VE Day 80 years on: The nation honours its heroes as we celebrate eight decades of peace

Daily Mail​

05-05-2025

From the Palace balcony to the far end of The Mall, from toddlers to centenarians, the message was as one: Eternal gratitude to those who, in Winston Churchill's words, 'drew the sword against tyranny'.
In May 1945, the Prime Minister had been at George VI 's side come that great moment of national rejoicing – Victory in Europe, forever to be known as VE Day.
Eighty years on, King Charles III was joined by Joy Trew, 98, a great-grandmother from Bristol.
The monarch's uniform was still the same – Royal Navy No 1 Dress. The backdrop was the same, except that Buckingham Palace looked a lot smarter on Monday than it did back then.
Above all, there was the same sense of profound thanks towards those who had delivered victory.
In 1945, the hero of the hour had been Winston Churchill, as he stood alongside the King and the Royal Family.
On Monday, the public wanted to thank the entire wartime generation.
Thus it was that Mrs Trew, a former corporal in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, found herself between the King and the Queen in the royal grandstand at the end of the Mall, calling it 'the ultimate experience of a lifetime' – not least when the King tucked a blanket around her in the face of a chilly easterly breeze.
Once the bands started to play, however, she had to restrain herself from rising out of her seat. 'It's the old 'shoulders back, heads up' and you are back on parade – I still get that feeling,' Mrs Trew added.
The military fly past passes over The Mall and Buckingham Palace at the end of the procession for VE Day 80 today
More than 30 other veterans, assembled by the Royal British Legion, sat among members of the Royal Family as more than 1,000 of today's servicemen and servicewomen marched past.
It even fell to a veteran, rather than a commanding officer, to set the whole show in motion.
The man in charge, Garrison Sergeant Major Andrew 'Vern' Stokes, marched up to Staffordshire's Alan Kennett, 100, formerly of the Royal Air Force, and declared: 'Thank you and your generation for securing our freedom 80 years ago.
'May I have your permission to start the parade please?' 'Carry on,' replied Mr Kennett.
The King was up and down and on his feet for the best part of an hour, taking the salute from dozens of units, from 845 Naval Air Squadron to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 1 Military Working Dogs Regiment and the King's Colour Squadron of the Royal Air Force.
All the working members of the Royal Family were present, including the Prince (in RAF No 1 uniform) and Princess of Wales plus their three children.
Yet none of the family were wearing decorations. This was the King's decision, reflecting the fact that King George VI himself had worn no medals or decorations on VE Day.
There was a further poignant touch in the Princess Royal's attire, a subtle nod to her late mother.
On major occasions such as this, we usually see the princess as an Admiral of the Royal Navy or as Colonel of the Blues and Royals (her uniform at the King's Coronation).
On Monday, she wore the simpler khaki uniform of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps).
The late Queen, as Princess Elizabeth, wore an almost identical uniform as a lowly subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) on VE Day in 1945 when she appeared on the Palace balcony with her parents.
It was in the same uniform that she joined the London crowds that night.
Many years later, she would look back on it as 'one of the most memorable nights of my life.'
Together with the Queen Mother, she led the exuberant and emotional commemorations of the 50th anniversary in 1995.
She made the last special broadcast of her reign to mark the 75th anniversary (in the depths of the Covid epidemic). How she would have adored Monday.
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was relegated to Row 2 (with Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch in Row 3), not that there were any complaints from Downing Street.
Modern politicians are wise to keep a low profile at these occasions, as ex-PM Rishi Sunak learned to his cost at last summer's D-Day commemorations where he was vilified for making an early exit.
Monday's front-row VVIP guests included RAF codebreaker Bernard Morgan, 101, who learned of the German surrender two days before it was announced.
He enjoyed a front row seat next to the Princess of Wales whose own grandmother, Valerie Glassborow, had worked at codebreaking headquarters, Bletchley Park, during the war.
Jack Mortimer, 101, from Leeds, had landed under enemy fire on the Normandy beaches in June 1944 and ended the war dodging rocket bombs in Antwerp. He found himself swapping war stories next to Queen Camilla, herself the daughter of a double-winner of the Military Cross.
'This anniversary is not just about remembering the end of the war,' Mr Mortimer told me afterwards. 'It's about celebrating 80 years of peace.'
The fragility of that peace was illustrated by the extra applause for a marching contingent whose presence was only announced Monday morning: a unit from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Together with a 60-strong marching detachment of Nato forces, including troops from the US, Germany and Poland, they were a quietly dignified reminder that the heroic efforts of the wartime generation must never be taken for granted.
No one liked to labour the point but eight decades on from Victory in Europe Day, this was inevitably going to be the last landmark anniversary at which there would be any significant number of surviving veterans.
If truth be told, this could therefore have warranted a little more advanced planning but the Forces, the Palace and the veterans' charities had to wait for a new government to focus on VE Day options.
As a result, Monday's event was only announced two months ago, by which time much of the country had already made Bank Holiday plans.
None the less, the Mall started to fill from early on Monday.
I met retired teachers Steven and Nicky Hatfield from Nottingham who had stayed in London the previous day to be sure of a finding good spot.
Jenny Acheson, 36, a teacher from Salisbury in Wiltshire had brought her son Xander, eight, to understand why VE Day matters so much.
'We have a long family history with the military and my grandmother gave me all the books she kept with her newspaper clippings and ration books so this means a lot to me,' she said.
It meant so much to Lorraine Zaretsky that she found herself welling up and asked her daughter, Emma, to explain why they had travelled here from Connecticut, US.
Lorraine's father, John Fanotto, was a US soldier who had survived the Battle of Normandy.
His abiding memory was sheltering behind a wall during an attack at night, only to discover at dawn that it was the base of a statue of the Virgin Mary.
'He became very religious after that!' recalled Lorraine, an ardent royalist who had previously come to London for the Coronation.
Residents of Abbeyhill Road in Sidcup, South East London, celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day today with a street party
Once the parade was over, they all joined the throng, an impeccably good-natured human tide marching up the Mall to the Palace as the Royal Family and the veterans withdrew inside for a reception, the royal balcony appearance and the RAF flypast.
The two loudest cheers, inevitably, were for the mighty Lancaster, workhorse of Bomber Command, and for the Red Arrows and their trademark trail of liveried smoke.
Over tea and sandwiches, the Royal Family were reunited with all their Royal British Legion guests.
Back in 1945, Joy Trew had been at her post at a wireless station in Cromer.
On Monday, she could hardly believe that she was at the Palace chatting once again with the King.
'I was so nervous I couldn't eat,' she said later, though that had been no obstacle to a good chat.
'He asked about my great-grandchildren – and was a little shocked when I told him how many I have [nine] – and we talked about all the formidable ladies in the Armed Forces today.'
Monday's Bank Holiday was, in fact, just the first of four days of VE Day commemorations.
The anniversary proper takes place on Thursday – May 8 – when a national service of thanksgiving will be held at Westminster Abbey.
Even then, there will be many for whom any celebrations are premature. As veterans of the Far East and their families rightly point out, Britain might have turned the lights back on in May 1945.
For those on the other side of the world, it was bloody and bitter business as usual right up until August 15 and victory over Japan.