[crowd cheering]
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[flowing music]
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[Winston Churchill] This is your victory,
victory
of the cause of freedom in every land.
In all our long history,
we have never seen a greater day than this.
Everyone,
man or woman,
has done their best.
Everyone has tried, none has quit.
Neither the long years, nor the dangers,
nor the fierce attacks of the enemy,
have in any way weakened the unbending resolve
of the British nation.
[crowd cheering]
God bless you all.
[crowd cheering]
[calm music]
[Narrator] Monday morning in central London
on May the 7th, 1945, was overcast but dry.
But, unlike previous Mondays over the last five years,
there seemed to be more people around.
Amongst the crowds beginning to gather
in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square,
thoughts of the dull spring weather were set aside.
News was coming through of momentous events in Europe.
Ever since the US and Russian forces
had met at Torgau on the river Elbe on April the 25th,
it seemed the end of the war
against Nazi Germany was in sight.
Over the last weeks of April,
the news reels were full of stories
documenting the collapse of the Third Reich.
All German forces in Italy had surrendered.
The Red Army was fighting its way through Berlin,
street-by-street.
As the last defenses crumbled,
Hitler committed suicide just before
the Red Army soldiers finally smashed their way through
to raise the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag,
the German parliament building.
To the north, British forces
had crossed the river Elbe as well
and had gone on to capture Hamburg,
Germany's second city.
But on Monday, May the 7th,
people up and down Britain sensed that
something momentous was about to happen.
After six years of sacrifice
during which they had been bombed,
machine gunned, and starved,
the British public knew that the war must be over.
The events in Europe
at the beginning of May 1945
start to move really quickly.
On the first it's announced to the world
that Hitler is dead.
Two days later, his successor, Grand Admiral Doenitz
sends a delegation to Montgomery's headquarters
on Luneburg Heath, near Hamburg.
Montgomery finds their terms unacceptable
and sends them away.
They return the following day
and that afternoon the surrender is signed
in Montgomery's tent.
The end of the war in Europe is drawing nearer.
The German command to carry out at once,
and without argument or comment,
all further orders
that will be issued by the Allied Powers
on any subject.
Disobedience of orders,
or failure to comply with them,
will be regarded as a breach of these surrender terms
and will be dealt with by the Allied Powers
in accordance with the accepted laws
and usages of war.
[Narrator] All across Germany, the Reich,
which was meant to last a thousand years,
began to crumble.
German forces were laying down their weapons.
Sometimes individually.
Other times, as whole divisions.
They joined the thousands of refugees
already on the congested roads across Germany,
as everyone sought to flee to the West,
away from the Soviet army.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe
realized that now was the moment to press home
the advantage.
Eisenhower, concerned that Germans
were trying to drive a wedge between
the Western Allies and the Soviet Union,
decreed that there would no longer be
anymore of these partial surrenders.
The only thing acceptable to him
was a complete, unconditional surrender
of all German forces.
[tense music]
[Narrator] Over the weekend, the German delegation
arrived at the Allied Headquarters in Reims
in Northern France.
Realizing that there was little
that they had left to negotiate with
they signed the Instrument of Surrender.
As news of the signing of
the Instrument of Surrender in Reims spread,
tens of thousands of Londoners
and people from around the country
poured into Central London.
In Piccadilly Circus, civilians, servicemen and women
filled the pavements and roads.
Cars and buses struggled to find a way
through the happy crowds.
A column of students
marched up and down the Strand
before heading off down Pall Mall
towards Buckingham Palace.
But there had been no official announcement
that the war in Europe was really over.
The Allied Force, which invaded Europe
on June 6th, 1944
has with it's great Russian Allies
and forces advancing from the South
utterly defeated the Germans by land, sea and air.
This unconditional surrender
has been achieved by team work.
Team work not only among all the allies participating
but among all the services,
land, sea and air.
[Narrator] Eisenhower's words, however, proved premature.
No sooner had the news of the surrender reached Moscow,
then Stalin declared it void.
The reality was,
he wanted that document
to be signed in the heart of the enemy territory:
Berlin.
[Narrator] The ink on the Surrender Documents
was barely dry,
and already cracks were beginning to appear
in the Allies' relationships.
