VE Day: a people's history

Summary

VE Day: A People's History – Detailed Summary

In the “VE Day: A People's History” episode of the History Extra podcast, hosted by Immediate Media, historian and former TV executive John Willis offers an intimate exploration of Victory in Europe (VE) Day's 80th anniversary. Drawing from his comprehensive research and his feature in the May issue of BBC History Magazine, Willis delves into the multifaceted experiences of ordinary Britons who lived through the momentous day marking the end of World War II in Europe.

The People's Unheard Stories: Condensing a Vast Archive

John Willis introduces his book, "The People's Unheard Stories," which distills insights from the extensive BBC archive known as "The People's War," comprising 47,000 testimonies collected in 2005. [02:35] Willis explains the formidable task of curating such a vast collection:

“And the biggest challenge of all was trying to curate those voices into a coherent book that told the story of the war, but also gave some characters who kept popping up, whose stories carried the narrative through the six years of the war. And to try to condense them, I just had to use my journalistic experience, really, to choose what really stood out.”
— John Willis, [03:05]

By leveraging his journalistic background and prior works on World War II, Willis successfully narrows down the testimonies to highlight narratives that both collectively and individually illustrate the war's impact.

Emotions on VE Day: Relief Mixed with Loss

As Britain celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany, Willis highlights that VE Day was characterized by a complex blend of emotions. While the overarching sentiment was one of joy and relief, not everyone partook in the jubilant celebrations. [05:30] Willis captures the general mood:

“I think people were so busy living day to day that the thirst for change, that the desire for a new broom, the wish for a fresh start... had to happen by learning the lessons of the past.”
— John Willis, [22:14]

Personal Stories: Love and Familial Reunions

The episode features poignant personal accounts that underscore the day's emotional depth:

• A Scottish Boy and Nora: A young boy recounts meeting a girl named Nora on VE Day. Their brief romance, marked by holding hands until 3 a.m., left a lasting impression on him, symbolizing the innocence and fleeting joys amidst war's chaos. [06:13]

• Barbara Van Der Stock in Croydon: Barbara describes the ordinary yet extraordinary moment of her father's return home. His simple greeting, “hello, Herbs,” encapsulated the profound relief and understated gratitude she felt upon seeing him alive after his perilous service in the Western Desert. [06:13]

Mixed Celebrations: From Riotous Joy to Quiet Reflection

VE Day celebrations in Britain were diverse, reflecting a spectrum of responses to the war's end. While some events were riotously joyful, others were marked by quiet reflection and subdued celebrations. [08:15] Willis shares contrasting depictions:

“So I think the sense of fresh beginnings is very strong... the feeling of loss. So not everyone felt able to celebrate because they'd lost so many colleagues and friends.”
— John Willis, [08:29]

He narrates the story of Ulrich Cross, a pilot from Trinidad who struggled to join the mass celebrations in Trafalgar Square due to the loss of many comrades, highlighting how personal grief intertwined with national victory.

British Troops Overseas: A Bittersweet Victory

While millions celebrated at home, many British soldiers were still stationed abroad, unaware of the celebrations due to ongoing operations against Japan. Willis recounts the conflicting emotions of these troops. [09:58]

Ron Goldstein’s Conflicted Feelings

Ron Goldstein, a British soldier in Italy, experiences a tumultuous mix of excitement and disappointment upon hearing the news:

“He's really excited to think that his family might be there... but also felt disappointed that those who'd fought and sacrificed a lot were still in Italy or some other part of the world and couldn't celebrate VE Day with his family.”
— John Willis, [10:57]

This duality underscores the bittersweet nature of VE Day for those who continued to serve even as home rejoiced.

Lasting Impact: Societal Changes and Personal Transformations

The war profoundly transformed British society, altering gender roles and societal expectations. [12:18] Willis elaborates:

“...women working as land girls, working in factories, doing the jobs that men had traditionally done. And again, it changed their expectations.”
— John Willis, [13:40]

Women’s Expanded Roles

With men deployed overseas, women took on roles traditionally held by men, from factory work to agricultural duties. This shift not only contributed to the war effort but also catalyzed changes in post-war gender dynamics.

Children’s Experiences

Contrary to expectations, some children found a sense of fantastic freedom during the war. Willis shares anecdotes of children engaged in unconventional play, such as making homemade bombs from shrapnel, reflecting their resilience and adaptability in extraordinary circumstances.

