Helpline: 0300 102 1919
-
14-year-old Jessica hosts virtual VE Day concert
A 14-year-old who lives in West Yorkshire hosted a virtual VE Day concert on Friday 8 May to raise money for the RAF Benevolent Fund.
-
Tribute to Terry Clark DFM
We are saddened to hear Battle of Britain veteran Terry Clark DFM passed away yesterday. Terry was one of two remaining air crew, The Few, who took to the skies in the summer of 1940 to defend Great Britain against Nazi invaders.
-
RAF veterans receive VE Day party packages to celebrate at home
With the country in lockdown and the public participation element of VE Day 75 commemorations cancelled, the RAF Benevolent Fund has taken the party to veterans living in West Sussex.
-
"We lifted the piano out and lit it on the parade square"
Seventy-five years ago today the Allies celebrated as peace was declared in Europe. Such was the delight of Sonny Davies and his comrades, they dragged a piano into the parade square and set it alight!
-
"We were glad we wouldn’t hear the sirens anymore"
As the nation prepares to mark 75 years since VE Day tomorrow, RAF veteran Nobby Hill tells us what it was like as a teenager. Nobby, now 89, joins a weekly Telephone Friendship Group chat which keeps him company during the isolation of lockdown.
-
"I remember dancing in the street with mum and dad"
As the nation looks to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day on Friday, we spoke to RAF veteran Reg Lawrence about what he remembers from the historic day. Just a teenager at the time, Reg would go on to serve in the RAF in the 1950s.
-
"I had never seen so much food in all my life"
Warrant Officer Jack Watson will mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day quietly, remembering his comrades and the 'band of brothers' who saw him through 77 operations flying with Bomber Command during the Second World War.
-
Home for VE Day
Jack Lyon was shot down in a raid on Dusseldorf in June 1941 and spent almost four years as a PoW. Marched west by his German captors from Stalag Luft III as the war drew to an end, Jack finally returned home on VE Day.
-
"There was an atmosphere of thanksgiving that it was all over"
While Britons flooded into the streets to celebrate the end of war in Europe, the crews of Bomber Command remained cautious. Their minds turned to their comrades on the Eastern Front for whom peace was still some way off.
-
La guerre est finie – the war is over!
Ten days before VE Day was officially announced on May 8 1945, 22-year-old Eric Reedman was stationed in Brussels with 80 Wing. Eric tells us how he and his comrades heard the war was coming to an end before it was officially announced in England.
