VE Day

Following six years of bloody warfare, the Allies’ punishing air and ground offensives at long last broke the back of the Nazi war machine. Heavy air attacks gained superiority over the German Luftwaffe, while repeated attacks on German oil refineries stopped the Nazi’s mechanized ground advances in all fronts of the war in Europe.

In March and April of 1945, Germany was in endgame as the Soviets closed in on the German capital of Berlin. On April 30th, Hitler and some of his top aids committed suicide, all but cementing the final collapse of the once dominate Nazi military.

Victory! Germany Surrenders

On May the 8th, 1945, after the Allies accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces, Allied nations erupted in mass celebration as the war in Europe came to a close.

More than a million people celebrated on city streets throughout Great Britain, while crowds amassed in London’s Trafalgar Square and up the Mall to Buckingham Palace, where King George VI and Queen Elizabeth joined Prime Minister Winston Churchill on a palace balcony, whipping the crowds into a triumphant high note. The future Queen Elizabeth the Second and her sister Princess Margaret were allowed to wander incognito among the amassing crowds, taking in the frenzy of celebration like average women on the street.

President Truman Honors FDR

Coinciding with Harry Truman’s 61st birthday, the sitting American president dedicated the victory to the memory of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died less than a month earlier from a catastrophic cerebral hemorrhage.

As American cities erupted in celebration, by the end of the day, Truman confessed that the victory made it his most memorable birthday to date.

In France, after years of Nazi occupation, the liberated French took to the streets in orderly jubilation, fully aware that better days were finally here to stay. While most celebrants felt the elation of victory in Europe, both Churchill and Truman tempered their citizens with the weighing truth that war against Japan had not yet been won. In his radio address on VE-Day, Churchill told the British people that:

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but Japan remains unsubdued.”

In America, Truman’s May 8th birthday broadcast said that the fall of the Nazis was:

“a victory only halfway won.”