Victory in Europe Day - A retrospective 70 years later.

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Published on Thursday, May 7, 2015

Stories collected by Ken Waddell, Kate Jackman-Atkinson, Sheila Runions and Penny Rogers

The Neepawa and Rivers Banner

On May 8, 1945, the Allies officially accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany’s armed forces, ending World War II in Europe. To mark the 70th Anniversary of V-E day, we talked to those who were alive at the time.

‘Turn that damn radio on, the war may be over.'

At 17 and a half, Joe Fraser volunteered with the Canadian Army. After basic training and advanced training at Shilo, they were granted leave and in early 1945, they headed to the coast en route to Britain. Fraser arrived in Holland in February of 1945, where he served as a Bren gunner with the Lake Superior Regiment, 4th Division. In early May of 1945, Fraser and his unit were in Germany, having come through Holland. Their next objective was Wilhelmshaven, Germany. As they were moving toward their next meeting point, Fraser’s carrier had a faulty wheel and they stopped to repair it. It was raining and Fraser said they found a big old grainary that offered some shelter.  

He was in the radio carrier and the radio operator was there.  After they had a meal, Fraser explained, “Somebody said, ‘Turn that damn radio on, the war may be over’. It came blaring out that peace was going to be declared at eight the next morning.”

Because of the damaged wheel, they couldn’t get out until the next morning.

When they heard the news, Fraser said, “Everybody has their own thoughts. We were, everybody, was happy it was over, [that] you got though and were still living.” 

Despite their advances against the Germans forces, Fraser said, “We were still in [battle], we still weren’t just rolling along, doing what we wanted to do.” Being on the front lines, Fraser said there were rumours about the end of the war, but when a treaty would be signed, they didn’t know. “We heard, just like in the coffee shop, every day there was rumours flying around [about the end of the war].” 

While Fraser and his unit made it home, the war’s end didn’t come soon enough for others. “I have a good friend in Minnedosa, McLean, his brother was killed in the last day, just before we had our stop.  He wasn’t supposed to go out but the carrier went out and he went and son of a gun, he got killed.”

With the war in Europe over, Fraser and some others volunteered for the war in the Pacific. “Some [forces] would have to stay in the army of occupation and none of us wanted to stay for that, so we volunteered for the far east,” he said. 

They came back from Germany to Farnborough in Southern England and were kept busy driving trucks and hauling back troops from the coast. They were waiting on a ship to take them back to Canada for their posting in the Pacific. “We’d been called off [leave] a couple of times, but no ship was available so they sent us back on leave just to get rid of us. The last time we were all set to come [to Canada], the ship was there and being loaded in a couple of days, and then they dropped that bomb and the war ended.” 

The final end of World War II didn’t mean Fraser was headed home though, “They said, ‘You aren’t going home, you have to stay here and haul troops’.”

‘I thought it would be nice to get home’

Roy Snaith, 93, was a Trooper in the 12 Manitoba Dragoons, an armoured regiment of the Canadian Army. He joined up in 1942 at 20 years of age. Snaith grew up in McGregor and explained his reason for signing up, saying, “There was not much to do at home, everyone was going away.” The 12 Manitoba Dragoons took part in the Normandy landing and Snaith landed at St. Croix Sur Mer on July 7 to 8, 1944. 

In May 1945, when peace was declared, Snaith was in the Netherlands near the German border. He drove a scout car with an officer and at that time he said, “We were probably out in the scout cars looking, scouting around.” 

When he heard the news that the war in Europe was over, he said, “I thought it would be nice to get home.” His son was three years old at the time and he had been born after Snaith had gone overseas. Letters only arrived about once a month. After May 8, Snaith spent a week transferring prisoners, and then they delivered a bunch of vehicles to Czechoslovakia. Snaith’s return home was delayed by a stay in an English hospital, where he was treated for tonsillitis. He made it home just after Christmas, in the early days of 1946. 

Snaith moved to Austin, where he began farming in the spring of 1946.  He now lives in Portage la Prairie and remains a member of the Gladstone Legion #110.