Leadership Transition: From Churchill to Attlee

The episode touches upon the political shift following VE Day, where Winston Churchill was replaced by Clement Attlee as Prime Minister. [16:50] Willis discusses the public’s desire for substantial societal changes:

“People wanted a fresh start, but they were still sweeping a floor or turning a lathe or doing something that they were now beyond that. So I think that there was a thirst for change, but I think it dawned quite late.”
— John Willis, [17:12]

This transition signifies the populace’s yearning for transformative reforms after enduring years of conflict and societal rigidity.

Remembrance: Preserving the Voices of Survivors

With the advancing years, the number of surviving veterans and eyewitnesses has dwindled, heightening the urgency to preserve their testimonies. [18:54] Willis reflects on the fleeting nature of these firsthand accounts:

“I was very conscious that there were very few survivors left who remembered the war... just a couple of weeks ago, the last surviving pilot from the Battle of Britain, John Hemingway, died. And that's a real stark reminder that these voices are going to fade.”
— John Willis, [19:11]

He emphasizes the importance of his book in capturing and preserving these narratives for future generations, ensuring that the personal dimensions of history remain accessible.

The Role of Humor: A Means of Survival

Unexpectedly, humor emerges as a significant theme in Willis' research. [22:43] He uncovers that many testimonies include moments of humor amidst the devastation:

“...humor is a vital survival mechanism. It's a way that people deflect. And this archive is very, very funny.”
— John Willis, [22:57]

Humor as Resilience

Humorous anecdotes provided relief and a sense of normalcy, illustrating how individuals used laughter to navigate the harsh realities of war. This facet of human experience adds depth to the historical narrative, showcasing resilience in the face of adversity.

Extraordinary Individuals: Sgt. Jock Walker’s Journey

Among the multitude of testimonies, Willis spotlights Sergeant Jock Walker from Glasgow as an embodiment of the wartime spirit. [24:38] Walker's extensive military career spans major theaters of the war:

“His story... takes you through the entire narrative arc of the whole war, which is extraordinary.”
— John Willis, [24:47]

From Dunkirk to the Liberation of Berlin, Walker's experiences offer a comprehensive perspective on the war, highlighting both personal bravery and the broader historical context.

Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of VE Day

“VE Day: A People's History” underscores the complex emotions, transformative societal changes, and personal resilience that characterized the end of World War II in Europe. Through John Willis' meticulous curation of testimonies, the episode presents a nuanced portrayal of VE Day, balancing moments of joy and relief with grief and loss. As the voices of survivors fade, the importance of preserving these stories becomes ever more crucial, ensuring that future generations grasp the human dimensions of history.

“We only move on by learning the lessons of the past... the future will be better, will be better informed, will be richer, if we remember what happened in the past.”
— John Willis, [22:14]

This enduring message serves as a poignant reminder of the value of remembrance, advocating for a collective memory that honors both the sacrifice and the spirit of those who lived through one of history's most challenging periods.

Transcript

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Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. Nazi Germany had finally been defeated and for 24 hours Britons could let their hair down and celebrate. But not everyone was in the mood to party. 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and John Willis has told the story of the day via the voices of Britons who lived through it in a feature for the May issue of BBC History Magazine. Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizzen, he discusses what these testimonies can reveal about the state of mind of a nation after six long years of war.

[Advertiser 1]

You've written a book, the People's Unheard Stories, which draws on a vast oral history project of wartime testimonies that was carried out by the BBC 20 years ago in 2005. How did you go about condensing a database of I think I read it was at 47,000 testimonies into a single book. How do you choose which testimonies to choose and which to discard?

[John Willis]

Well, it is an astonishing archive, the People's War, as you say. 47,000 testimonies and memories covering the whole range of the war, both at home and overseas. And the biggest challenge of all was try to curate those voices into a coherent book that told the story of the war, but also gave some characters who kept popping up, whose stories carried the narrative through the six years of the war. And to try to condense them, I just had to use my journalistic experience, really, to choose what really stood out. I've written four other books about the Second World War, so I've got some understanding of that particular moment in our history.

[Advertiser 1]

This is a ground floor history, as it were, isn't it? It's one that offers a perspective of ordinary Britons throughout the war, rather than purely those of politicians, diplomats and generals. I mean, how important is it to give that perspective, that side of the story?

[John Willis]

Well, I think that as we come up to the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, I think it's really important, particularly. Particularly as we're living in slightly precarious times, to remember what it was like to be on the front line in a battle. And one of the strengths of this set of testimonies is that because it's a ground floor history, because it's written by ordinary soldiers, ordinary sailors, ordinary women working on the land or working in factories, that you feel like you're there, you actually participate, you're immersed. So I think that as a history that connects the reader to the experiences, it's really important to reflect what it was like for men and women and children during those six years.

