To commemorate the 80^th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Daniel Cowling, Historian at the National Army Museum, explores events in 1945 that led to the end of World War II, as well as its aftermath.

Few historical events have resonated as strongly in mainstream British culture as the final acts of the Second World War. When we think back to 1945, most of us will conjure up the same handful of memorable scenes: jubilant VE Day street parties replete with patriotic bunting; huge crowds flocking to Buckingham Palace to dance the conga, sing patriotic songs, and wave Union Jacks; that iconic VJ Day kiss on Times Square in New York; or perhaps the remarkable (if stage-managed) photograph of a Soviet flag atop the Reichstag in Berlin.

Evidently, the memories which have most readily endured over the last 80 years are of victory and celebration – and for good reason. The defeat of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) brought the Second World War to an end, an epochal achievement that was keenly celebrated in Britain and across the world. To this day, recollections of the overwhelming joy experienced on VE and VJ Day abound in our collective consciousness.

Yet digging into the National Army Museum’s expansive collection of objects, photographs, diaries, and memoirs, we discover a more complex picture. Britain’s soldiers were at the forefront of the testing transition from war to peace, witnessing firsthand the events of this momentous year. Their stories remind us that alongside remembering the delights and aspirations of victory, we should not forget the difficult and often unforeseen challenges that shaped the history of 1945.

The final push

The year began with several months of hard fighting in Europe and the Far East: British and Allied soldiers faced stiff opposition on all fronts until the very end of the war. In late March, the operation to cross the Rhine and invade Germany, codenamed Plunder, involved more than 1.25 million soldiers. A few weeks later Allied forces launched their final offensive in the Mediterranean, Operation Grapeshot, with British, Commonwealth, American and other Allied troops routing German forces in the north Italy (Gazette issue 39367). These final advances, proceeding in lockstep with the Soviet campaign in the East, brought about the destruction of Nazi Germany.

8 May was declared Victory in Europe Day – and Britain’s soldiers held their own celebrations. Charles Chester, a member of the 3rd Independent Machine Gun Company, was just north of Hamburg when the surrender was announced and he proceeded, with the help of his men, on a final strategic manoeuvre: taking over the local pub. For many soldiers, however, it was all rather disorientating. ‘The last all clear has just sounded. The lights are going up all over town – all over Europe’, wrote Daphne Smith while serving with the Auxiliary Territorial Service in Brussels, ‘buildings are floodlit, flares are being let off, everybody seems a bit dazed.’ In Southeast Asia, with the war against Japan still ongoing, Captain John Workman wrote home to report the subdued reaction of his unit: ‘All through breakfast we talked little, I think everybody was trying to think what it really meant. Don’t be disappointed when I say that it was hard to feel elated.’

In Burma (now Myanmar), the British and Indian Armies made tremendous progress during the first months of 1945 (Gazette issue 39195). The capture and successful defence of Meiktila struck a huge blow to Japanese hopes of maintaining their position in central Burma. By the end of March, the major city of Mandalay was also under British control and the remaining Japanese forces were in disarray. With news of the American capture of Iwo Jima in the Pacific it was clear that the war against Japan was fast approaching its own denouement. Yet the prospect of an invasion of the Japanese mainland still loomed large – not least for British troops in Europe who now awaited news of any potential transfer to the Far East.

In early August, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (Gazette issue 39202). These devastating attacks prompted the end of the Second World War, with VJ Day marked on 15 August. A Special Army Order from King George VI was sent to all British troops proclaiming that ‘the forces of evil have been overthrown’. Yet the message also emphasised that ‘many tasks remain to be accomplished if the full blessings of the peace are to be restored to a suffering world. It is the duty of each one of us to ensure that your comrades have not died in vain, and that your own hard-won achievements are not lost to the cause of Freedom, in which you undertook them.’

Members of 1st Battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment, celebrate the end of the war in Italy, 1945

Legacies of war

During the first half of 1945, the Allied advance across Italy, the Low Countries, Germany, and Burma presaged many of the difficulties that lay ahead. Everywhere British troops had encountered traces of a conflict that would leave a lasting mark, from bombed-out cities to displaced persons of all nations.

As more and more territory came under the control of the Allies, Britain’s soldiers were tasked with rebuilding essential services, upholding order, and planning for the handover to civilian governments. The sheer scale of wartime destruction was overwhelming: with entire towns in ruins, many struggled to envision that reconstruction was even a credible prospect.

In former Axis nations the outlook was all the more uncertain amid growing demands for justice, substantial political reform, or simply retribution. In the final months of the war, the Allies liberated numerous Nazi concentration camps and killing centres, uncovering the true genocidal horror of Nazism and its campaign of mass murder against Jews, Roma, homosexuals, political opponents, people with disabilities, and other minorities. ‘A true Dante’s Inferno, created – not by the imagination – but by Nazi Germany’, wrote one British military observer upon seeing Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, ‘a creation beyond the imagination in its beastliness.’ In the shadow of the Holocaust the mandate to build a world free from war and barbarism was imperative, even if the means to achieve this were far from clear.

