| Original caption: “Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, center, joins the royal family, from left, Princess Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, King George VI, and Princess Margaret, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.” From left to right: Princes Elizabeth (April 21, 1926 – September 8, 2022); Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (August 4, 1900 – March 30, 2002); United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965); King George the 6th (December 14, 1895 – February 6, 1952); Princess Margaret (August 21, 1930 – February 9, 2002). Under the terms of the Reims surrender, the war in Europe would continue until 1 minute to midnight on May 8. The leading article in the Evening News that afternoon, headlined “It Is Over!” was premature? The headline in the Evening Star, “Tonight may be Victory in Europe night,” was also wrong. Its political correspondent was right, however, when he forecast that: “As soon as Victory in Europe Day is announced the public will, with few exceptions, stop work.” The Evening Star also told its readers that a 1,000 extra police had been chosen to take up positions at Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Parliament Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street. “Every man has been chosen for ability to handle good-tempered, happy crowds. Those selected are called the Dismounted “Courtesy Cops” because their job will not be to prevent people enjoying themselves, but to stop excesses.” Throughout May 7, British prisoners-of-war were returning to Britain, flown back from Germany as a priority. Among those who reached London that day was Viscount George Lascelles (February 7, 1923 – July 11, 2011), 7th Earl of Harewood, a nephew of King George VI, and his fellow Prisoner of War John Elphinstone (March 22, 1914 – November 15, 1975), 17th Lord Elphinstone, a nephew of the Queen. Both were “welcomed home” that night at Buckingham Palace. Among the thousands of schoolboys taking advantage of a day off school on Victory in Europe Day was Leonard Wolfson (November 11, 1927 – May 20, 2010), who went by train from The King’s School, Worcester, to London, hoping to see the King and Queen on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. On reaching Paddington he made his way to the Mall, but the crowds were already so thick that he could make no headway and walked instead across Horse Guards Parade and towards Birdcage Walk, hoping to get to the Palace from there. There were fewer people about, and Birdcage Walk, when he reached it, was closed off to the public. At that moment Churchill emerged from his wartime headquarters at Storey’s Gate. Pushing through the small crowd, the excited schoolboy tried to touch him. A policeman pushed him back. Churchill, who saw what had happened, called out: “Leave the boy alone,” and gave a V-sign. “What a moment that was for a schoolboy,” Wolfson recalled 50 years later. Churchill got into his car and was driven to the Palace for lunch with the King. It was a little after 1 o’clock. “We congratulated each other on the end of the European War,” the King wrote in his diary. “The day we have been longing for has arrived at last and we can look back with thankfulness to God that our tribulation is over.” Churchill then left the Palace of Westminster for Buckingham Palace: the King had asked him to look over the text of the royal broadcast. “On the way, Winston asked me for a cigar,” his detective later recalled, “but in the excitement I had forgotten to bring his case. He laughed and said: ‘Drive to the Annexe [Secret Headquarters and War Rooms hidden beneath Westminster] and I will get one. I must put one on for them. They expect it.’” Thousands of mothers took their small children to see the King and Queen that day. The impressions made on Peter Hewlett (November 22, 1939 – December 1999) remained vivid for 50 years. 1 of 10 children, he had been evacuated from London to the country. “When we came back from the country our parents were amazed: we cleaned our teeth and washed our faces.” Waiting in the vast crowd, the small boy remembered the long periods when nobody came on to the balcony, and how the crowd responded with a roar to every movement of a curtain or a window. At 1 moment he saw a bird settle on the flagpole and pointed up excitedly, calling to his mother. She looked and pointed, the people around looked and pointed, and a roar went up in the belief that someone had been seen in 1 of the Palace windows.” Among the hundreds of thousands gazing at the royal balcony that night was Clare C. Boulter (January 1, 1922 – June 19, 2018), whose work at the Admiralty was to examine top-secret captured German naval documents. As many as 50,000 files had been seized a few weeks earlier and flown to Britain. “I was assigned to a group concerned with war crimes,” she later wrote. “Where among these 50,000 files might there be evidence against the 22 shortly to be tried at Nuremberg? Here luck and doggedness were more to the point than expertise, and we found many things that proved useful, among them the evidence of collusion between Vidkun Quisling (July 18, 1887 – October 24, 1945) and the Germans before the invasion of Norway? This was something that the Norwegians were able to use at Quisling’s trial, to great effect. “Among our other successes was also the identification of the U-boat responsible for sinking the Athenia on the first day of the war.” Like millions of Londoners, Clare Boulter and her colleagues had set aside their work that day. She later recalled: ‘The King and Queen did their balcony bit, we roared and cheered. I was intrigued by a spontaneous ceremonial on our fringe of the crowd: a very solemn group had made a bonfire and was feeding it with Green Park chairs, each 1 being passed from hand to hand with a bow, the last in line placing it on the flames with courtly deliberation. “All this was not easy on the feet and as my party included one allergic to crowds and another inadvisedly wearing high heels, we departed the scene at 2230 Hours How I spent the rest of May 8, 1945, I can’t now remember. Perhaps I couldn’t even remember on May 9.” At 6 o’clock that evening King George VI broadcast to his nation. For millions of listeners the broadcast was a high point of the evening. “Much hard work awaits us,” he said, “in the restoration of our own country after the ravages of war, and in helping to restore peace and sanity to a shattered world.” 