[Advertiser 1]

Now, as well as writing your book, you've also written a feature for the May issue of BBC History Magazine focusing on the testimony to the people who live through VE Day. If there was one emotion that really captures how Britain felt when Winston Churchill announced From Downing Street 80 years ago the news that Germany had surrendered, what would you say that emotion would be?

[John Willis]

Obviously, it was a very joyful occasion, but I think the emotion was one of relief, relief that was over, relief that people had survived and relief that they could relax. And so there was not a lot of drunkenness, although Churchill did make sure there was enough beer in the national supply chain for that particular day. But I think people were just relieved. They just felt, oh, thank God that is over.

[Advertiser 1]

And I wonder if you could introduce our listeners to two or three of the people in your book who participated in the V Day celebrations in Britain, which testimony has really stood out to you?

[John Willis]

Well, I think that it's very often the testimonies of young people and children who have reflected when they told their stories to the BBC 20 years ago for the 60th anniversary of V E Day, and they've used their experience in the intervening decades to reflect in a rather interesting and mature way about what it was like being a child. So there's, you know, there's a lovely testimony from a boy in Scotland who meets a girl on VE Day. They hold hands, she's slightly older, they stay together till 3 o'clock in the morning. They never meet again. He never knows her surname, and yet he wonders every year what happened to her. And always felt that Nora, as she was called, was a special person who made V A Day special for him. And I think one of the other testimonies which is not about. It's about VE Day, but it's also about coming home after the war. There's a child called Barbara Van Der Stock in Croydon and her father's not at home for VE Day, he's still in uniform somewhere because obviously we had a lot of occupying forces still trying to maintain the post war peace, but they still put up bunting, they still have a party and then eventually does come home at the end of the war and she's asleep, he opens the door, he's just got his uniform on and he just says, hello, Herbs. And she says, hello, dad. And she says, it was a very ordinary moment. And there's something about that phrase that is really telling to me. It was an extraordinary moment in life that her dad had survived. He'd been in the Western Desert fighting, her dad had survived, he'd finally come home, but he didn't run in and hug them. And there wasn't a big party, it was just like it was a normal day and the ordinance of it just underlined how lucky she felt she was.

[Advertiser 1]

I think, and also you mention it a few minutes ago, that maybe the celebrations weren't always as riotous as their sometimes portrayed man. Is that something you found consistently in your research?

[John Willis]

I think that the celebrations were quite mixed. Some were riotous, but some were just. There's another lovely bit in the book and the article where some. Someone just goes for a walk with their aunt and they see the daffodils, and daffodils don't stop for war. But this time they noticed the daffodils and thought, this is a fresh start this is a new beginning. And they got an ice cream and they said it was the most delicious ice cream they'd ever tasted. And so I think the sense of fresh beginnings is very strong. The other very strong dimension to it is the feeling of loss. So not everyone felt able to celebrate because they'd lost so many colleagues and friends. And there's a pilot called Ulrich Cross, who's from Trinidad, known as the Black Hornet. And he goes into Trafalgar Square to join the mass celebrations and comes home again because he actually had lost so many close comrades that he couldn't quite bear to celebrate because he felt he'd be celebrating for the wrong reason. So it was quite mixed, the emotions.

[Advertiser 1]

I think the one thing that really came through reading your feature was that though war may have been over in Europe, there were still plenty of British troops in uniform still on duty on the continent. Kind of watching the celebrations in Britain unfold from hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. How bittersweet a moment was V Day for them.

[John Willis]

I think that it was quite confusing. There's a testimony in the book and in the feature by a British soldier, Ron Goldstein, who is in a tank in Italy, just near Venice. He'd spent a long time fighting his way up in fairly attritional circumstances up through Italy. VE Day was being celebrated and he's listening on his tank to the BBC. And at one level he's really excited to think that his family, he was from a big family in East London, his family might be there, but also felt disappointed that those who'd fought and sacrificed a lot were still in Italy or some other part of the world and couldn't celebrate V E Day with his family. And then a few days later, he gets a letter to say that in the dying days of the war, that his brother, who was a pilot, had been killed. With one hand, VE Day gave and with the other, it took it away.