‘I didn’t know about it until a few hours later’

James Lobban joined the Air Force in May 1, 1941.  The now 96 year old served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as an air frame mechanic at CFB Trenton.  Working as an air frame mechanic, Lobban worked repairing planes, mostly Cessnas and some Harvards and Lockheed bombers. The training planes were made of plywood and fabric and repairs, such as patching and brake work, kept him busy. “Even a bird would put a hole in those planes,” he said.  One of his last jobs before his discharge was to repair and reshape a wing tip. “It was still flying when I left,” he said.

When peace in Europe was declared, Lobban said, “I was working at Trenton in #6 hanger, that’s where I was when the war ended… I was working and didn’t know about it until a few hours later.” The surrender was expected, but that didn’t damper the celebrations. “Some of them had quite a celebration but I wasn’t in on it,” he said.

On hearing that the war in Europe was over, Lobban said he felt a sense a relief. “I stayed through summer, there were still planes to work on,” he said. He was at Trenton when many of the pilots returned.  One man, a tail end gunner who Lobban remembers leaving from Trenton, came back after surviving nine crashes. “He was a nervous wreck when he came back,” said Lobban. 

The end of the war meant a little bit of fun for the men who kept the planes flying. “Some of us decided to convert a four engine Lockheed bomber into a passenger plane.  We did that job, it was a nice job done on it.  After the airframe mechanics did their work, the fabric workers came in and lined the whole plane with a red plush material.  It looked nice,” recalled Lobban. He got to be a passenger in the plane’s August 1945 test flight.

When Lobban got discharged in August of 1945, he returned home to the family farm in the Goldenstream district, just south of Gladstone. He holds the post of Padre for Gladstone Legion Branch #110, a position he has held since 1979, as well as doing some lay work for the church and reading a little poetry. 

‘The place went absolutely nuts’

Ivan Traill of Neepawa, was 13 years old when the war ended. “I was in Vancouver and the place went absolutely nuts on VE Day. My mom and dad and I were listening to (British prime minister Winston) Churchill on the radio and he said the war was over. That was May 7 and I was upset because if they waited one more day it would be on my birthday. Then Churchill said it would officially be May 8 so that made me even happier. A friend of mine and I got on our bikes and peddled from Coquitlam to New Westminster and I don’t know how they did it but they had  a band stand about four feet high right in the middle of the main intersection. The band was playing and the crowd was going crazy.”

Traill said, “The Chinese community was very excited as they knew that their war, the war against the Japanese in the Pacific, would get more help now and it would be over sooner. One restaurant owner wanted to go out and celebrate the victory but he had never had a lock on his door as his restaurant was open 24-7, so he had to buy a padlock so he could lock the door.”

But it wasn’t all happiness, one lady that Traill heard about was celebrating the end of the war with everyone else when she got the telegram that her son had been killed just the day before. “That had to be the worst, the saddest thing,” he said, “as a 13 year old, that was the worst thing that I could imagine.”

‘Something you’ll never forget’

Roy Anderson was about 12 years old when he heard that war in Europe was over. The Steel Bridge area resident was attending school in Woodside. “We got word at school, somebody called in [the news],” he said.

While far from the front, Anderson said that the war was always present.  Almost everyone had a family member in the war. When they announced that the war was over, “It was more than a pretty joyous occasion… They were almost dancing in the streets. There was a lot of happiness,” he said.

With so many taking part in the war effort, deaths hit the community hard. “It was something when it was a local boy who wouldn’t be coming back,” he said. Fortunately, all of those from Steel Bridge who took part in the war came home. In neighbouring Woodside, most of the those who went came back. Anderson recalls that in one family, nine children took part in the war.  All of them came back. In another family, an only son was a rear gunner, a position that guaranteed certain death should the plane be shot down.  He flew 40 trips over Germany and came back.

“One family in Woodside lost a son just before the war ended. It was really, really sad,” he said. 

Looking back, Anderson said, “I hope the likes of it never happen again...It’s something you’ll never forget.”

‘There was a monster night of fireworks’

Roy McGillivrary was just over seven years old on Sept. 1, 1939, when he heard on their battery operated radio that Germany had invaded Poland.  