1 newspaper reported: “Women and men fainted at a rate of about ten a minute in the enormous crowd gathered at London’s Victoria Station to listen to the King’s broadcast. Police estimated that there must have been a hundred thousand people there. Ambulance men and police fought to clear a path for the victims of too much Victory in Europe Day, but had to resort to lifting them high over the shoulders of the close-packed crowds.” Everyone who could do so gathered around a wireless, as they had done in the bleak days of 1940. “We listened to the King’s broadcast,” Noel Coward (December 16, 1899 – March 26, 1973) wrote in his diary, “then to Eisenhower, Monty and Alexander. Then I walked down the Mall and stood outside Palace, which was floodlit. The crowd was stupendous. The King and Queen came out on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, looking enchanting. We all roared ourselves hoarse. I suppose this is the greatest day in our history.” The radio reports told of how Churchill had joined the King and Queen, and the 2 Princesses, on the Palace balcony, after the King’s speech. 1 of those in the crowd was Iris Butler Portal (June 15, 1905 – November 9, 2002), whose brother, Rab Butler (December 9, 1902 – March 8, 1982), was Minister of Education in Churchill’s coalition government. “I had never been in such a vast crowd before, but there was no need to feel nervous. The people were exuberant but disciplined. I remember no incident of disorder. It seemed as if the amazing comradeship and good will that one had experienced during the war in London, in the black-out as well as the day time, in public transport, in air raid shelters – everywhere – still existed. All the way through the darkest days from 1940 onwards ‘brother clasped the hand of brother, stepping fearless through the night.’ That atmosphere was very present in the huge crowd which awaited the appearance of the leaders of the Nation, who had stood by us from beginning to end.” “When the Royal family and the Prime Minister stepped out on to the balcony the crowd cheered and cheered with genuine warmth and affection. Some people were in tears. No one (or so it seemed) was there from curiosity. Princess Elizabeth wore her Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC) uniform. Princess Margaret was still a schoolgirl. They had been based at Windsor most of the war, and the King and Queen in London, where they shared our dangers and were often with us at scenes of death and destruction. For Winston Churchill, I think that this was his finest hour. Only a few months later, when I was working in Islington at the time of the General Election of 1945, I heard him booed as he drove through the streets, standing up in a Land Rover. But on May 8, 1945, people remembered that without his leadership we might have had German troops before Buckingham Palace and possibly Nazi leaders on the balcony.” “We stayed for an hour or more. The Royal Family appeared several times, the crowd waved little Union Jacks, sang songs, and cheered and cheered. Everyone was friendly and relaxed, though it seemed unbelievable that we could now be free of fear. I did not myself celebrate later…Like many others I was on my own. My husband was still on active service in the Middle East. I believe that in many parts of London there were street parties that night and festivities in hotels and restaurants. But I was in no mood for revelry. We still had a long way to go.” this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the 1st, in this ancient island, to draw the sword against tyranny. After a while we were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were all alone for a whole year. There we stood, alone. Did anyone want to give in?” No,’ came the reply. Were we downhearted?’ ‘No!’ At 11 o’clock the King, the Queen and the 2 princesses made their 6th appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, waving for 10 minutes to the cheering crowds below. The princesses, in an unprecedented and spontaneous breach of protocol, had earlier slipped out of the Palace to join the revelers, accompanied by 2 Guards officers. Half an hour after midnight the King and Queen appeared again on the balcony. The crowd was as large and as enthusiastic as before. Among those who were celebrating in London was Jewish Historian Geoffrey Wigoder (August 3, 1922 – April 9, 1999), who wrote in his diary: “It was an amazing evening. Everywhere were enormous masses of people, drinking, wandering, dancing, singing. In Piccadilly Circus up the front of the London Pavilion surged a few youths and swung Harold Lloyd-like [Harold Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was a renowned Hollywood silent era action comedian] from the top. Then they got buckets of water and doused the people below. Some of the people below got rockers and directed them up at the youths above. Everyone is happy and good-humored. Not as much drunkenness as I might have expected. With dark the lights come on. Streets of flares. Admiralty Arch, Nelson’s Pillar, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace