VE Day 75 Years On

The Daily Express (London), May 9, 1945

Among my keepsakes is a letter that my father, who spent much of the war stationed at an air base in England, wrote to his parents at the end of hostilities - just barely within living memory now.  One short sentence has always resounded in my memory:  At long last, humanity's travail is over.  What tremendous meaning is contained in those few words.

It is well that all we who have enjoyed a lifetime of relative peace and prosperity should pause to remember the enormous sacrifices made by our fathers' and mothers' generation to ensure that we their children grew up in that sunlit freedom we always just took for granted - "doing our own thing," for good or ill - and in the careless ignorance and arrogance of youth, perhaps not a little ungratefully.

The long peace of the postwar era was a good time - and in the long history of mankind, an astoundingly well-off time in general - to be alive and living in the Western world, most of the time in most places.  And alongside technological advances that have made daily life easier and more comfortable than ever before, the progress of equality, justice, and human rights has come a long, long way, despite an uphill climb.  But where do we go from here, I wonder?

The Queen will address Britain and the Commonwealth via television at 9 p.m. today, BST. I will post a video of her speech when it becomes available.  In the meantime, here are some scenes from the past and the present to help us all remember what we should never forget.


















Update: Here is the Queen's address.

Never give up, never despair - that was the message
of VE Day.