Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here. Our topic this week will be the 80th anniversaries of the end of World War II: Victory in Europe (May 8) and Victory in Japan (August 15 for England--the date of Japan's stated surrender--and September 2--the date of the formal surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri for the USA).
When victory was declared in Europe--with the German surrender--both Winston Churchill in England and Pope Pius XII in Rome remarked that the second World War wasn't over while the Allies were still fighting the Japanese military.
From Winston Churchill, lauding the English spirit:
"God bless you all. This is your victory! It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land. In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this.
"Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. God bless you all.
"My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. . . .
"The lights went out and the bombs came down. But every man, woman and child in the country had no thought of quitting the struggle. London can take it.
"So we came back after long months from the jaws of death, out of the mouth of hell, while all the world wondered. When shall the reputation and faith of this generation of English men and women fail? . . ."Now we have emerged from one deadly struggle – a terrible foe has been cast on the ground and awaits our judgment and our mercy.
"But there is another foe who occupies large portions of the British Empire, a foe stained with cruelty and greed – the Japanese. I rejoice we can all take a night off today and another day tomorrow.
"Tomorrow our great Russian allies will also be celebrating victory and after that we must begin the task of rebuilding our hearth and homes, doing our utmost to make this country a land in which all have a chance, in which all have a duty, and we must turn ourselves to fulfill our duty to our own countrymen, and to our gallant allies of the United States who were so foully and treacherously attacked by Japan. . . . "
From Pope Pius XII:
Here at last we behold the end of this war, which, during almost six years, has held Europe in the grip of the most atrocious suffering and most bitter sorrow
A cry of humble and ardent gratitude arises from the very depths of our heart to "the Father of Mercies and the God of All Consolation."
But our canticle of thanksgiving is accompanied with the suppliant prayer to implore also of divine omnipotence and goodness the termination, in accord with justice, of the sanguinary warfare in the Far East.
On our knees in spirit before the tombs, before the ravines disturbed and reddened by blood, where repose the innumerable corpses of those who have fallen, victims of the fighting or of inhuman massacres, of hunger or of misery, we recommend them all in our prayers, and especially in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, to the merciful love of Jesus Christ, their Saviour and their judge.
And it seems to us that they, the fallen, are giving warning to the survivors of this cruel scourge and are saying to them: Let there arise from the earth, wherein we have been placed as grains of wheat, the molders and builders of a new and better Europe, of a new and better universe, founded on the filial fear of God, on fidelity to His Holy Commandments, on respect for human dignity, on the sacred principle of equality of the rights of all peoples and all states, large and small, weak and strong.
The war has created on all sides chaotic ruin, both material and moral, such as mankind has never known in the entire course of human history. The task of this hour is to rebuild the world. . . .
The war has aroused everywhere discord, suspicion and hatred. If, therefore the world wishes to regain peace, it is necessary that falsehood and rancor should vanish and in their stead that sovereign truth and charity should reign.
Above all, however, in our daily prayers, we should beseech God constantly to fulfill his promise made by the mouth of the Prophet Ezekiel, "And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels; and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh: that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and that they may be my people, and I may be their God."
May the Lord God deign to create this new spirit, His spirit, in peoples, and particularly in the hearts of those to whom he has entrusted the responsibility of establishing the future peace.
Then and only then will the reborn world avoid the return of the thunderous scourge of war and there will reign a true, stable and universal brotherhood, and that peace guaranteed by Christ even on earth to those who are willing to believe and trust in His law of love.
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In the USA, Harry Truman had succeeded FDR as President only in April that year upon FDR's death. The Truman Library Institute provides this commentary:
President Truman was the Vice-President to FDR for less than 90 days before stepping into the role of President and Commander in Chief. This was April 12, 1945, a mere five months before the world war would come to an end. However, at the time, while the end of the war was longed for and looked by some to be imminent, there was no sure-end of the war in sight. It required a great deal of Presidential action and severe decisions to bring about the conclusion of World War II. While FDR was the President in charge at the beginning of the war, it was Truman’s actions that brought the war to an end.
Within 15 days of taking Presidential office, both Mussolini and Adolf Hitler met their death. A day before Hitler’s death and only two days after the death of Mussolini, German forces in Italy surrendered. This accelerated the end of the war, as German forces in Berlin surrendered to the Allies on May 2nd, marking the third week of Truman’s presidency.
Over the next week German forces would continue to surrender, but that did not bring an end to the war. There was still tension with Japan and Russia, and funding for the war was growing thin.
At this time the three heads of state from the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, respectively, met at the Potsdam Conference. This is where the fate of Germany and much of Europe was decided.
One essential aspect for me is that because of the August/September surrenders of Japan, my father was honorably discharged from the Army of the United States in October of 1945. He'd been based in England in 203rd Army Air Force as a gunner in a B-17 and might have been sent to the ongoing war against Japan! He came home, settled down in Wichita, Kansas with Rita, bought a house, worked at Boeing, and raised three children, including me.
The motto of his B-17 was "Heaven Can Wait"!
Photo Credits (Public Domain): Winston Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall in London as they celebrate VE Day, 8 May 1945. From the the balcony of the Ministry of Health, Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives his famous 'V for Victory' sign to crowds in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945 (VE Day); Pius XII with tabard, by Michael Pitcairn, 1951.
Family photo, scanned and retouched (Copyright Stephanie A. Mann, 2025)--Wasn't he handsome? No wonder my mother fell for him on a blind date!
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