A new world order was emerging.
[men speaking indistinctly]
Despite the question marks over the surrender,
back in the United Kingdom, everyone was waiting for
the official announcement to be made.
That came at three p.m. on the 8th of May.
Britain's biggest party was about to begin.
[Narrator] An enormous crowd now filled London.
Some estimates put the figure at around a million people.
Despite the size of the crowd,
they waited patiently
for Prime Minister Winston Churchill
to address the nation.
At three p.m., his voice filled the air once more.
[clock ringing]
[Winston Churchill] Yesterday morning, at 2:41 a.m.,
at General Eisenhower's headquarters
General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command,
and Grand Admiral Doenitz,
the designated head of the German State,
signed the act of unconditional surrender
of all German land, sea,
and air forces in Europe
to the Allied Expeditionary Forces,
and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command.
Hostilities will end officially
at one minute after midnight tonight,
Tuesday the 8th of May.
The German war is therefore at an end.
We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing.
Today is Victory in Europe Day.
Advance Britannia.
Long live the cause of freedom.
God save the king.
[crowd cheering]
[Narrator] Now it was official.
Although many people had already started celebrating,
the parties could start in earnest.
As the celebrations began,
Churchill delivered his speech again to Parliament,
before leading the great and the good
to a short service of thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey.
We decided we would go up to London.
We bought ourselves what was called
a workman's ticket in those days,
for one and six pence.
And, that was to bring us back home at night.
And then we had to sort of
waste away the day a bit
because all the celebrations were going to be
mainly in the evening.
So, we went out by public transport.
We went to Gravesend on the bus.
And we went from Gravesend to Dartford and so on.
Ended up on the Embankment on a tram.
And then we were,
I enjoyed the evening in Trafalgar Square.
It was unbelievable.
It was a wonderful day.
[crowd cheering]
I had a brother who was in the Tank Regiment
and was on holiday, on leave I should say,
at that time.
And having had a motorbike,
he took me up to Hammersmith Broadway
where all the festivities were taking place.
It was an absolutely joyous, carefree,
uninhibited display of emotion and relief.
[calm music]
[Narrator] All over the country,
towns and villages celebrated
with hastily improvised street parties and parades.
I was here, in Sevenoaks.
And like all children I took part in the,
in the parades,
and a fancy dress on the Vine Cricket Grounds.
We had quite a celebration.
What I recall vividly is two Spitfires appearing
and doing a victory roll over the ground.
And we all cheered.
And off they went again
presumably to Beacon Hill.
That was very exciting.
It was almost as if they were,
they did it for us kids.
[Narrator] Thousands of cheering people
crammed themselves in front of Buckingham Palace.
Seven times King George VI,
his wife and their two daughters,
the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret,
stepped out onto the balcony
to acknowledge their cheers.
[crowd cheering]
The royal princesses were even given permission
to go out in disguise and join the celebrating crowds.
Soldiers, sailors and airmen were everywhere.
But one sharp-eyed cameraman
even spotted Hollywood actor, David Niven,
amongst the crowds in London's West End.
Emotion really,
it wasn't until then really
that I'd sort of appreciated
what the local population really thought about it all.
Because they couldn't do enough for you,
in uniform, you know,
if you went into a pub, it never cost you a penny.
Drinks were coming up right, left and center.
And if you walked along a street
and there was a street party going on
then you were invited.
It was great really.
[Narrator] For a few hours
people forgot about the trauma of the last six years.
Social constraints were cast aside
as everyone danced and sang.
Pubs were given permission to stay open longer.
And the dancehalls stayed open until midnight.
It may be surprising to know
that beer wasn't actually rationed
although availability was often restricted.
Despite everything that was going on
on the other side of the Channel,
on the morning of the 8th of May,
Winston Churchill still found the time
to ensure that there was enough beer available
to fuel the party.
[crowd cheering]
When you go to drinking, I was 17 at the time,
but I had become a beer drinker.
But, it was extraordinary
and the fact that beer seemed to be in free supply.
But if you didn't have a glass
you couldn't get a drink.
Probably because of the breakages
that occurred during the war.
So, if you,
once you had a drink, you kept hold of your glass
to get the next one. [laughs]
But the pubs, of course, were crowded.
