Changing lives

It’s always useful to be reminded of the remarkable stoicism and bravery of the generation of people that lived through the second world war. It’s hard to imagine it being repeated today. I felt it this week listening to Coming Home, a five-part series celebrating the 60th anniversary of VE Day. Charles Wheeler, who in 1945 was a Royal Marine crossing into Germany from Holland, examined how people saw the ending of the war in Europe and how the conflict had altered their lives. Across the BBC as a whole, the occasion is being marked by a plethora of programmes.

The depravity of those involved in the fall of Berlin was remembered: the raping and looting by Russian soldiers, and the SS killing those Germans who flew a white flag from their buildings. German women had the most to fear as the savage reputation of the Soviet troops preceded them. This fear of falling into Russian hands, recalled a former member of the Hitler Youth, explained the fanatical fighting by German soldiers in the ruins of the city. Wheeler said that the last half-mile to Hitler’s Chancellery cost a thousand Soviet lives. Derek Foskett, a doctor and prisoner of war, took a car with a friend and drove to Holland and Belgium rather than wait for an RAF transporter to fly him back to Britain. On the way, he gave a lift home to two terrified German girls, interpreters at the camp, and an SS guard before the Russians could get to them.

In London, an estimated 30,000 people flocked to Buckingham Palace to see the King, Queen and Winston Churchill appear on the balcony. Humphrey Lyttelton was there with his trumpet and when he started playing he was joined by strangers who also had musical instruments with them.