PEACE AT LAST!

At the start of May 1945, the Second World War was all but over.

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The Allied Forces had been circling Nazi Germany from all sides for months, while Adolf Hitler had killed himself in his bunker on April 30.

News of the German surrender was eagerly anticipated across the UK in the days leading up to VE Day.

Many had already draped their houses with bunting and bought Union flags for the coming celebrations, while a team of bell ringers was on hand at St Paul’s Cathedral ready to mark the occasion.

British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces in the Netherlands, north-west Germany and Denmark from a German delegation on May 4.

Then, in the early hours of May 7 at his headquarters in Reims, France, US Commander General Dwight Eisenhower accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender of all its forces, with active operations to cease by 11.01pm the following day.

It marked the end of six years of bloodshed in Europe which left 382,700 British Armed Forces members and 67,100 civilians dead.