VE Day memories of Shropshire folk

For the Special Boat Service man, who lived in Porthywaen, near Oswestry, it was a particularly poignant experience, as he navigated the vessel safely to a harbour in Scotland. He found that, just like him, the enemy crew's main reaction was one of relief that the fighting was over.

Roy, who was 23 at the time, was serving aboard the destroyer HMS Ramsey in the North Sea. Once Germany's unconditional surrender had been agreed, all U-boat crews in the North Sea were ordered by their superiors to surface and display a black flag, indicating their surrender.

A British officer and SBS man had to board each sub, and take them into the harbour.

"We boarded, and were met by the skipper Lieutenant Jobst," said Roy in a 1995 interview.

"He was very pleasant, and spoke good English."

He handed Roy his moleskin trousers as a gesture of goodwill, but he didn't hang on to them for long - they mysteriously disappeared when he got back to the barracks.

"The majority of the men were just like us, glad the ward was over," he said.

"But a few of them were obviously Nazis and despised us."

Roy spent a day and a half on the submarine, taking her into the harbour at Dundee, spending the whole journey below decks.

He served for three years in the war, seeing service in the Far and Middle East, as well as Europe.

Towards the end of the war, he was sent to Scotland for training on 'midget'' submarines - but he shouldn't really have gone.

Just before the training was to begin, he suffered a leg injury and received hospital treatment. He was discharged with a letter saying he needed an operation, but when the training came up, he managed to 'lose' the letter.

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For Jim Stowe, from Shrewsbury, memories of VE Day were somewhat hazy amid some hedonistic celebrations in Flanders.

A gunner with the 150th The Loyals L A A Regiment, affiliated to the Royal Artillery, his unit had been moved back Antwerp to guard the city's docks. They had been moved to regroup and rest after a period of combat. 

"We had waited so long for that day," he said in 1995. "We spent it touring around Antwerp, singing and shouting, and of course, the usual drinking."

The police in Belgium were less impressed.

"The local bobbies were dismayed by the large numbers of Bren carriers, jeeps and other army vehicles tearing around the city streets with lads waving and shouting," he said. 

His unit had spent time in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany.

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Bill Hughes, from Great Chatwell, near Shifnal, also remembers a few high jinks in Germany when the hostilities ceased.

The 24-year-old, serving with the 51st Highland Division, had been sent to occupy the harbour at Bremervorde in Lower Saxony, slowly pushing the enemy back.

"The few remaining German civilians got out of town as quickly as they could, with their few personal bits and pieces," he wrote in 1995.

"They would have been perfectly safe, we presumed. Food would have been a major consideration. Potato and swede parings were at a premium. That left us fully in control of the situation."

Most of the houses had been destroyed, and few were inhabitable. 

"We were looking for dry spots in which to sleep. We found one such building in the centre of the town, which had vast space, one floor up, and the boys searched and found a booze stock and made use of it.

"I found myself a covered space big enough to roll my two blankets out, and I was busy writing home when, round the corner came, merry and bright, my pal Robo, a bottle in each pocket.

"I said 'What you up to Rob?' He said ' They are all bloody drunk up there. I've come out for some fresh air'."

Bill later went to see what the lads were up to, and found Robo asleep in his wet clothes. 

"He never had a cold," he reminisced. 

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Ted Cowling, of Allscott, near Wellington, was a 25-year-old RAF squadron leader stationed at Castle Combe in Wiltshire. He recalls a tour of the local hostelries, and revelry in the officers mess on the night the war in Europe came to an end.

"I remember VE Day and night very well," he said in 1995. "I lit a bonfire next to the mess, and went around the pubs in the village with the lads."

He said a number went back to the officers' mess, where an all-ranks dance was held. 

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John Feavearyear was a 26-year-old driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, it was a night of pork and bubbly when the fighting stopped. Like Roy, he remembered the Germans feeling relieved it was all over.

John, who later lived in Newport, was close to the German village of Luneburg Heath, where one of the early surrender agreements was signed four days before VE Day.

He remembered the news spreading throughout the village.  

"There was relief for both the troops an d the German people," he said.

"We had some pork, but the only drink we could find was champagne, so we had quite a party.

"The German people were quite friendly and I felt sorry for them. 

"They thought the same as we did - they did not want any war, it was just something that had happened."

John, who was drafted into the army as a 20-year-old at the start of the war, had been transporting bailey bridges and other army equipment across Europe. 

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Harry Roberts, of Castlefields, Oswestry, was an RAF driver posted to Alvaston, near Derby, in February, 1945, after serving four years abroad. On VE Day, he was sent to deliver one of 10 Leyland Hippo lorries to Dover, for shipping to France. 

"We filled up with diesel at Nottingham," he said. "it was noon and it was brakes off and away. We drove nose-to-tail through London, as we didn't want to lose each other in the traffic, there were no signposts in those days. 

"We arrived in Dover in late afternoon and loaded the Hippos onto a ship. There was no train to Derby until the next day until the next day, so we slept with only a blanket on the cold stone floor. I had my respirator as a pillow. I can tell you, it was very cold, and a mug of tea and a Victory V cigarette was very nice next morning.

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For the soon-to-be Anne Goulbourne, the VE Day celebrations were somewhat muted. 

While the trainee nurse, who had been sent from the sleepy north Shropshire village of Myddle to bomb-ravaged Liverpool for the duration of the war, was glad to see an end to the bombardment of the city, the experience was bittersweet - as her husband-to-be Joe was still fighting with the RAF in the Far East.

She was just 19 when she was sent to Liverpool in 1939, and found it a bit of a shock to the system. 

"In Myddle we heard no sirens, only the noise of the German air force squadrons, passing overhead at dusk, on their way towards Liverpool," she recalled in a 2005 interview.

"Later a red glow appeared in the sky as they dropped their bombs and incendiaries. 

"My first day in the hospital, I was on the children's ward. As dusk approached, I heard the whine of the siren for the first time in my life, warning enemy aircraft were approaching. 

"Then I heard a rumbling of anti-aircraft guns outside the hospital, and a whoosh as they fired the shells. All the children were lifted on their mattresses and placed under their beds for safety."

The following day, Anne and her colleagues went into the city, and into the underground areas where people who lived and worked in the city slept.

"We saw the destruction of the buildings and the smell of burning from the large shops. The raids continued, at one time for 14 days and nights. We had no time off and we had an epidemic of typhoid fever because the sewers had been bombed and the drinking water was contaminated.

One night, Anne and three colleagues decided to sneak out for a night on the town.

"Four of us got dressed in our glad rags and set out for our night out, climbing through the back window," she said.

"It was an adventure we bitterly regretted. We walked along the road until we heard the sound of the German bomber, then three or four searchlights pierced the sky, the anti-aircraft guns tried to shoot the bomber down and Spitfires closed in. 

"Running as fast as our legs would carry us, we ran to the first house we could find and pummelled and banged on the front door. A lady ushered us in and down into the cellar. Not a lot was said, we were lost for words." 

She noted that as the war progressed, so did the injuries of the patients she was treating, In the early days it was mainly gunshot wounds and amputations, but later on the nurses saw terrible injuries to the heads and spines of the Bevan Boys - teenagers sent down the mines without safety training.

Anne married her sweetheart Joe shortly after hostilities ceased in the Far East, and he was able to return home from Burma. They went to live in Chirk, and celebrated their Diamond wedding anniversary in 2005.