The war against Japan brought its own distinct legacies. For one, the arrival of the nuclear age was a terrifying evolution of modern warfare that underpinned the importance of building a sustainable peace. In addition, there was growing uncertainty over the prospective reestablishment of British imperial rule in reconquered territories such as Burma. Over the years to come the contested future of colonialism was an issue that would impact upon the lives of millions of people across Asia, Africa and elsewhere, including many of those who had fought for Britain during the war itself.

Winning the peace

The work of Britain's soldiers did not conclude when the war came to end. Rather, they now took on the guise of conquerors, liberators, occupiers, peacekeepers, imperial governors, veterans and much else besides. This was an army of millions from all over the globe, men and women of diverse backgrounds, all of whom played their own part in a historic year. During 1945 British forces served in locations as varied as Reykjavik, Berlin, Damascus, and Hanoi.

In the aftermath of the fighting, the very nature of the post-war world became a pressing concern. As Field Marshal Montgomery declared in his victory speech to soldiers of the 21st Army, ‘We have won the German war. Let us now win the peace’. But what did ‘winning the peace’ actually mean? Aside from resolving the practical issues of food, shelter, and such, there were also widespread demands to pursue justice, not least against those guilty of committing genocide and war crimes. At the same time, a huge dislocation of people – refugees, Holocaust survivors, prisoners of war – was evident across the world; many had no homes to return to. Added to this was the formidable task of returning the majority of Britain’s 3.1 million serving soldiers to ‘civvy street’, and providing a land ‘fit for heroes’. For many the wait to be demobilised and get back home was excruciatingly long.

President Harry Truman, Marshal Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Potsdam Conference, 1945

Meanwhile, the political character of the post-war world remained a matter of intense debate: international institutions like the United Nations were created to resolve the world’s problems, but in the first instance it was left to Britain, the USA, and the Soviet Union to call the shots. The ‘Big Three’ agreed significant territorial changes in Europe and began military occupations in the defeated nations of Germany, Austria, and Japan that would last for several years. Here, British soldiers played a leading role in the effort to build democracies out of the ruins of the former Axis regimes. Their task was far from straightforward: in Germany, the Allied occupiers had to implement complex policies like denazification amid all the social dislocation and physical debris of war. In Hanover, for instance, 75 per cent of the city’s buildings were destroyed. When British war correspondent Leonard Mosley visited the town that year he found ‘a dark, fearsome, dangerous place, where you faced death or attack at every corner; a place of menace, of mysterious bangs and explosions, of furtive figures among the bomb ruins’. It was a story repeated across the world, and hardly represented the ideal conditions for nation building.

Yet the path to democracy was an erratic, often contested process. Across continental Europe it was ever more apparent that the wartime Allies each had very different conceptions of the balance of power – a reality that soon erupted into a Cold War between West and East. Elsewhere, the end of the war coincided with the resurgence of anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia, bringing with them renewed demands to end the system of European imperial rule. By the end of 1945, the path towards India’s independence from Britain was becoming clear; yet in other parts of the world the struggle against colonial rule led to armed conflict. In the final months of the year, British and Empire soldiers were engaged in open warfare against national independence forces in Vietnam and Indonesia. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Britain’s soldiers were placed on peacekeeping duties as opposing groups vied for power in the postwar world.

A new world

In the face of all these challenges and complications during 1945, most people – soldiers and civilians alike – still held onto a sense of relief that the Second World War was finally over and hope for what the future could bring. After the deadliest conflict in human history, everyone was eager to ensure that their wartime sacrifices were not in vain. ‘Christmas was celebrated with more than the usual gusto,’ reported Captain Bicknell of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in December 1945, as it was ‘the first time for six years that the words “peace on earth” meant something more than a pious aspiration’.

As we look back to VE and VJ Day 80 years on, we should not forget the complicated historical context for such optimism: amid all the revelry and festivities, men and women in Britain and across the globe were also contemplating and confronting the many trials and tribulations involved in ‘winning the peace’. From rebuilding battered cities to redrawing international borders, Britain’s soldiers were at the heart of this monumental undertaking. This year, as we raise a glass or share a scone in celebration of the hard-fought victory against fascism in 1945, we should also spare a thought for those who were committed to building a sustainable peace in the aftermath of such a devastating war.

About the author

Dr Daniel Cowling is a Historian at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London. Daniel specialises in the history of postwar Europe and first book, Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans: The British Occupation of Germany, 1945-49, was published by Head of Zeus in 2023.

See also

VE Day and The Gazette - 80th anniversary

Heroines of WWII

WWII Victoria Cross recipients

Images

National Army Museum, Commandos on guard against rearguards after capturing Wesel, 24-25 March 1945

National Army Museum, Members of 1st Battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment, celebrate the end of the war in Italy, 1945

National Army Museum, President Harry Truman, Marshal Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Potsdam Conference, 1945

Publication date

9 April 2025

Any opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and the author alone, and does not necessarily represent that of The Gazette.