May 7/8, 1945: V-E Day

World War II had passed its midpoint when the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan at the Casablanca Conference on January 24, 1943. The previous year had seen the terrible forfeits in the east that Churchill foresaw when he received news of the attack on Pearl Harbor: the fall of Singapore; the loss of the Philippines and Malaya; the invasion of Burma. It also saw the turning point in the war: irretrievable Japanese losses at the Battles of Midway and Guadalcanal in the Pacific, and a decisive victory over the Germans at the Battle of El Alamein in Africa. At the moment President Roosevelt announced the unconditional surrender demand, more than two years of violence and savagery the like of which the world had never before seen still lay ahead.

But the fighting was not in vain: gradually, the ring closed upon the Axis. First Rome fell to the Allies; then the Allies invaded France. Festung Europa crumbled, wall by wall, battlement by battlement, until Allied forces stood at the very doors of Hitler's chancellery, where they found themselves battling a tatterdemalion force of Hitler Youth, children as young as 13 trying to stave off the inevitable. By the first of May, 1945, Adolf Hitler was dead by his own hand, and was succeeded by Admiral Karl Dönitz -- just in time for Dönitz, as head of state, and General Alfred Jodl, as head of the German High Command, to sign the act of unconditional surrender of all German sea, land and air forces in Europe to the Allies on May 7, 1945. A general cease-fire was ordered immediately, and the surrender took effect at 12:01 a.m. on May 8, 1945. Winston Churchill declared May 7th and 8th Victory in Europe Days -- though he also warned that the job was not completely finished as long as Japan remained on her feet.

In Triumph and Tragedy, the last volume of his war memoirs, Churchill reflected on the significance of the victory that was finally won five years almost to the day after he assumed the burdens of the premiership:

The unconditional surrender of our enemies was the signal for the greatest outburst of joy in the history of mankind. The Second World War had indeed been fought to the bitter end in Europe. The vanquished as well as the victors felt inexpressible relief. But for us in Britain and the British Empire, who had alone been in the struggle from the first day to the last and staked our existence on the result, there was a meaning beyond what even our most powerful and most valiant Allies could feel. Weary and worn, impoverished but undaunted and now triumphant, we had a moment that was sublime. We gave thanks to God for the noblest of all His blessings, the sense that we had done our duty.

And we who are the heirs of this victory, as the posterity of those who won it, can also give thanks. But now that we are again up to the neck and in to the death -- and facing internal enemies and traitors deadlier than those our troops are fighting in the Middle East -- we ought to use this opportunity to take thought for our own posterity.

Will their inheritance be victory? Does the alternative bear contemplation?