A day of victory

Press, 15 April 1978, Page 17

A day of victory

When We Won The War. By Norman Longmate. Hutchinson. 192 pp. Illustrations, notes and index. $13.10. (Reviewed by Derrick Mansbridge)

There are few days in a lifetime which stand out so prominently from almost all others that they warrant a whole book to themselves. D-Day was certainly one; VE-Day was another. It is the latter that Norman Longmate has pieced together from written accounts, interviews, and personal contributions from almost every warhit centre (Australia creeps into the story but not. unfortunately. New Zealand.) Longmate has made a speciality ot these kind of books. "The Real Dad’s Army.” “The G.l’s,” “Air Raid,” and, in preparation. “The Doodlebugs.” VE-Day is a vast subject, made accidentally greater by the fact that it lasted longer than a day. This was a diplomatic blunder that caused peace to be celebrated on different days in different countries.

And there were those, too — many

of them — who were related to men and women still fighting for peace and survival against the Japanese to whom VE-Day was only half the battle Nevertheless, Longmate has a broad canvas on which to paint his picture of a world celebrating the final downfall of Nazism and German atrocities. To those who lived for and through this period it cannot but recall memories of their own thankful celebrations.

It is a sobering thought, however, that almost half the people who live in Britain (and. presumably, in New Zealand) now were not even born when the events described in this book took place. It is an even more sobering thought that the great majority of these have had to rely upon the cinema and television films for their “knowledge and understanding” of VE-Day and the war that led to it. Perhaps, then, books such as those written by Longmate, largely inconsequential though they might be, fill a need — if only to put the record straight.