OT-VE Day

[jnyork]

Used to be a day celebrated throughout the country, now nobody even mentions it. Wonder how many pinheads walking around with 4-year degrees even know what it is?

It's today, in case you were wondering.

[Hobie]

Today is the day a way back then that my dad was in Cooperstown and heard the news on the radio. He called home, told his mom that the farm labor was released to enlist and he was going to Oneonta to enlist and didn't know when he'd be back. 2 years later he came home.

[guido4198]

Thank You for that reminder. My family were all posted to the Pacific theater, including the uncle I was named after who was a Marine pilot, flying F4U-Corsairs. We tend to celebrate VJ-Day , but that's just because it is more personal to us.
God Bless ALL the members of The Greatest Generation. European Theater, Pacific Theater, and Home Front as well.

[gamekeeper]

I thank all American and Common Wealth Allies for making VE Day possible. Lest we forget.

[pdentrem]

One of my late uncles served in Italy and later in Europe.
He never discussed his experiences and did not celebrate VE nor VJ days.

He did go to all the memorials and funerals of fellow servicemen prior to his passing.

[Pitchy]

On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark--the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.

The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.

Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.

Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: "The age-long struggle of the Slav nations...has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over

God Bless

[Ysabel Kid]

I thank all American and Common Wealth Allies for making VE Day possible. Lest we forget.

+1

[oldguy]

my father was still in the pacific. navy
my father-in law landed in new york,home from europe, on this date 1945.
i thank them all. oldguy

[pharmseller]

To those who fought, and came home.
Especially to those who fought, and did not come home.

We owe a debt we can never repay.

This sentiment applies to any and all wars, and any and all service men and women.

P