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[John Willis]

I think one of the key features of all this is change, that it changed the lives of the men who fought because most of them had been brought up in the kind of drab 1930s Britain, and suddenly they found themselves in places like Egypt or Libya or in the Far east, in Singapore or in other parts of Europe. And they saw things and experienced things that they never would imagine would have happened. So it changed them. And at home, lots of women not only had to manage families, but were working, working as land girls, working in factories, doing the jobs that men had traditionally done. And again, it changed their expectations. And for children, you would have thought that war would be a really depressing experience. And it was in some ways, if they lost a relative. But actually, of course, it was a moment of fantastic freedom. Their mums were working somewhere building Spitfires and they're running around bomb sites making homemade bombs out of little bits of shrapnel and other rubbish there, you know, playing with unbelievable freedom that they never would have expected if it had been in peacetime. So everyone changed and everything changed and there was no going back.

[Advertiser 1]

Now, as you mentioned in the feature, as Winston Churchill was really keen to stress during the speech he gave in Diamond street on 8 May 1945. Though Germany may have surrendered, the war was far from over. Japan still had to be beaten. Do you get a sense that the authorities were concerned that the population was going to kind of lose its focus and getting the job done now that Hitler had been defeated?

[John Willis]

I think that it's clear to me that there was a. That sense of relief I mentioned earlier also meant that quite quickly people wanted to try to knit together the threads of normal life. They wanted to marry the girl that they'd left in 19, they wanted to see their parents again, they wanted to work again, they wanted to be normal. Again, instead of having a life that's lived in extremes, which it is on the battlefront. And although they probably felt a bit guilty about it when they imagined it, I think they forgot about Japan and particularly forgot about the prisoners that we had in Japan, unless they had a family connection to that. So Churchill was right, saying that Japan, who were formidable and fanatical opponent, still had to be defeated.

[Advertiser 1]

So what testimonies do we have from Britons who find themselves in the Far east on VE Day? And how poignant were they?

[John Willis]

I think the experiences of the men and women who were imprisoned or interned because they've been captured by the Japanese are incredibly powerful because they are a counterpoint to the joy that's taking place in Trafalgar Square and all over the Empire. Meanwhile, these men and women, 130,000 of them at least, had no idea that VE Day had taken place. They didn't know the war in Europe had been won. They were just trying to live day to day with the malnutrition and disease and miserable conditions of life in a Japanese camp. And some of them didn't find out that the war was over until even after Japan had surrendered in August. So this all came as a tremendous shock to them and they suddenly found themselves being freed. And by then quite a lot had died over the last few months of the war because malnutrition had really taken its toll. And suddenly, out of the sky, butter and chocolate and other goodies were being dropped to them. And I think it was a very difficult time. And as they picked up the threads of normal life, I think they felt, as they came home, forgotten because they were second after VE Day and also as they checked in sometimes their families. In one case, Phyllis Briggs, who is a brilliant, brilliant testimony in the book and appears in the feature, she discovered that her fiance, who she'd seen in 1942, had died in 1942 and she'd been thinking about him for three years and he was already had passed away. So I think that it was quite difficult for them, very difficult.

[Advertiser 1]

Now, obviously, Winston Churchill features in the book and I just want to ask you a question about him. By the end of 1945, he'd be voted out as Prime Minister and replaced by Clement Attlee. Does a thirst for change, a kind of a new broom, did that really come through during your research?

[John Willis]

I think people were so busy living day to day that the thirst for change, that the desire for a new broom, the wish for a fresh start, I don't think it really sunk in until it happened, until the end of the war. And there's no doubt that Churchill had been a phenomenally charismatic and powerful leader who wouldn't be intimidated by Hitler, whose speeches inspired the nation. So you would have thought that he might have sailed through to victory. But clearly, as people did come back to find that the family house had been bombed out, or they'd lost a brother, or that their relationship was broken, I think people wanted, and quite a lot of them got their old jobs back, but nothing had changed in six years. They changed hugely, but they were still sweeping a floor or turning a lathe or doing something that they were now beyond that. So I think that there was a thirst for change, but I think it dawned quite late.

[Advertiser 1]

Did you get a sense of what Britain's attitude to the future was like in May 1945? Were they excited about what the post war world would bring, or were they daunted by the immense task of rebuilding what was, after all, a shattered nation?

[John Willis]

I think it was a mixture of the two. I think that if they looked round, they were daunted by the task of rebuilding, but they were excited, excited by the prospects of a fresh start, a new beginning, that the world must be better now than it has been for the last six years. So I think overall there was a positive feeling, tempered with the reality that there was a lot to do.

[Advertiser 1]

How much greater immediacy is this sort of project been given by the fact that obviously, you know, every day fewer and fewer people that live through the war and live through V, they are, you know, no longer with us. Did that give you an added urgency when you're working on this project?

