LONDON \u2014 John Goldsmith was too young to fight in World War II, but he remembers the rationing, the blackouts and the bombs that devastated his neighborhood in east London. And he remembers the party when peace returned to Europe.<\/p>\n
Church bells rang across the city, bonfires were lit and conga lines snaked through Piccadilly Circus as people filled the streets to celebrate the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. For a 14-year-old boy, May 8, 1945, also brought something else: an end to the tedium of wartime rules and restrictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it was such a contrast. Suddenly, freedom! Mucking about. Doing all sorts of things that were frowned upon as not being the right thing to do,\u201d Goldsmith, now 94, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now, for instance, all these wonderful pictures of Piccadilly and places like that. Buses covered with people standing on the roof just going barmy \u2014 not necessarily due to drink or anything of that nature. But definitely, they were letting their hair down,\u2019\u2019 he added with a giggle.<\/p>\n
Victory in Europe Day was a moment of relief for a city scarred by bombing raids and rocket attacks that killed an estimated 30,000 civilians throughout the war and didn\u2019t end until just a few weeks earlier. But it was also a time to look forward to the safe return of husbands, sons, brothers \u2014 and sisters \u2014 who were serving abroad, and to hope that lives put on hold in 1939 might soon return to normal.<\/p>\n
While D-Day was all about the troops who landed on the beaches of northern France to begin the liberation of Europe, V-E Day was a moment for the public, for everyone who sacrificed for the common good.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had inspired Britain during its darkest days, caught the mood of the nation when he announced the victory at 3 p.m. on May 8.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Goldsmith, 94, shows his drawing during an interview at his home in London, Thursday, April 24, 2025. Credit: AP\/Kin Cheung<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dear friends, this is your hour,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not victory of a party or of any class. It\u2019s a victory of the great British nation as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a message Goldsmith wants people to remember before the World War II generation fades from the scene. A retired architect and amateur artist, he has long regaled his family with stories of his boyhood in the Bow neighborhood of east London. After a bit of prodding from his wife, Margaret, he recently began sketching the scenes so others could see what he lived through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe soldiers, the airmen, the sailors can\u2019t operate without the people supporting them and backing them,\u2019\u2019 Goldsmith said. \u201cSo if we the people don\u2019t contribute, the armored elements will collapse. So it\u2019s so important that V-E Day should be \u2026 the people\u2019s day.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
While Londoners had been anticipating the end of the fighting in Europe for weeks, the announcement was like the cork popping out of a giant bottle of champagne in a city that had lived in the shadow of war for six years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Goldsmith, 94, draws during an interview at his home in London, Thursday, April 24, 2025. Credit: AP\/Kin Cheung<\/p>\n
The East Enders paid a heavy price <\/p>\n
Nowhere was the relief felt more deeply than in the East End, where thousands of homes, schools and businesses were reduced to rubble as Nazi bombers pounded docks and warehouses along the River Thames during the onslaught that became known as The Blitz. When Buckingham Palace was bombed on Sept. 13, 1940, Queen Elizabeth reportedly told a policeman she was glad, because \u201cit makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goldsmith’s drawings capture the day The Blitz began, with Nazi bombers filling the air and fires turning the night sky a molten volcanic red behind the docks. There’s also the time a cricket match was suspended as one of the flying bombs known as \u201cdoodlebugs\u201d soared overhead, and the ghostly image of a rent collector emerging from a cloud of dust after a V-2 rocket, a type of long-range ballistic missile, obliterated a block of houses.<\/p>\n
The last V-2 to hit London destroyed an apartment building less than two miles from his home on March 27, 1945.<\/p>\n
Eighty years later, Goldsmith holds back tears when he remembers the moment he heard that the Nazis had surrendered.<\/p>\n
He and his friends were playing street soccer using a tennis ball \u2014 soccer balls being scarce after six years of war \u2014 when a young boy ran out of the nearby dairy and shouted simply, \u201cIt\u2019s over!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to be very careful now, because I could break up,\u2019\u2019 Goldsmith said, pausing to collect himself. \u201cBut that was the point when you realized: \u2018I didn\u2019t have to worry anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
People had seen the end coming, but didn\u2019t dare to believe it could be true.<\/p>\n
A wave of joy <\/p>\n
In an era before television, Londoners flocked to the cinema to watch the weekly newsreels that charted the Allied advance toward Berlin. Goldsmith, who was just 8 when the war broke out, tracked the progress of the troops through the newspaper, carefully clipping the headlines and maps. By early 1945, he realized the surrender of the Third Reich was near.<\/p>\n
When the news finally came, it unleashed a wave of joy that lasted for days.<\/p>\n
Goldsmith remembers climbing the steps of St. John\u2019s Church in Bethnal Green to see over the crowds that lined the streets as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth drove through East London to celebrate with the locals.<\/p>\n
There were street parties and bonfires. Everyone contributed what they could with food still in short supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe favorite table from the lounge was brought out in the center of the street and linked with all the other personal possessions covered up with cloth and that sort of thing,\u201d Goldsmith remembered. \u201cFood was magicked from somewhere, and kids gorged themselves on all sorts of cakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the celebrations were bittersweet, tempered by the knowledge that V-E Day wasn’t the end of the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a sudden realization. There was still the Japanese situation in the Far East,” Goldsmith said. “And people then buckled down.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 John Goldsmith was too young to fight in World War II, but he remembers the rationing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15,34242],"class_list":{"0":"post-67765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114436985795218953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}