´óÏó´«Ã½

VE Day Celebrations in Paris.

Part of a letter written by John Horsley from Paris,to his best friend John Purser of Stanwell.
13th. May 1945.
Describing the VE Day celebrations In Paris on the 8th.May 1945.

‘And how did VE Day Go? You will probably have seen the huge crowds that swelled the Champs Elysees in the papers.-We were right there.
We heard Churchill’s speech in ‘Skittle Alley’ (NAAFI) and from then on just followed the crowd. Nothing was organised, just a complete shambles with terrific traffic jams and the springs etc of the army vehicles completely ruined by the excessive weight of humans.

To get out of the crowd for a while we saw Eric Winstones Band which was playing in a nearby theatre. Between 9 and 11, my mate and myself together with an ATS and a couple of University girls managed to find a bar where it was possible to get a drink and a seat: here we had a couple of bottles of champagne and a bottle of good Vin Rouge.

About midnight we thought we had better think about getting back to barracks as we were supposed to be in at that time, but finding ourselves in the centre of Concorde- we were literally mobbed and it was not until 1a.m. that we managed to get to a Metro and so commence the ‘homeward’ journey

All day planes were swooping at house- top level and dropping flares: when darkness approached the whole Universe looked alight with the Arc de Triomphe standing out as a pillar of fire.

Next morning we were surprised to learn in this camp that there was not one absentee-although several had to be brought back by our transport at the instructions of the military police (who behaved quite well not that they had much choice!)
It was on one of these mercy wagons that we were eventually got back…..!

Spasmodic celebrations are still going on all over France with dancing in the streets until the early hours of the morning.
I wonder what it was like in England!’

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.