all stand out in the floodlighting. We go to the Mall and stand with the crowds in front of the Palace but the royal family have gone in for the night.” We talk to everyone and everyone talks to us. We listen and watch the singing and dancing multitudes. Fireworks go up from the top of Admiralty Arch. Bonfires are lit. Searchlights dance around the skies. It is now 0100 Hours [May 9]. People everywhere are singing, dancing, courting (especially on the lawns along the Mall) and doing meshuggas.” Wigoder was ready to go to bed, but on his way home, an incident occurred that was to give him, a Jew, a sleepless night. “As the tubes are closed, I have to walk an hour and a half back to my digs in Maida Vale. A couple of American soldiers with girls approach me and ask if I know where they could get a hotel for the night. I hear 1 girl say to an American, ‘You Americans have no culture. I admit [Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945)] was wrong in a lot of things but he was right about culture.’ Only a few days ago I went to a news theatre in Piccadilly Circus to the 1st films of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and as the horrors were being shown, 3 young men got up at the back and shouted ‘Lies! Frauds! Fakes!’ As I get to bed I wonder if we are going to have to go through it all again.” Jewish Historian Aumie Shapiro (May 14, 1924 – April 3, 2021) was a witness of the final hours of the Victory in Europe Day celebrations in London. A week later he wrote to his friend who was serving in India: “Until late hours of the night and even into the early hours of the morning, we mingled with merry London crowds, crowds which, although jubilant and carefree, were nevertheless well-behaved. Saint Paul’s clock showed the hour to be 0100 Hours the morning, as we stood to behold the breathtaking scene of floodlit Saint Paul’s. The very cold stones seemed to come to life and with the red-clouded sky serving as a background (reflecting the many bonfires east of London) the beautiful picture of a victorious and gallant city cathedral personified the hopes of a new humanity. Again we footed our way home but on this occasion the time was close on 3.30 a.m. when I laid myself to sleep.” That night, more than a 1,000 high-spirited celebrators, some carrying dustbin lids, others armed with signs which they had removed from shops and pubs, tried to storm the Savoy Hotel. The hotel’s loyal commissioners barricaded the doors. Whether the attack was a social protest or mere high spirits is not recorded. 1 of those who could not be “jubilant and carefree” that night was Gordon Campbell (June 8, 1921 – April 26, 2005), 1 of the officers who had entered Belsen on April 15, and who, during the fighting in the very last days, had been severely wounded. “On May 8, 1945, I was thankfully aware that the war in Europe had ended, but I was in no condition to celebrate. I was in hospital, having been wounded three days before the cease fire; and j as to remain in hospital for more than a year. The war for me, a Major in a Scottish division, was ended by a bullet through the middle at close quarters, fighting on the other side of the Elbe, after the attack across the river’s half-mile width, near Hamburg, in assault boats. This was the day before Hitler committed suicide.” “I had an immediate operation in a field hospital, was flown to Brussels and then, in a Douglas Dakota III (American-built C-47) full of stretcher cases, to Royal Air Force Station Lyneham. For reasons of civilian morale, wounded were moved by night, so that at about 0550 Hours. On May 4, I arrived at Frier Barnet, formerly a mental hospital and then being used as a first treatment and clearing unit.” “I found myself there, in what had been a padded cell, on Victory in Europe Day, 1 was not in a good state and I remember little. On May 4, a nurse had telephoned to my father, a General in the War Office, and this was the first that he or my mother heard about my being a casualty. They had much to bear at that time because my brother, a Spitfire pilot, had been missing for a year and a half (eventually his death was reported – he had been challenged and shot after a daring escape as a prisoner-of war).” “The Scottish division in which I had fought, through the strenuous and wearing weeks of the Normandy campaign and the battles in Belgium, Holland and Germany, had suffered crippling casualties. Many of my friends in other units and members of my personal forward teams and their replacements had lost their lives. Although my faculties were not functioning normally on Victory in Europe Day, I could be thankful that the war against Hitler had been won and that I was still alive, although the war against Japan was continuing. I did not know what my own future would be. It was indeed a long time before an assessment could be made of my injuries and their degrees of permanency. On May 14, I was moved to Barts, at that time evacuated to Hertfordshire, and their skilled surgery and treatment gave me the best chance of returning to normal life over a year later, although I was not yet able to walk. I was twenty-three when I was wounded and twenty-five when I emerged from hospital. I was twenty-one when promoted to Major and given command of my field battery in 1942. We were very young?” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0883.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.89 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3500 x 2333 |
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| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 8, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | London |
| State or Province | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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