[John Willis]

I was very conscious that there were very few survivors left who remembered the war. I was lucky to have met some of them over the last two or three years. A couple of survivors of the Japanese prison camps, one died at 103, one at 102. I talked to a couple of 98 year olds who'd been evacuated as children for this particular book. But just a couple of weeks ago, the last surviving pilot from the Battle of Britain, John Hemingway, died. And that's a real stark reminder that these voices are going to fade. And it felt to me like this was a really important time to curate those voices, put them into a coherent book so that people could see the history of the war through the eyes of those who'd lived through it and fought it at a ground floor level.

[Advertiser 1]

As we mentioned earlier, your book was based on this vast BBC project carried out in 2005, the People's War Archive of 47,000 testimonies. Do you get a sense that much has changed in the way that Britain practices remembrance over those past 20 years? I mean, do you think we look on the Second World War slightly differently now in 2025 in comparison to how we did 20 years ago?

[John Willis]

I think this year, because it's the anniversary, there will be a significant level of remembrance. There will be bonfires, there'll be street parties. I think this will be a big year for remembrance. It's the subsequent years that worry me, that as the voices are no longer with us, as the bonfires for this year peter out, will the nation remember the sacrifice? Will they remember what war is really like? And that's one of the points of having a book published. It's all there. You don't have to go through 47,000 testimonies. You know, I've hopefully curated it as a strong narrative that people can read and remember what it's like. And it's quite interesting that as the book comes up to publication, I've been asked by quite a few schools to go and talk. And I think there is a sense that teachers and parents want their children to understand what war is like and what the Second World War was about. But there is a danger that we take it too casually and that we think war is something that happened in the past, because if it happened in the future, it would be as horrific, if not more so, than the Second World War, which is why we need to remember it.

[Advertiser 1]

Actually, that brings me on to our next question, because I was gonna ask, what would you say to people who argue that it's time we move on and kind of kicked our obsession with the Second World War? Would that be your answer? That we need to remember how terrible war can be, and the Second World War is a very, very good example of that?

[John Willis]

Yeah, I think we, of course, we need to move on. The world has changed significantly, but you only move on by learning the lessons of the past. And there are lots of lessons, both geopolitically and militarily, but also just in individual human, personal experiences from the Second World War. And I think that the future will be better, will be better informed, will be richer, if we remember what happened in the past.

[Advertiser 1]

Is there one particular way in which your work on this archive change your perception of the Second World War and the experience of Britons who live through it. What would that be?

[John Willis]

I think that the thing that really strikes me about this archive is the humor. You wouldn't imagine that in the debris and the devastation of the Second World War, there'd be room for humor. But, of course, humor is a vital survival mechanism. It's a way that people deflect. And this archive is very, very funny. The ordinary soldiers are very, very funny about their leaders. They're very funny about each other. And the children are very funny about what their parents are doing or what's happening around them. So I think that if I had to draw a lesson from this, it's that human beings are capable of surviving even in extreme circumstances, like a Japanese prisoner of war camp. But we're able to maintain our sense of humor, and that's really important to the ultimate act of survival.

[Advertiser 1]

And is that, in some ways, what gives the archive real resonance? The fact that 80 years ago people were telling jokes just like they would today, or they were noticing daffodils coming up in spring just like they do today? Is it kind of almost the ordinariness, in some ways, of their testimonies in extraordinary circumstances that gives it its real impact?

[John Willis]

I think it is. I think it's the fact that something that is ordinary, like daffodils growing an ice cream, someone making a birthday cake without any eggs, or a small gesture on the battlefront where one soldier is helping another, I think all these small things actually are the sort of paving stones on the pathway to survival.

[Advertiser 1]

And if there was one person you came across during your research who really stands out to you as an extraordinary person, can you tell us about them?

[John Willis]

Well, there's probably about 10 central characters, but there's one sergeant called Jock Walker from Glasgow, and he starts the war. He's at Dunkirk, he's in the desert, he perishes into Sicily, he fights in Normandy. He then retrains. He was a vehicle repairer, then a parachutist, and then he retrains as a film cameraman. So he's at Arnhem under tough circumstances, and he took lots of the sort of famous pictures and cine film of Arnhem. He then goes to Germany. He's at the Liberation of Belsen. So he takes you all the way from the outbreak of war, 1939, all the way to Belsen and then into the liberation of Berlin. So his story, which is told with great humor and quite a lot of bluntness, takes you through the entire narrative arc of the whole war, which is extraordinary.

[Advertiser 2]

That was John Willis, a historian and former TV executive. John's latest book, the People's War, is out now, and you can find his feature on VE Day in the May issue of BBC History Magazine, which is also available on our website, History Extra. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden.