What’s New: May 2025

George VI 
(1895–1952)

The king prepared carefully for the long-anticipated VE (Victory in Europe) day, but disagreements between the allies about the timing of the announcement somewhat spoilt his plans. However, on 8 May 1945 the king received the war cabinet and the chiefs of staff to congratulate them and that evening made a broadcast. The royal family and the prime minister Winston Churchill made repeated appearances on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth [née Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon]
(1900–2002)

When war ended in Europe, on VE Day, 8 May 1945, the crowds outside the palace cried out 'We want the King! We want the Queen!' Her appearance and reappearance—eight times in all—on the balcony facing The Mall to acknowledge the crowd on that occasion, with her husband, her daughters, and Winston Churchill, was one of the most memorable images of the British twentieth century. 

Rhodes [née Elphinstone], Margaret 
(1925–2016)

A cousin of the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and a trained secretary, Margaret Elphinstone worked for the Secret Intelligence Service during the war. On VE night, 8 May 1945, Margaret Elphinstone was part of the group of about sixteen who accompanied the princesses into the crowds to celebrate victory, dancing the conga, the Lambeth walk, and the hokey-cokey with the crowds. This she described as ‘a unique outburst of personal freedom’ for the princesses, ‘a Cinderella moment in reverse’.

Brooke, Alan Francis, first Viscount Alanbrooke 
(1883–1963)

Field marshal Sir Alan Brooke was among the three chiefs of staff who attended Buckingham Palace on the afternoon of 8 May 1945 to congratulate the king on the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Germany to the allied powers. He was born into an Irish landowning family with strong traditions of soldiering - twenty-seven of his male relatives fought in the Second World War. To those who worked for him Brooke was said to have been a tower of strength, a man whose own inner power radiated confidence. Only to his diary, intended for the eyes of his wife alone, did he confide the irritations, anxieties, self-questionings, and uncertainties of a deeply sensitive mind and heart.

Cunningham, Andrew Browne, Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope 
(1883–1963)

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham was of Scottish ancestry. By common consent he has been ranked with the greatest of British admirals. There were many parallels between his approach to high command and that of Nelson. Like Nelson, Cunningham set down a spare, simple doctrine of sea warfare based on calculated aggressiveness. The other chiefs of staff, Sir Alan Brooke and Sir Charles Portal welcomed him warmly when he joined them and the trio constituted an effective and generally harmonious team, united in their stand against the prime minister's frequently madcap strategy. 

Portal, Charles Frederick Algernon, Viscount Portal of Hungerford 
(1893–1971)

As chief of the air staff Marshal of the Royal Air Force from October 1940 Sir Charles Portal fought his war almost entirely in Whitehall and at the great Anglo-American conferences. At the end of the war he reckoned that he had attended nearly 2000 chiefs of staff meetings, 'each taking 1½ to 2 hours or more, and needing perhaps 3 or 4 hours of reading beforehand'. One of six sons of a Berkshire country gentleman – five of whom made careers in the armed forces – Portal came from a family of Huguenot descent. 

Churchill, Clementine Ogilvy Spencer- [née Clementine Ogilvy Hozier], Baroness Spencer-Churchill
(1885–1977)

Clementine Churchill was abroad on VE Day, on a visit to the Soviet Union inspecting facilities built with the help of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund, of which she was chairman.  She flew back to Britain days later. As the wife of the wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, she oversaw his personal well-being. She was also able to criticize him in ways that others were not prepared to do. 

Carter, (Helen) Violet Bonham [née (Helen) Violet Asquith], Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury 
(1887–1969)

In 1941 Violet Bonham Carter had been chosen by Churchill, with whom she had a longstanding friendship, as a governor of the BBC, a position she held until 1946. During the early months of the First World War, when her father H. H. Asquith was prime minister, she had lived at 10 Downing Street, and on VE Day she delivered a letter there, thanking the current occupant, Churchill, for his wartime leadership.

Marquis, Frederick James, first earl of Woolton 
(1883–1964)

The ending of the war in Europe was announced in House of Lords by Lord Woolton, acting leader of the House, after which the peers processed to Westminster Abbey for a service of thanksgiving.  Best remembered for the ‘Woolton pie’ (a mainly root vegetable stew topped with pastry), which he promoted as minister of Food in the early years of the war, he was  latterly responsible  for the postwar reconstruction programme, and produced the wartime coalition government's famous white papers on health, education, social security, and employment. 

Bailey, Sir Donald Coleman 
(1901–1985)

By VE Day, over two thousand of the transportable bridges designed by the civil engineer Sir Donald Bailey had been erected in north-west Europe, allowing the rapid advance of allied armoured and mechanized forces. Bailey had conceived the idea of a simple bridge structure based on standard rectangular trussed welded units bolted together in combinations to suit the job in hand. Each unit could be lifted by six men and fitted a standard 3 ton lorry. After the war many Bailey bridges remained in use around the world.

Watkins, Sir Tasker 
(1918–2007)

The lawyer and keen promoter of Welsh rugby union football, whose statue stands at the entrance to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in a desperate action in Normandy in August 1944. He rarely spoke about the events or his actions, and was quoted in the aftermath of VE Day as saying of the action, simply, 'The boys were wonderful. They were Welsh'.

