Winston Churchill: His Finest Hour - The Winning of World War II (World War 2 History) by Dale Liam & The History Journals

Author:Dale, Liam & The History Journals [Dale, Liam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Journals
Published: 2020-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

"Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight to-night, but in the interests of saving lives the 'Cease fire' began yesterday to be sounded all along the front”.

It was an incredible day, and the euphoria out on the streets was contagious. From nowhere celebratory teas were mustered, as entire communities joined together and Winston Churchill went to Buckingham Palace to take his place alongside the Royal Family, who had come out onto the balcony to acknowledge the cheers of the sea of people gathered all around. Almost five years to the day when Churchill had taken on the challenging role of Prime Minister back in 1940, this moment on the very first VE Day, has been described by many as having been Winston’s finest hour.

However, it wasn’t only Winston Churchill and the people of Britain celebrating the news of Hitler’s demise and the fall of the Nazis. Across the Atlantic the Americans, despite continuing to fight a war of attrition with the Japanese, took time out to enjoy the occasion.

For Harry S. Truman, May the 8th and the victory it represented was dedicated to the memory of his predecessor Franklin D Roosevelt, who had done so much to rid the world of tyranny. Still in mourning for their recently past President, America’s flags remained at half-mast, but it was nonetheless a time for looking forward with hope to a new era, and ironically, it also happened to be President Truman’s 61st birthday.

But while to this day Britain and America celebrate VE Day on the 8th of May, the Russians honor the 9th , the date that had originally been set aside by the Allies all those years ago. For the Soviet people, VE Day is still both a celebration of great joy and intense sorrow. At least twenty million Russian citizens had perished since the 22nd of June 1941, the day that the Nazis had invaded the Soviet Union, laying waste to entire cities, towns and villages, which had been left in ruins, and the terrible losses have never been forgotten.

Across Europe nations were liberated, from the British Channel Islands to the Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea. Dunkirk, St Nazaire and La Rochelle all gained their freedom, as did Norway and Denmark. Even the strip of territory stretching from the western Netherlands to Czechoslovakia still under Nazi control was handed back, as German troops capitulated to local Allied forces, fleeing west wherever possible to avoid capture by the vengeful Soviets.

The final act in the destruction of Nazi Germany took place on the 23rd of May when British troops arrested Admiral Donitz at his Flensburg headquarters near the Danish border.

From this point onwards the major Allied powers, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and France ruled supreme over Hitler’s now disbanded German Empire, but the question of what next, needed a definitive answer.

Always eloquent, in his VE Day broadcast, Churchill had expressed what the rest of the world was thinking:

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