JOURNEYS TO VICTORY
After almost six years of the bloodiest conflict ever fought, the guns fell silent in Europe on 8 May 1945. The continent had been utterly devastated with countless homes and cities destroyed. Whole countries had been brought to their knees and millions of lives had been lost or irreparably damaged. The intense pain the conflict had inflicted was finally at an end and the war’s conclusion triggered mass celebrations across the world.
Out of the millions who remembered that day were two men who contributed to the Allied victory. Albert Selby and Fred Duffield were both soldiers in the British Army who had extensively fought in Europe from 1944. However, on 8 May 1945 they had very different experiences of VE Day. Seventy-five years on, they recall the battles that led to the war’s conclusion, the comrades they lost and the sober recognition that VE Day was not the end of WWII. didn’t know what was coming! I looked out about half a mile from the beach and saw one of our ships sink. Whether it was a mine or not I don’t know but I couldn’t imagine it was anything else.”
When the landing vessels approached Sword, the soldiers were exhorted into