You could hardly get to the bar with people
both before the war ended and afterwards.
[people singing]
[bright music]
[Narrator] News of the surrender spread like wildfire
all across Europe.
In Paris, crowds gathered in thanksgiving
at the Arc de Triomphe.
An armada of small boats greeted King Olav
returning from exile to Norway.
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands also returned home
where many of her subjects
had endured a terrible famine
in the last months of the war.
And Brussels too, was the scene of wild celebrations
as the last symbols of Nazi occupation were cast aside.
Well I was on the airfield in Brussels,
which is now their airport, and
most people had already gone
down to the headquarters
for various reasons.
And I got a telephone call saying,
"You better come to Group Headquarters."
So I rang up MT and said I need a vehicle.
And they said, "We haven't got one.
"They're all out."
And then they came back to me a few minutes later
and said, "We've got a 1,500 white truck."
So I said, "All right, I'll have that."
So I took this little truck
and drove through Brussels to the headquarters,
which was in the old Cavalry Barracks.
And the first time I stopped to the crossroads
or lights or whatever,
the back filled up with Belgians.
And every time I stopped, some got out
and more got in. [laughs]
And they're all cheering and jumping up and down
and waving handkerchiefs and having a marvelous time.
And then when I eventually pulled into the headquarters,
they all got out and said thank you very much.
Quite remarkable, really.
Then I went in and did whatever I had to do
and walked into the mess
and there was a little bit of a party going on.
[Narrator] In Britain, the 8th and 9th of May
were declared public holidays.
But the celebrations were to continue for weeks
as thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen
returned to their families.
Well the end of the war was a great relief
to me and my father
because we had spent the war in England, in London
whereas my brothers and
brother-in-laws were all in the Forces.
So it was a great relief to see that
they'd all come home
with the exception of my eldest brother
who had died on the HMS Eagle
in the Java Seas.
The most cheering sound was the parades
through the town.
They seemed to happen every Sunday, you know,
every so often there was another parade.
And on one occasion I was a Cub, a Cub Scout
and I was pretty small
and they invited me to lead the parade to the church
because the people who follow wanted to take my steps.
And there I was put in the front.
And behind me there were two policemen,
and behind the policemen there was the bands,
the boys brigade band and then the army bands,
the ATC band.
And then there were the Home Guard.
And then all this strung all the way down the high street.
And there was I, right in the front leading it.
And my parents were so proud.
[triumphal band music]
[Narrator] Even though there was so much work
still to be done, General Eisenhower
was ordered back to the United States
to take part in celebrations
including a ticker tape parade through New York
on June the 29th.
[crowd applauding]
[tense music]
But there were many for whom the road back home
had been especially long and arduous.
As the Allied Forces advanced into Germany
they liberated tens of thousands of prisoners of war.
Some were out in the open,
as many of the camps had been emptied by their guards.
Aimlessly, they were marched around the countryside
with little or no idea what their fate might be.
I mean, we knew it was coming to an end,
it was a matter of then,
really, of what the Germans were gonna do.
And there were lots of rumors would go around
Germans were gonna shoot all prisoners of war.
And they were gonna move us all up into Schleswig-Holstein
where they would use as bartering counters and so on.
All this sort of thing.
But this was rumors.
We were a long line of
kriegy, that's what we called ourselves
all muffled up in whatever we could carry.
And German guards on each side of us
with bayonets and guns.
German officer at the front
leading the way.
He knew where he was going, nobody else did.
And, we just struggled along as best we could.
Sometimes we did
20 kilometers in a day.
Sometimes only 10.
Sometimes we'd have a day where we'd have to stop
because there was so many people falling out with bad
feet and blisters and bad legs and so on.
They just couldn't go any further so we had to stop.
But mostly they kept us on the move.
And we had some very long marches.
And we just collapsed at the end of it
and tried to make some food and get some sleep.
We slept in pigsties and rat-infested places and barns
and all sorts of queer places.
Slept in the open air a couple of times.
We were in the field, living in the field
an old farmer's field really.
And the Germans one night started disappearing.
And we could hear the guns
of the British Second Army coming along.
