D-Day to VE Day

The final year of World War II in Europe chronicles D-Day through victory, using contemporary accounts of Britain.

On the evening of Monday, 5th June 1944, the people of Britain went to bed with a sense of great events impending. They knew that any day now would come news of the battle that would forever alter the course of their lives, and the lives of their children and their grandchildren.

The following day’s morning newspapers and early radio news bulletins were full of the fall of Rome to the Allies, which had been announced the day before. But then, at 9.33 am on that Tuesday, came the brief announcement: Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, had begun landing Allied armies on the coast of France.’ D-Day had finally dawned.

D-Day to VE Day tells the story of the last year of the Second World War in Europe, from the Normandy landings and on through the hard slog to that long-awaited day – 8th May 1945 – when Britain broke out the bunting, rolled out the barrel, and celebrated victory over Hitler. The air-raid sirens were silenced, the lights could be switched on again, and the boys would be coming home.

In many homes, festivities were muted because the war in the Far East was still to be won, but for a few short hours at least, the nation could afford to let its hair down and dance in the streets.

Using contemporary accounts – interviews, newspaper reports and official documents – of those final months, D-Day to VE Day looks at life in Britain during those vital months, at the events that brought an end to war in Europe, and at the redrawing of national borders that would shape a new world order.

ANTON RIPPON is an award-winning newspaper columnist, journalist and author of over 30 books including Gas Masks for Goalposts: Football in Britain During the Second World War; Hitler’s Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games; and Gunther Plüschow: Airmen, Escaper and Explorer. Rippon was named Newspaper Columnist of the Year in the 2017 Midlands Media Awards.