VE Day – 75th Anniversary

My father, born in April 1933, remembers travelling up to the West End with my grandparents to celebrate VE Day on the 8th May 1945. The journey would have been a quick one from their home in Stoke Newington and dad recalls people hanging from lamposts and waving flags; the spontaneous kissing of strangers, and colonial troops camping in Green Park. Dad got talking to a soldier from a Hong Kong unit and promised he’d write to him in Hong Kong. He did so, but never got a reply. The mood was one of joy and celebration but for many of course, that joy would have been tempered by personal tragedy, the loved ones who never came back.

VE Day heroes, every one

1783540 Gunner Alfred Hayes, the man pictured here, was born in 1913 in Llanwynd, Mountain Ash, Glamorganshire and was still living there when he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery. He initially served with 252 Battery, 18 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, joining the unit on the 21st October 1941, and he died on the 15th September 1943 whilst serving with 99 Battery, 18 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. His casualty card, held by the Royal Artillery records that he was a Middle East casualty although he is is buried in Salerno War Cemetery in Italy. At the time of his death, Alfred was a father-to-be and of course, never got to see his son, Nigel being born. Nigel was robbed of the father he never knew.