And by dawn, the camp was empty of Germans.
We looked around and
oh by,
10 o'clock, I would say, that morning
a tank had rolled up, a British tank
and we said, "Oh, for our sake
"roll some more tanks up."
And all the boys were having tea down there,
they can't [laughs]
they're in no hurry.
-[plane roaring] -[guns firing]
[Narrator] With so many men out in the open,
the danger of a tragic accident
was never far away.
Just after having been issued with Red Cross parcels
we were attacked by a squadron of RAF Typhoons.
One can't apportion any blame to them.
They saw this column moving alongside a wood
and I would never
express any blame as far as they were concerned.
But there were
39 people killed
and 50 odd were injured
some of whom died afterwards.
And it was a shocking experience.
We lost quite a number in one attack.
I guess, their pilot saw a long marching column
and they were all in khaki uniform
or in uniform of some kind,
and thought, "Well, we'll have a go at these guys."
And they did.
They got the end of our,
end of our march,
a long line, a lot of people at the end.
I forgot, I think there was about 17 killed.
But I'm not sure of that number.
And some wounded.
We felt a bit sad
because a lot of them had been four years in prison camp
and looked like they were going to survive and get out.
And then to have this happen.
An armored car, I suppose it was,
sort of came after the Fife and Forfar Regiment.
They,
British Army came up.
Now we had already been out down the road
and put notices up saying,
"British prisoners of war, 500 yards ahead."
Rather like you see out there on the motorways. [laughs]
So, um, and these guys,
oh, of course, we absolutely
climbed all over this.
They said, "By god," they said,
"damn good job you left those notices out up out there
"otherwise we'd have had to have opened fire."
So, anyway, it was great.
That was the end of hostilities
as far as we were concerned.
The Germans gave themselves up very happily.
[men speaking indistinctly]
[tense music]
[Narrator] As the prisoners were rounded up
they were brought back to Britain
as quickly as possible.
The RAF's mighty Avro Lancaster Bombers
were sent to bring the prisoners home.
Some arrived back on VE Day itself.
At the same time as all the parties
are beginning in Britain,
in the background is Operation Exodus.
Launched on the the 3rd of April,
the plan is to fly back to Britain
all those POWs released from camps in Europe.
By the time Exodus finished at the end of May,
345,000 ex-prisoners of war
had been repatriated by Allied aircraft.
We got back on VE Day and,
we were just bundled in like 20 in an old lank.
But we couldn't care less.
And we were going, coming across the Channel
the pilot said, "Hey you guys look,
"I'm gonna dip the old aircraft.
"We're gonna fly along the White Cliffs of Dover."
So we did and we landed.
The RAF were coming over to fly prisoners of war back.
And, you know, people going on leave
and we got priority.
Which we thought was our only, our due.
But when we landed we were given new uniforms,
Tommy's uniforms and deloused and all that kind of thing.
And I was sent down to the insolent
from around Guildford,
to our airbase there.
And, I guess, our COIs were there, COO and these people
they'd all gone home, of course,
as soon as they could.
And I, being a Canadian was left there.
And I went in thinking I was well-dressed
in my new Tommy's uniform, into the mess.
And they, with their wing hollies
and I went up to the bar
and I thought the old commander
was gonna have a heart attack.
He was just red in the face and he said,
"You get out of here." [laughs]
So, and I'm, "Well to the hell with him."
So I got out.
I didn't feel very comfortable there any way
so I missed my drink there.
And a steward came out from behind the bar and said,
"I'll lend you a white collar,
"a white shirt and collar and tie."
So I said, "Fine," so I put that on
with my Tommy's uniform,
went down town to Portsmouth
to have a drink in the bar, a pub.
And they were just jammed, it was full of,
full of people celebrating.
The streets were full.
So I said, "To heck with it, I'll go home
"and go to bed and have a good night's sleep."
First bed I'd been in for five years.
We got to Paris and then I got stamped and deloused.
And all that sort of stuff.
And I was under control.
See, before, I was just wondering around
doing what I wanted to do.
And, uh,
but after we got to Paris.
And then I was sent to a...
We had
repatriation camps for prisoners of war.
They were called Lucky Strike, Chesterfield,
all named after cigarette brands.
