VE Day. The celebrations after Germany surrendered
Excerpt from Volume 1 of Whistling in the Face
of Robbers—The Memoirs of Dahn Batchelor
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, was the public holiday celebrated on the 8th
of May 1945 (7th of May in Commonwealth
countries because if the various time zones)) to mark the formal acceptance by
the Allies
of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional
surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end
of World War II in Europe. Upon the surrender of all
of Germany’s armed forces, (Italy had previously surrendered), celebrations
erupted throughout the world.
As the Soviet representative in Reims had no authority to
sign the German instrument of surrender, the Soviet leadership proposed to
consider Reims surrender as a "preliminary" act. The surrender
ceremony was repeated in Berlin on May 8, where the instrument of surrender was
signed by supreme German military commander Wilhelm Keitel, along with Georgy Zhukov and other Allied
representatives. Since the Soviet Union was to the east of Germany, it was 9
May Moscow Time when the German military surrender became effective, which is
why Russia and most of the former Soviet republics commemorate Victory
Day on 9 May instead of
8 May 1945.
News of the German surrender broke in the West on May 8th,
and celebrations erupted throughout Europe. In the U.S., Americans awoke to the
news and declared the 8th of May V-E Day (Victory in Europe
Day). As the Soviet Union was to the east of
Germany it was the 9th of May Moscow Time when German
military surrender became effective, which is why Russia and many other
European countries east of Germany commemorate Victory Day on May 9th.
The news flash reached Canada at 9:36 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time on May 7th, 1945—“Germany has surrendered
unconditionally.”
British Columbia was three hours earlier than the east coast but for some
reason which I cannot explain, those of us living in that small town of Wells
in Central British Columbia didn’t now about the surrender until the earlier
hours of the 8th. (It was by then the 9th in Europe)
At that time in my life, I was eleven years of
age when I and the other 2,500 people living in Wells learned of the surrender.
Someone very early in the morning had set off the air raid siren attached to
the Community Centre building. The siren was also used to call the volunteer
firemen to the fire station. Instead of it wailing up and down the register
when there was a fire, it was a steady high-pitched wailing sound. Then I heard
people shouting that Germany had surrendered.
Later that day (Tuesday) we were told that
there would be no school and the mines would be shut down for the day and in
the afternoon, there would be a community celebration held in an open field
below the hospital. There would be beer for the adults and speeches, soft
drinks for the children and speeches and hot dogs for everyone and more
speeches. That day was
like no other day that anyone still living in Wells can remember. It had a
flavor of its own, an extemporaneousness one which gave it something of the
quality of a vast, happy village fete as people wandered about, sat, sang, and
danced against a background of trees on the mountain behind us and grass of the
field we were on and above us, the sun
shining brightly. Many
of my school chums were happy because this meant that their fathers, uncles,
cousins and older brothers would be returning home. My father had already
returned home from the Canadian air force because of a back injury he received
when his bomber crashed in the desert in Egypt. Some of the people however were
sad because their loved ones were killed in the war so they wouldn’t be
returning.
Of course, celebrations in the larger cities
and towns were much greater. There
were official celebrations across Canada, including a parade on Parliament Hill
in Ottawa. Crowds filled the streets of three of Canada’s largest
cities—Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal and there were even victory parades in
small towns in Canada.
In London, England, the
streets were filled with people and there were street parties. Bands played,
flags flew and the air was filled with fireworks. At Buckingham Palace, Prime
Minister Winston Churchill appeared with the Royal Family on a balcony
overlooking a huge ecstatic crowd that packed the square below. The city
brimmed with unbridled joy. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were given
permission by their parents to mingle with the crowd just outside of the gates
of Buckingham Palace. Thousands of King George's subjects wedged themselves in
front of the Palace throughout the day, chanting ceaselessly “We want the
King!” and cheering themselves hoarse when he and the Queen and their daughters
appeared, but when the crowd saw Churchill on the balcony, there was a deep,
full-throated, almost reverent roar. He later was at the head of a procession
of Members of Parliament, walking back to the House of Commons from the
traditional St. Margaret's Thanksgiving Service. Instantly, he was surrounded
by people who were running or standing on tiptoe, holding up babies so that
they could be told later they had seen him and shouting affectionately the
first name of Winnie the Poon “Winnie,
Winnie.”
The crowds milled back and forth between the
Palace, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus, and when they got
tired they simply sat down wherever they happened to be—on the grass, on
doorsteps, or on the curb and watched the other people or spread handkerchiefs
over their faces and took a nap. Everybody appeared determined to see the King
and Queen and Prime Minister Churchill at least once during the day. By
lunchtime, in Piccadilly Circus,( public square) the buses had to slow to a crawl in order to
get through the tightly packed, laughing and singing crowds. The Government decided against sounding the
sirens in a triumphant ‘all clear’ for fear that the noise would revive too
many painful memories. For the same reason, there were no salutes of guns
however there was the pealing of the church bells. The whistles of tugs on the Thames River sounding the doot, doot,
doot, dooooot of the letter V, and the roar of the planes, which could be heard
everywhere, swooping back and forth over the city, dropping red and green fiery
signals toward the blur of smiling, upturned faces. The police reported that there was barely any
criminal activity throughout the day despite the boisterous behavior of tens of
thousands of people.
Each nation made its announcement in its own
way. People all over much of the world were taking to the streets in an
outpouring of emotion. In New York City, especially in Times Square, two
million people gathered onto the streets leading into and out of the Square.