On May 8, 1945, Roy celebrated the end of the war in Europe. He said, “My cousin, who was 18 years old, came to our place and asked if I would like to go with him to the VE Day celebrations in Neepawa. We arrived at Riverbed Park in Neepawa about 4:30 p.m. There, we met my cousin’s girl friend and two others. We stayed in Neepawa for a while but there wasn’t much going on where we were anyway, so the five of us headed to Minnedosa Armories where there was a monster night of fireworks and a dance. In those days, there was no bar. The guys in those days would hide their bottles outside or in cars, but not this night! The highlight of the night for me was when a lady asked me for a dance, my very first dance. I was still less than a  month from my 13th birthday.”

Following the war, the RCAF closed the Neepawa  base and Roy’s dad bought an Anson aircraft that was then converted in to a trailer.

‘We had no rifles’

Gerd Behrendt spent VE Day in a U.S. Army prisoner of war camp. Behrendt turned 16 on April 20 but on April 19, he and four other boys who had been drafted into the German army (Hitler Youth) faced a major problem. They had been ordered to go back to Berlin to defend the city. Behind them was the Russian army and Russian tanks, about a mile and half away. They were on the banks of a river and across the river was the American army. Behrendt and his buddies were, as he described, “a bunch of scared 15 year old kids. We had no rifles, only a couple of hand grenades and that was it.” They took off their clothes and swam across the river and were immediately met by American soldiers. Behrendt put on his clothes and was taken to a camp. “They weren’t expecting us that soon or that many of us so all they had was a field with a barbed wire fence around it for a camp. It had been a carrot field the year before and so I survived by digging up the odd carrot that was left. We got a few slices of bread once a week”.

Some time later, Behrendt was present when the army staff were looking to see which of the prisoners knew how to work in the mines or on the railroad or on farms. “I stuck up my hand really high when they asked who could farm. I think it was a Major who asked me if I knew how to milk a cow and I said yes. He stuck out two fingers and asked me to show him, so I squeezed his fingers.” In that make shift prison camp, Behrendt was actually only about a 2 1/2 hour brisk march away from his home farm. The major said, “Here’s your release papers kid, go home and farm and I was released from the POW camp.”

- Behrendt later moved to Langruth, Manitoba and was an innovator in hog production on his farm there. He currently resides in Riding Mountain, Manitoba.

‘It was over, that’s the main thing’

In March of 1943, when he was 19 years old, Neepawa resident Merv Drayson signed up for the Royal Canadian Air Force. His training to become a bomber pilot began on April 1, 1943 and on Oct. 18, 1944, Drayson graduated from flight school. 

When the war in Europe was over, Drayson was at home.  He was to complete his final training, which focused on survival, in Quebec in the summer of 1945. None of the pilots he trained with made it overseas.

“I don’t know actually just where I was. I was home, they put me on reserve, that was in January. I’d [have been] home on the farm, working.  We’d probably be out seeding that day.”

“Like everybody else, I was sure glad to hear it was over. I guess after all that training, you were hoping you’d get overseas, and all of a sudden, it was done. It was a good thing it was over though, that’s the main thing.”

‘He would be discharged soon’

Olga Code, of Neepawa, was living in Winnipeg and teaching at St. Charles School when she heard that the war in Europe was over. Her husband was in the Army, stationed at Fort Osborne in the Quartermasters stores. 

When they heard the news of the German surrender, Code says that they went downtown and there were people on the streets celebrating, they went and celebrated too.

Upon hearing the news, Code says that she and her husband were happy because it meant that he would be discharged soon. In the end, it took almost a year until he received his discharge as he had to be there to accept all of the items returned to the Quartermaster by those coming home from the war.

At 17, ‘He was anxious to go’

Joan McGillivray was 7 when the war was declared and she remembers her dad listening to the declaration of war on the family’s battery operated radio.  Joan didn’t have any direct family involved in the war, although a young man who worked on the farm for her father enlisted at 17. “He was anxious to go,” she said. An uncle and some of her dad’s cousins, both men and women, also enlisted.

When the war ended, she said, “The long, loud train whistles started the celebration.”