And I went to Camp Lucky Strike,
waiting for,
to go back home.
And I bumped into a buddy of mine
that was shot down about three months earlier than me.
So we decided to go AWOL
and hop a ride back to England
and get back to the unit,
thinking we'd be able to stay.
The next day they sent me by transport to B...
Brussels.
There we were interrogated again
and put into a hotel.
And we had to,
I got a new uniform.
Khaki army jump battledress.
And that was VE Night.
And they gave us so much franks.
And we went into town.
And then went to the pictures,
I saw "Arsenic and Old Lace"
and when I came out, everybody was shouting for joy.
It was VE Night.
And we joined the celebrations.
They deloused us.
That's how we were received.
They just grabbed us, deloused us,
gave us fresh uniform, fed us,
gave us our dog tags back again.
Got us to the nearest airport
on a lank,
pilots saying standing up even.
There were no seats.
We were just into a lank.
Landed in the Midlands.
One night there.
There was a hospital there, they checked us out.
And then home.
10 days I was home at me own home.
Yeah, wonderful, fantastic.
So we hopped a ride on a B-17.
And, got back to England, made it up to Kings Cliffe.
A big hello with everybody
and telling our war stories
and this sort of stuff.
After about three days we were told,
"You gotta go back.
"You can't stay because you're labeled as a POW
"and you have to go through the bureaucratic process
"of a POW."
So we went back to Lucky Strike.
And I was out on the last convoy.
I got back to the States on the 1st of June.
And I got married on the 13th of June
to my fiance, Josephine, who my aircraft was named after.
Then,
I had to get my mother's permission to get married
because I hadn't turned 21 yet.
[Narrator] The former prisoners were, of course,
glad to be home.
But they would need a period of adjustment to peace.
Everyone was so glad to see me.
It was just fantastic.
And we had a big welcoming in Halifax.
They made us,
they took us down to the mayor's hall
and made a big feast there.
And we were welcomed home by the mayor
and all the rest of them,
they made a big fuss of us.
Yeah.
Yes, it was a good time.
And I was glad to be on my own for a bit.
A bit quiet, yeah,
after prison camp.
I'd really judge, I think,
I found concentrating difficult.
And I found my memory was poorer too
for some time.
So I'd had no responsibility for anything
for four and a half years.
I was taken prisoner, I was exactly 20 years of age.
Now I was damn near 25.
And I was still 20 years old.
Because I had no experience of the world.
So, yes, I did have some trouble adjusting.
[Narrator] VE Day meant different things
to different people.
For some, especially for those in the Armed Services,
it was the relief that they had survived.
For others, it meant the resumption
of the normality of daily life
without the fear of being attacked.
We were glad it was over
for all sorts of reasons.
And...
relieved, I suppose, to be there.
I mean, I had served right through, from day one.
And so I was lucky,
very, very lucky.
Army had set up a sort of field kitchen
and I had the most memorable meal of my life,
white bread and jam and a cup of tea.
Sweet tea.
After three years, black German bread,
that was memorable.
All we did think of was food, of course.
I can remember once they took us to a canteen where
they were feeding us.
And there was a long line, of course, marching up.
And that line never stopped.
It went on and on till all the food was gone.
In the end I had to say, "I'm sorry, there's just no more.
"You've eaten everything we've got."
And it just kept,
if you finished you went round again, you see.
You went round and round.
You were lucky if you got two helpings.
But I always remember that.
We just ate everything in sight.
I spent three quarters of an hour
standing under a hot shower
'cause I hadn't had a bath in god knows when.
And,
and had a sleep.
Then we were given travel warrants
and so on and so forth.
And clothes, did we get any clothes?
Yeah, you must've been,
you must've been given battledress, I think.
I can't remember.
Battledress and a kit bag.
That's right.
And,
you had a travel warrant to go home.
I remember looking forward to
bananas coming.
I had never eaten a banana until
I was six or seven years old.
And my mother came home triumphantly with this thing,
unpeeled it for me.
And I thought it was dreadful.
I'd been really looking forward to it for years.
A banana!
From the Caribbean.
And there was this thing without any taste whatsoever.
[crowd cheering]
[Narrator] For the crowds happily celebrating
the victory in Europe,
there was a cloud on the horizon.