Whateley [née Wood; other married name Balfour], Dame Leslie Violet Lucy Evelyn 
(1899–1987)

Leslie Whateley ended the war as a capable and efficient head of an army that was larger than many generals have the opportunity to command.  In 1942 she had been appointed director of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, whose membership had expanded from 40,000 to 204,000 as a result of conscription of all single women between eighteen and thirty years of age.  In 1945 she was 'proud and honoured' when the nineteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth elected to join the ATS and underwent her training at the ATS Mechanical Transport Training Centre at Aldershot. The princess, later to become Elizabeth II, was commissioned on 5 March 1945.

Lascelles, George Henry Hubert, seventh earl of Harewood 
(1923–2011)

Serving in the Grenadier Guards, the future opera administrator George Lascelles was wounded and captured in Italian campaign, in June 1944.  Held in Colditz along with other influential or well-connected prisoners, whom their German captors regarded as potential hostages, Lascelles spent his time in Colditz systematically reading Grove’s Dictionary of Music and had reached the letter S by the time he was freed. On 8 May 1945 he was back at the family seat, Harewood House.

Beamont, Roland Prosper 
(1920–2001)

Shot down by ground fire in October 1944, the RAF officer Roland Beamont was a prisoner of war until his liberation in May 1945 by the Red Army. In December 1941 he had been attached to the Hawker Aircraft Company as a production text pilot, and was involved in the successful development of the Typhoon, a devastating ground-attack weapon in operation Overlord, the allied invasion of Europe. He was at the leading edge of British military aviation for thirty-two years

Gryn, Hugo Gabriel 
(1930–1996)

Hugo Gryn and his family were among 10,000 Jews confined to the ghetto in Berehovo, Czechoslovakia before being sent to Auschwitz in May 1944. He survived the death march to Gunskirchen where he was liberated three days before VE Day. In February 1946 he was among the last group of Jewish boys to leave Prague for Great Britain, where he settled and became rabbi of the West London Synagogue and a broadcaster.

Last [née Lord], Nellie [Nella] 
(1889–1968)

The Barrow in Furness housewife Nella Last had joined Mass-Observation at the beginning of 1939, and accumulated 2 million words of her diaries during the war, when she was drawn into public work through the Women’s Voluntary Service. At the end of the war she feared that opportunities for voluntary work would dry up, denying her the strength to resist her husband's pleas that she should resume full-time domesticity.

Benson, Ivy 
(1913–1993)

The all-female big band led by the saxophonist Ivy Benson topped the bill at the London Palladium for six months, and following VE Day in 1945 the band was the first group of entertainers to be invited by Field Marshal Montgomery to join the victory celebrations in Berlin. In the postwar years the band undertook a punishing schedule of tours, headlining at variety theatres and holding summer residencies at holiday camps.

Pargeter, Edith Mary [pseud. Ellis Peters] 
(1913–1995)

During the Second World War the novelist Edith Pargeter continued to write prolifically while she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) from 1940 to 1945. Her first posting, to Devonport in Plymouth where she worked for the western approaches command, involved tracking allied convoy routes across the Atlantic. This was her first extended period away from home. For her 'meritorious service', she was presented with the British Empire Medal by George VI on VE Day, 8 May 1945, in London where she joined the vast crowds celebrating the end of the conflict. The war, she believed, proved the case for the equality of men and women, and she hoped that work and pay in the post-war period would recognize this principle.

Denman [née Pearson], Gertrude Mary, Lady Denman 
(1884–1954)

Lady Denman, honorary director of the Women's Land Army since 1939, waged constant battles for proper recognition of the land army, and succeeded in securing conditions of employment which were of lasting benefit to agricultural workers as a whole. However, the government ultimately refused to award the land army the grants, gratuities, and benefits which it accorded to women in the civil defence and armed services, and she resigned in protest on 15 February 1945, some three months before the end of the war in Europe. 

Sargent, Sir (Harold) Orme Garton
(1884–1962)

After the VE Day celebrations were over, some reflected on Britain’s changed place in the world. The diplomat Sir Orme Sargent was acutely aware of the fundamental weakness of Britain as a great power, in comparison with the United States and the Soviet Union. In July 1945 he produced an influential memorandum, 'Stocktaking after VE-day', in which he argued that the only way 'to compel our two big partners to treat us as an equal' was for Britain to assume the leadership of western Europe as well as of the empire or Commonwealth.

Curran, Sir Samuel Crowe [Sam] 
(1912–1998)

In the years after the war, two things especially angered Sir Sam Curran, principal of the University of Strathclyde, Britain’s first technological university: the very low salaries paid to scientists by comparison with businessmen, and the failure to recognize how science and technology had helped to win the Second World War. As he pointed out, there were no scientists in the parades to mark the fiftieth anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day, yet it was the discoveries and developments by scientists and engineers that made victory possible. He had spent much of the war as part of a research team at the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Leeson House, Langton Matravers, working on the development of centimetre radar for installation in aircraft.  Meanwhile in an adjoining laboratory his wife and fellow physicist Joan Curran was cutting up strips of tinfoil and developing the idea which led to operation Window, the scattering of clouds of these strips as a way of misleading enemy radar.