‘The war was still raging in South East Asia’

On May 8, 1945, the war was still raging in South East Asia. I was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I was stationed at 357 Squadron at Jessore, India. 357 Squadron was a special duties squadron, we were involved with the task of dropping men and supplies behind the Japanese lines. At that time, it was mainly in the hill country of eastern Burma. These troops were under the command of Major General Wingate. Wingate’s troops played an important role in the victory that was finally accomplished in Burma. Victory comes with a cost, I lost several of my buddies before it ended. Seventy years has now passed. My memory will not let me forget.

- Alfred Newton, Neepawa, Man.

“I don’t know actually just where I was. I was home, they put me on reserve, that was in January. I’d [have been] home on the farm, working.  We’d probably be out seeding that day... Like everybody else, I was sure glad to hear it was over. ”

- Merv Drayson, of Neepawa. A member of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“When the war ended, the long, loud train whistles started the celebration.” 

- Joan McGillivray, Neepawa.

“I was in Vancouver and the place went absolutely nuts on VE Day... A friend of mine and I got on our bikes and peddled from Coquitlam to New Westminster and I don’t know how they did it but they had  a band stand about 4 feet high right in the middle of the main intersection. The band was playing and the crowd was going crazy.”

- Ivan Traill, of Neepawa, 13 years old when the war in Europe ended.

“We arrived at Riverbend Park in Neepawa [for the VE Day celebration] about 4:30 p.m. ..We stayed in Neepawa for a while but there wasn’t much going on where we were anyway, so the five of us headed to Minnedosa Armories where they hadw a monster night of fireworks and a dance. In those days, there was no bar. The guys in those days would hide their bottles outside or in cars, but not this night! The highlight of the night for me was when a lady asked me for a dance, my very first dance. I was still less than a  month from my 13th birthday.”

- Roy McGillivray, Neepawa.

“We got word at school, somebody called in [the news]... It was quite a thing. While I didn’t have a brother or sister in the forces, other kids did. It was more than a pretty joyous occasion… They were almost dancing in the streets. There was a lot of happiness.” 

- Roy Anderson, of Steel Bridge, 12 years old.

 “We were very happy, yes... very happy. A few friends got together for a party afterwards.”

- Rivers’ Phyllis Eastcott, 93 years, “did office work” with Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) and was a bookkeeper for CWAC in Winnipeg, Fort Osborne and Portage la Prairie. She never served overseas and was in the Portage office when the news came.

“We went downtown [in Winnipeg] and there were people on the streets celebrating, we went and celebrated too. We were happy because it meant that my husband would be discharged soon.” 

- Olga Code, now of Neepawa.

“I had gone to Moncton, NB before VE Day and we weren’t finished being processed yet. I was in Moncton waiting to go to England, and I did go to England after that. After the announcement, we all went to the hangar. They got all the beer they had in the station and opened it up for free and that was it for that day. The next day we had the day off and there was a parade in Moncton so we spent most of the day there.”

- Percy Rosamond, 92 years, of Rivers, member of Royal Canadian Air Force’s ground crew. 

“I was in Halifax harbour waiting to go to Italy. But we never made it to Italy. Some of the tanks were there and we were on our way down when they said the war was over. They then put us in Bren Guns because everybody in Halifax was rushing to the liquor stores and they were all locked. The government deemed it a necessity that all liquor stores, beer stores, should be locked. So the guys were smashing the windows trying to get the alcohol. It was up to us in the Bren Guns to corral these guys for the police force. We got a few of them but a lot got away. We couldn’t get enough at a time.”  

- John McTighe, of Gladstone.

“I was working at Trenton in #6 hanger, that’s where I was when the war ended… I was working and didn’t know about it until a few hours later... Some of them had quite a celebration but I wasn’t in on it.”

- James Lobban, of Gladstone.

Rivers Banner wanted to interview 92-year-old Nick Kamula but Nick was in palliative care in Rivers and unable to communicate. Our condolences to Nick’s family; he passed away on April 30. His son Bill stated Nick was a communications specialist with Brockville Rifles; he was stationed in Jamaica when the  war ended. “His job was watching for submarines attacking Panama Canal, so he sat in a tower and watched for periscopes in the ocean at night.” Bill speculated that Nick’s “sense of relief was likely not as heightened as in other parts of the country.” 