[poignant music]
There were many for whom the Second World War
was far from over.
In the Far East, the war raged against Japan.
Even as the parties in London and Paris
continued into the night,
US forces were locked in a deadly battle
for the Island of Okinawa.
It was to be one of the major battles
of the Allies' Pacific Campaign.
Because if the Americans succeeded in capturing it,
they would have access to airfields,
which were just over 300 miles
from the Japanese home islands.
For 82 days the battle raged
as the Japanese defenders
mounted a desperate resistance.
Finally, on June the 22nd, the Japanese surrendered
what little there was left.
It seemed that the battle to defeat Japan
was only going to be achieved
by a monstrous cost in human lives.
[gravel crunching]
Britain and her allies were also fighting
equally bitter battles in Burma.
It looked like more forces were going to be needed
to defeat the Japanese army.
In the end, they were not needed.
On August the 6th, a lone US bomber
dropped an atomic bomb on the City of Hiroshima.
Two days later,
a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
At the same time, the Russians invaded Manchuria.
Japan's resources were exhausted.
And it's will to fight, crushed.
On September the 2nd, Japan signed
an unconditional surrender.
The Second World War was over.
Although the victory over Japan was celebrated
the event was for many a more personal experience
than the wild fervor of VE Day.
[crowd cheering]
I was wounded, of course.
I'd very.
But that was on the first day of peace.
What happened was, I was tour expired on the 29th of June.
But, getting out of Burma was difficult.
So I was waiting for transport with my navigator
and we were on the squadron for another two months
waiting for a transport.
So by this time the squad moved from Kinmagon
to Hmawbi, which was in Rangoon,
just north of Rangoon.
And when we got there
I mean, I wasn't doing anything,
I wasn't flying anything.
But the war ended with the atom bomb thing.
And, of course, a big celebration in the mess.
And...
The non-drinkers, now I don't drink you see,
there were five of us who didn't drink.
When they start singing songs that,
ah, it's
boring.
So we went back to our tents.
And we, each of us, had a bomb thrown in the tent.
What happened was, there was
a raiding party of Japanese in the jungle.
They didn't know the war was over.
They attacked the airfield.
They had damaged aircraft.
And we had no defenses.
They withdrew all arms on the first day
because of the celebrations after the First World War,
caused so many accidents
that they withdrew all arms.
So we were undefended.
[poignant music]
[Narrator] Meanwhile in Europe,
there was the formidable task of building a lasting peace.
The last days of the war
had created millions of refugees
as those that could, left their bombed out cities.
The straggling groups of civilians
burdened down by what they could carry,
joined German soldiers on the roads heading west,
desperate to escape the advancing Russian armies.
Thousands of German prisoners of war
were held in pens to be processed
before they could be released.
It had already been decided by the Allies
that those responsible
for some of the most appalling crimes in human history
would be put on trial for their crimes.
Not surprisingly,
many tried to slip through in disguise.
Children played amongst the ruins.
Many had been badly traumatized
by what they had seen.
As so many able-bodied men were gone,
it was left to the women and the old men
to begin the grim task of rebuilding
stone-by-stone.
Although the Russians had captured Berlin,
it was agreed that it would be divided into four zones,
each under the control of the Americans,
British, French and Russians.
Montgomery and the 7th Armored Division
was tasked with overseeing
the reconstruction of the British sector.
When they arrived at the beginning of July,
even the battle-hardened veterans
of the famous Desert Rats
were shocked by what they found.
The stench of death was everywhere.
Below the rubble lay rotting corpses.
The civilians had been reluctant to disturb anything
in case they released disease.
Building the peace was not going to be easy.
[steady music]
In Britain there was the challenge
of not only rebuilding the physical damage of war,
but also how to demobilize
millions of servicemen and women.
With over five million in uniform,
a release program was devised
that gave priority to age
and the number of months served.
There aren't gonna be some problems for me
when I get out of E and O.
-I'll say. -There's me job,
I've grown out of the one I was in.
Beside, I want a better one,
now I've got a wife and kid to keep.
-Well, there's an answer. -Well suppose
that I start up on me own.
A small shop or something like that.
