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Featured
Sir William Frederic Wake-Walker (1888–1945), naval officer
The Royal Navy officer Sir William Frederic Wake-Walker reached admiral’s rank on 8 May 1945. He had taken a leading part in the sinking of the enemy battleship Bismarck in 1941, and subsequently in developing landing craft which made possible the allied invasions of northern and southern Europe.
Featured
Dame Vera Lynn (1917–2020), singer and entertainer
A forces’ sweetheart in the Second World War, the singer Dame Vera Lynn performed at the concert for the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day in 2005. By then she had become a ‘national treasure’ and was seen as symbolizing British ideals rooted in the memory of the war years.
This month’s update, published on the 80th anniversary of VE Day, views the events of 8 May 1945 through twenty-one lives in ODNB: including George VI, Clementine Churchill, Alan Brooke, Charles Portal, Gertrude Denman, and Lord Woolton.
