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60th Anniversary of V E Day?
My recollection of VICTORY IN EUROPE DAY, forever to be remembered as VE Day was of wild, totally uninhibited behaviour of Navy, Army, Air Force types lettin' 'er rip in the streets of Aldershot. And that, of course, included the opposite gender wearing uniforms along with more than a few civilian lassies who were not about to be left out of the fun and frolic.
I'd only shortly before arrived from Italy after a long stay in hospital and missed the transfer of 1st Corps to Northwest Europe where it would end the war in Germany united once again with the rest of the Army.
I knew the war was just about over as I walked the streets of Aldershot in the first days of May in high spirits expecting an announcement any day that the war had finally come to an end. Every day the English newspaper headlines over the past month practically screamed victory. I also expected that when it came I'd be right in there with all the other celebrants letting off the pent-up steam and energies saved for the big day. But when the news came on the 7th of May that the next day would be officially declared as the day War ended, the celebrations began but with me not a part of it. It seemed like everyone in Aldershot, soldiers, some air force types and sailors out of their element in soldier country, and civilians alike went mildly berserk. The celebrations went on all that day and through all of the next day and evening. Aldershot was only a microcosm of the delirious merrymaking and celebrations that went on all over the length and breadth of the British Isles, Canada, the U.S., in other Commonwealth countries and in every free country of the world. It seemed like everywhere you looked, people were going happily right out of their minds.
The streets of Aldershot were awash with throngs of merrymakers, drinking, singing, shouting servicemen and women embracing each other, dancing in ring-around-the-roses fashion, threading their way in snak-ing columns hands on each other's hips, while others kissed with reckless abandon. People were all over the sidewalks, on the streets, on the commons, in the pubs doing whatever came to their mind at the moment. At night, bonfires lit up the streets—streets that for six long years of war lay in darkness of the blackouts. The citiz-ens of Aldershot especially had reason to dance around these fires with unrestrained joy. The lights had come on again as the song so often sung had promised. Inhib-ition was completely absent on VE day. Civilians were as uninhibited as the service personnel, and in many instances more so. It was a time to bust loose and bust loose everybody did, except for the odd few who chose to enjoy the shenanigans going on around them but did not take part. I was one of these.
I didn't really know why I couldn't let myself go as so many others around me were doing. What I did know was, I was alive and in good shape after all the combat I had been through in Italy in the infantry. All those close calls I had, first at my battle baptism near Ortona, then in the Liri Valley north of Cassino, then in the Gothic Line, and at river-line after river-line in the Po Plains. all these close calls going through my mind one after the other made me realize it was a miracle I was walking here in the bright sunshine taking in the supreme joy of what was going on around me. Although I felt stimulated like I could dance a jig or turn cartwheels, for some reason I couldn’t let my-self go like everybody else in celebrating. I was not one of those extroverts who love to draw attention on them-selves in some ridiculous fashion. Blame it on self-con-sciousness. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that those who were carrying-on in outrageous ways the most, were the johnny-come-latelys who'd recently set foot in the country. It’s more than likely they were cel-ebrating the fact that they wouldn't have to put their lives on the line. In other words, ‘they were saved by the bell’. On the other hand, those of us who’d been in the thick of the fighting time and time again, couldn't seem to let ourselves go and do the things others around us were doing. We exulted inside, happy and glad it was all over and that our return to Canada and home would not be that far off. Meanwhile, those who hadn’t heard a shot fired in anger were going ‘bananas'. Stands to reason.

Sixty years have gone by since I stepped ashore in Greenock, Scotland after arriving on April 14, 1945 from my service in Italy. It's hard to believe that it was that many years ago. The war was nearing its end, and although I didn't know it, I would spend yet another eight months overseas, but it proved to be the most pleasant period of my three and a half years service in the army.
At the time, it was only natural, that I'd be jexcited knowing that it would not be long before I'd be on my way home at last. But as I look back on the last eight month period of my army career, I'm glad I never did get on one of the early boats on its way to Canada. Those eight months had to be, without a doubt, the happiest, most carefree, most enjoyable time I could have ever asked or hoped for. Let me describe briefly what it was like and the feelings that went through me.
April and May in England of 1945 was a delightful succession of bright, sunny days, the kind of Spring everyone looks forward to and revels in. As far as I was concerned, though most of my contemporaries wouldn’t agree, few are the ways in which one can experience content-ment and inner serenity than can compare to an unhurried walk along shaded country lanes and across flower speckled meadows, even for a virile young specimen of Canadian manhood as I was. I did just that in the beautiful garden countryside of Surrey and Hampshire counties. I found this out in the next three months or more as I went about such a non-macho and mundane pursuit of pleasure.
Idyllic Spring days, followed by the ideal days of an equally beautiful summer did more for me in my coming back down to earth from the stresses of battle than anything else I can think of. There’s something about communing with Nature that's better medicine for the inner spirit than any potion a doctor can prescribe.The frequent walks and bike rides that took me through the leafy tunnel of the oak wood at Esher on my wanderings to here, there, and everywhere was a tonic for the stresses I’d been subjected to in the year and a half I spent in Italy. Shafts of sunlight piercing the upper foliage of the tall oaks danced on the black asphalt of the roadway; birds twittering and singing, hidden amidst the foliage somewhere high above me; the flowers in brilliant hues along the wood's edge; the soughing of the gentle breezes of Spring in the leaves above; all these awakened the aspiring muse within me and I expressed myself in the way I felt through my writing.
Many an evening I spent at the Underwood typewriter in the Repat. Depot Orderly Room (I was the runner) with no one around to bother me as I tapped away at the keys with two fingers, putting down on paper anything that came to mind. I wrote about what I had seen along the way on my frequent bicycle rides and meandering walks through the lovely Surrey and Hampshire countrysides, and even into Berkshire equally as lovely. I drew pictures in words describing the pastoral beauty of the fields, the farms, the canals, the country cottages. I wrote about the people I met or passed along the way. Anything that came to mind I scribbled first on little note-pads and then typed on letter-size sheets when I returned to camp. The scraps of paper on which my musings and observ-ations were typed, have long since been lost to me, my friends, and the literary world. Deathless prose? Not likely. But whatever it was that I scribbled or typed, I like to think there had to be something there that might have been worth reading and ruminating over, or that those same thoughts and observations would have given a few moments of pleasure to me or to anyone else who enjoys such stuff. How I wish I still had those scraps of paper.

Often when it seemed I found Goodness here, there, all around,
I saw, on closer scrutiny The goodness come from inside me.

Why did the whole world seem to smile? Because I laughed with it awhile. Why was all earth so bright with sun?
Because my heart gave it one.

The past seems dear, the future right?
What was it set the day apart?
The peace of God within my heart.
Since then, when life looks dark and grim, My assets small, my prospects dim,
I push dark thoughts back on the shelf And seek for heaven in myself.
author unknown

As the saying goes nowadays; "I must have been some kind of a nut" to spend my idle hours walking the fields and along back-country lanes and grass-banked streams, while so many others were spending their time and money getting looped-up on beer or ale in the local pubs or chasing the skirted ones. That day would come for me, but not just yet. Maybe I did seem kind of strange in their eyes. But I knew different. I was no more strange than they were. There was a purpose in those solitary walks, a becalming purpose, a celebration of my coming back from all those days of miseries, of living a good part of the time in holes in the ground, of enduring the cold rain and the sleet and snow of northern Italian winters, followed by the sweltering heat and dust of an Italian summer, and wallowing in the quagmires of the rainy season of Fall. And of course, in my quiet way I celebrated the fact that I survived the days of battle. I was at peace with myself and the world. Stan Scislowski

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