How would I go about it?
-There's a-- -And the wife.
She must be full of problems.
What with trying to find a new house
and making a claim for the old one that was blitzed
and getting furniture.
-Well there's a-- -And honestly pal
I still don't know what I get
-for my bit in this war. -Well listen,
in Civvy Street now.
Blow me, that's quick ain't it.
[Narrator] There's a resettlement advice service
in all areas.
There's one in your district.
This is what it looks like.
It's run by the Ministry of Labor.
This is what it's like inside.
You can discuss your problems in private.
[calm music]
[Narrator] In the search for a lasting peace,
delegates representing 50 countries
had been meeting in San Francisco
for the first United Nations Conference
on International Organization.
Their objective was to find a mechanism
that could prevent wars,
like the one the world was just emerging from.
In the last six terrible years,
unnumbered men have died
to give humanity another chance;
unnumbered men have died
because they felt
there was a job of work to be done.
We too, have a job of work to do
if we are not to fail these men.
Let us do it with courage, modesty and dispatch.
Let us do it now.
[audience applauding]
[Narrator] They agreed to a new UN Charter
marking the birth of the United Nations.
On June the 24th,
two days before the United Nations Conference ended
the Russians mounted the longest
and largest military parade
ever held in Moscow's Red Square.
[crowd cheering]
Over 40,000 Red Army soldiers
and 1,850 military vehicles
joined the parade that lasted over two hours.
The Big Three Wartime Allies
of Russia, Britain and the United States,
met just one more time in Potsdam
in July the 17th, 1945.
Their objective was to reach an agreement
as to how a post-war Germany might look.
But the old chemistry that had seen them through
previous conferences and disagreements
was no longer there.
Although they agreed to continue fighting as allies
in the war against Japan,
the lack of a common enemy in Europe
meant that there was little consensus
as to how to deal with Germany.
It seemed as if the old mistakes
of the Treaty of Versailles
that marked the end of the First World War
had been forgotten.
They did agree, however,
to redraw Germany's borders
and divide the country up into four zones of control
under the Russians, Americans, British
and the French.
Industrial capability was also limited
as it was hoped that the country could rebuild its economy
on a more ruralized and crafts model;
a plan that was soon abandoned.
By the summer of 1945,
much had changed in Europe.
Roosevelt had died in office,
Churchill had been swept from power
in the general election.
Stalin was left to rule the roost.
The old wartime alliances were starting to crumble.
And a new world order was taking shape.
The Cold War was about to begin.
[marching band music]
[Narrator] The split between the Allies
led to controversy
over Britain's last victory parade in 1946.
The decision was taken
to mark the end of the war against Germany and Japan
with one final parade.
All the countries that had fought alongside Britain
were to be represented and duly honored.
But the Poles were not invited.
The date chosen was June the 8th, 1946.
And thousands flocked to watch the parade.
Well it was just general knowledge
that there was going to be this huge parade.
And we knew that it was going to be a mass attendance.
So I had a friend I worked with at that time,
David Packnall.
And we decided that we'd stay out all night
in order to get a prime position in the Mall
to watch the parade.
And we did that.
[band music]
[Narrator] The Victory Parade
perhaps lacked the excitement of the VE Day celebrations.
There wasn't the exuberance and spontaneity
that had been the hallmark of events the year before.
The parade itself went on and on and on.
It was, seemed hours long.
And I don't think we stayed to the end to be honest.
But we went off then to find something to eat.
[bright music]
[Narrator] There had been time
to reflect on the cost to Britain.
And it was becoming clear
that the cost had been very high,
with very little to show for it.
It would take Britain a long time
to recover from victory.
Almost as long as it would take the Germans
to recover from defeat.
But over one million people
had packed the streets of London
on May the 8th, 1945.
For many it was just the sheer joy
and relief that the war was, at least for them,
finally over.
There had been the sacrifices, fear and uncertainty.
But they had survived.
Whatever difficulties lay ahead
they knew that Britain had done the right thing.
It alone had held the moral leadership
to stand up against the Nazis
at a time when everyone else was willing to cave in.
Some celebrating may have even found a moment
to reflect on what the future might hold.
That after two world wars,
this time really had to be the last time.