Eighty years ago today – VE Day – the guns fell silent across Europe. Adolf Hitler was dead, Berlin lay in ruins, and the swastika that had once fluttered over half the continent was torn down by force of arms.
Nazi Germany’s surrender on May 8th, 1945, marked not only the end of the Second World War in Europe, but also the triumph of Western liberty over fascist tyranny—a victory achieved through the monumental sacrifice of the English-speaking world.
On this 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Britain and her allies are pausing to remember a generation that bore the weight of civilisation on its shoulders.
In solemn ceremonies from London to Ottawa, from Washington to Canberra, the last remaining veterans of the war are being honoured and the dead are being mourned.
It is a moment to reflect not only on what was won, but on who won it—and at what cost.
384,000 British servicemen and women gave their lives during the Second World War. The United States suffered over 416,000 war dead, including 135,000 in the war against Hitler’s Reich. Canada lost more than 45,000 of her sons and daughters; Australia, nearly 40,000. These were not just statistics—they were volunteers, conscripts, and patriots who crossed oceans to fight in foreign fields so that evil would not triumph at home.
Today, their legacy ill be honoured in grand and quiet ways alike. In London, the King will lead a service at Westminster Abbey, accompanied by the Prime Minister and members of the wartime generation. At 11 a.m., the nation will fall silent. Church bells will toll and wreaths will be laid at the Cenotaph.
Across the Channel, in Normandy, British schoolchildren will stand beside the graves of men little more than their own age who never came home. The Royal Air Force will stage a flypast over the white cliffs of Dover, a tribute to the pilots who secured the skies during the Battle of Britain—a turning point not just in the war, but in world history.
It is easy, 80 years on, to forget how uncertain that history once was. In the early years of the war, Britain stood virtually alone. After the fall of France in 1940, only the English-speaking world stood between Europe and total subjugation. It was Britain’s defiance, exemplified in Churchill’s immortal vow to “never surrender,” that kept the flame of freedom alive.
Later, it was the industrial might and manpower of the United States that turned the tide. By the time of the Normandy landings in June 1944, the Allies were a formidable force—but it was overwhelmingly an Anglosphere force.
On D-Day, of the 156,000 Allied troops who stormed the beaches, 73,000 were American and 61,000 were British or Canadian.
The skies above were dominated by RAF and USAAF planes; the seas, by British and American warships.
And when victory finally came in May 1945, it was sealed with the blood of men from Yorkshire, Alberta, Georgia and New South Wales. English-speaking nations had poured treasure, talent, and tenacity into a fight not of their own making—yet one they could not afford to lose.
Today, as Europe marks the 80th anniversary of that hard-won peace, there is renewed clarity about what was truly at stake in the Second World War. This was not merely a clash of armies. It was a contest between diametrically opposed visions of humanity—between tyranny and liberty, slavery and sovereignty, barbarism and civilisation.
Nazi Germany was not defeated by appeasement, diplomacy, or moral suasion. It was defeated by Churchill’s stubbornness, Roosevelt’s resolve, and the bayonets of free men. For all the rightful acknowledgment of the Soviet Union’s role on the Eastern Front, it was the democratic West that fought for a Europe worth saving.
And yet, as time passes and memories fade, that truth is increasingly obscured. Some revisionists seek to downplay the role of the British Empire or the United States in favour of a more “balanced” narrative. Others are content to treat VE Day as a quaint relic—worthy of wreaths and nostalgia, perhaps, but irrelevant to the present.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The values that drove our forebears to war—freedom of speech, the rule of law, national sovereignty—are under siege once again. From the battlefields of Ukraine to the censorious chambers of international organisations, the very liberties for which the Allies bled are being challenged anew.
Indeed, the lesson of 1945 is not merely that tyranny can be defeated, but that it must be resisted—early, firmly, and without apology. As Churchill warned, “Victory is never final. Defeat is never fatal. It is courage that counts.”
Today’s courage must take new forms: a willingness to defend truth in the face of distortion, to protect sovereignty in the face of expansionism, and to teach history as it was—not as we might wish it to have been.
The dwindling number of veterans at today’s services are the last living witnesses to a world saved by sacrifice. Their stories—of El Alamein and Arnhem, of Bomber Command and the Blitz—are now entrusted to their great-grandchildren. As they disappear from our ranks, we must ensure their cause does not disappear from our conscience.
It is no small thing that the English-speaking world rallied in defence of liberty in its darkest hour. It is no small thing that young men from Glasgow, Boston and Brisbane answered the call. And it is no small thing that they prevailed.
That victory is our inheritance. We must not squander it.
Main Image: By War Office official photographer, Major W. G. Horton – http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//49/media-49118/large.jpg This photograph H 41849 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30910449