The streets were packed right against the buildings. The crowds were still
there long after the sun went down.
As I said earlier, Russia normally celebrates
VE day on May 9th because of the time change, but there was no
celebration in May of 1945. The first Victory Day parade was held at the Red
Square on June 24th, 1945 under the order of Joseph Stalin. Perhaps
he gave that order so that the soldiers who fought in the war that were still
in Germany and other European countries could return home to enjoy the
celebration. Moscow’s Red Square filled with veterans, soldiers, dignitaries
and special guests in honour of Victory Day on May 9th. Though
civilians were not allowed inside the Red Square, they were able to view
Russian soldiers and cadets march into the Square along with a parade of tanks
and they heard an address from the Russian leaders from various vantage points
around the Kremlin. That night a massive firework display drew a close to the
victorious holiday.
Unfortunately, the VE celebration in Halifax,
Nova Scotia rapidly turned into a rampage by several thousand servicemen,
merchant seamen and civilians and some of them looted the City of Halifax.
By 1945, Halifax had become a bustling,
overcrowded, underserviced port city. During the war, Halifax’s population
doubled; its facilities did not. Landlords charged top rents for what amounted
to large closets. Merchants would take one look at a man in uniform and jack up
their prices. There were huge lineups to get into the city’s few restaurants,
several-hour waits outside movie theatres. There was no legal place anyone
could go to buy a drink, but there were dozens of illegal ones. For their part,
the locals claimed there was never anything for them to buy on store shelves
anymore because ungrateful come-from-far away sailors had bought it all, or the
military had commandeered it to supply a departing convoy. Organizers decided that on VE Day tram service would
stop for the day, to discourage sailors from going downtown. Liquor commission
outlets, restaurants, retailers and movie theatres all decided to shutter their
premises for the day ostensibly to prevent trouble.
Rear Admiral Leonard W. Murray believed
his sailors had won the peace and deserved their chance to celebrate. Late on
the afternoon of May 7, 1945, the day Germany surrendered, he overruled the
advice of his senior officers and allowed more than 9,000 of his men to go ashore for the night, with the
mild admonition that their celebration “Be joyful without being destructive or distasteful.” By midnight, downtown
Halifax was filled to bursting with more than 12,000 celebrants who had no
place to eat or relax. Without licensed bars to go to, they rioted instead,
setting ablaze to tramcars and a
police paddy wagon, smashing windows, looting liquor stores and denuding shops
of merchandise. On Barrington Street, there was so much broken glass in the
street; it spilled over the top
of the curb. One reporter who wandered through the downtown devastation the
next morning compared it to “London after a blitz.”
The riots might have ended that morning as
sailors and civilians alike with hangovers and many clutching their ill-gotten
booty would have stumbled home or to their ships to sleep off their drunkenness
they got their night before. Unfortunately Murray took no steps to
rescind the standing order that allowed another 9,500 sailors to go ashore to
join the official VE Day festivities on May 8th. Admiral and Mayor
Butler drove through the city in a sound truck ordering everyone to return to
their homes and barracks, and imposing a curfew on the city. The mayhem finally
ended later that day.
There were three sailors dead (two from
alcohol poisoning, and one a possible murder), 363 arrested, 654 businesses
damaged and 207 establishments looted to some degree. Sixty-five thousand
quarts of liquor, 8,000 cases of beer and 1,500 cases of wine had been
‘liberated’ from liquor commission shelves. The total price tag was more than
$5 million, including the cost of replacing 2,624 sheets of plate glass. In
2012 money, the cost of the damages and thefts would have been at least $30
million dollars.
A hastily convened Royal Commission chaired
by Justice Roy Kellock blamed the riots on the
failure of Naval command to control the sailors, and particularly on the
Admiral: It was determined that once the rioting started, the development and
continuance of the disorders were due to the failure of the Naval Command to
put down the initial disorders on each of the two days, May 7th and 8th . Subsequently the
insufficiency of the police forces, service and civilian, employed, as well as
their faulty direction on both days, and the passive conduct of the Naval
Command in allowing naval personnel to continue unchecked on the afternoon of
May 8th without taking any steps to deal with the situation until a
very late hour, when the disorders had begun to play themselves out was the
reasons for all the mayhem and damage.
On the 12th of May, Admiral Murray
was abruptly removed from his command; and the next day a separate Naval Board
of Inquiry under Admiral Brodeur was appointed to investigate naval participation
in the disorders. The Kellock Commission
placed considerable blame upon the Navy and in particular upon the Admiral, for
not having exercised better control over the sailors’ celebrations ashore. The
admiral asked for a court martial to clear his name, but this was never brought
about by the government that chose instead to leave the Admiral with his honour
intact. The Admiral was never assigned another command.
The war that Germany began in 1939 when it
first attacked Poland brought about an enormous amount of military and civilian
casualties throughout Europe. As many as 24 million soldiers and 49 million civilians lost their lives
on both the sides in which included many soldiers and civilians who were also killed in the Soviet Union
(Russia) and 6 million Jews who were slaughtered by the Nazis. Germany lost
between 7 million and 9 million soldiers and civilian lives. The total loss of lives
in that war was as many as 73 million.
This enormous human tragedy brings a nagging
question to mind. “If there really is a God, then where was God during those
years if God truly loved all his children?”
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