have generous aunties who gave you their coupons !
I was a city kid-—always had street lighting.
Amazing,though, how things have changed since those good/bad old days.
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