“I was in the air force so I flew out of Britain. We were stationed up in Yorkshire. That’s a long time ago, but we probably had a few drinks!” 

- Allan McDiarmid, of Gladstone.

“We were just pulling into Ostend, Belgium when the war ended. We were on very tight security so there was no party. We had to wait in Belgium for a day to hitch a convoy.”

- Timer Hyndman, 89 years, is the last veteran living in Rapid City. He lied about his age, joining at 17 years; he was back home at age 20. Infantryman trooper reinforcement for Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders.

Gerd Behrendt spent VE Day in a U.S. Army prisoner of war camp. “They weren’t expecting us that soon or that many of us so all they had was a field with a barbed wire fence around it for a camp. It had been a carrot field the year before and so I survived by digging up the odd carrot that was left. We got a few slices of bread once a week”.

- Gerd Behrendt, of Riding Mountain.

“I was in Germany. We were in a farmer’s yard and, you know, I had a buddy and he said ‘I think the war is over’ as we were getting stuff over the radio and the declaration of peace hadn’t been signed yet but it was close, so he said to me, ‘Let’s go and see if we can find a farm that’s got some eggs and we’ll have a celebration’. So away we went. Down the road from where we were going was a big straw building and it was a dummy airport and they had, I don’t know how many men in there. We didn’t know what it was and this guy came running and we thought he had a gun and was going to shoot us but, no, he threw the gun down and before he was done he brought out 27 guys that we took back. They were starving!” 

- Earl Stewart, Gladstone. Gunner Sergeant, 5th Field, 28th Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery.

“Somebody said, ‘Turn that damn radio on, the war may be over’. It came blaring out that peace was going to be declared at eight the next morning... We were, everybody, was happy it was over, [that] you got though and were still living.” 

- Joe Fraser, Gladstone. Bren Gunner with the Lake Superior Regiment, 4th Division.

“When it was declared that war was over, I was in Berlin, Germany.” Asked if he “broke open a box of chocolates or had a few pints at a pub,” he just laughed and claimed those were allocated every week and if not used, extra pay was added to the cheque. 

- Rivers’ Eric Williamson, 90 years, served with Royal Marines, British Navy. 

“We flew operations until the third of May and then the German’s capitulated on the 5th. VE Day was  established May 8 but we quit flying after the 5th. I was just south of the coast of Denmark, in Germany. It was a nice reaction, [to hear the war ended] but two days later my three buddies took a jeep to Paris to have an engine changed; we celebrated in Paris for 10 days!”

- Rivers’ Jim Wood, 93 years, a fighter pilot with 439 Squadron Typhoons.

“Everyone was excited the past couple of days, knowing the war was almost over. We had been going like crazy on the fourth chasing the Germans. We were told the night before to expect the final word by 0800 hours. We set up loud speakers with funnels on top of our tanks so we could all hear the official announcement on the morning of the fifth.”

- Kenton’s John Roseveare, 93 years, serving with 83rd Battery, 23rd Field Regiment self-propelled 4th Armoured Brigade, Royal Canadian Artillery, was seven kilometres from Wilhelmshaven, a U Boat port on the North Sea near Rastede, Germany. 

“Basically, we were attached to anybody that needed reconnaissance. We were about 50 miles into Germany beyond the first town — we were always on the leading edge. [The definition of reconnaissance is a military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features so his troop was doing their job.] They were still firing at us when we were told not to fire back; our reaction to the news would’ve been more joyous if it wasn’t for those circumstances.”

- Kenton’s Jack Houston, 91 years, corp troops with 12th Manitoba Dragoons.

 “I was a signalman. We kept in touch with our units, headquarters, other platoons and so on, 24 hours a day and that didn’t change, but we knew it was happening [war’s end was near]. Three of us were on duty for D Company Royal Regiment of Canada. Two went to rest in a loft above our office and I said, ‘I’ll let you know when the war is over’. We were hoping it would come sometime before midnight and it did. We got it on our two-way radios so that we could tune to BBC as well, so the news came over that Germany had capitulated and the word got out among the riflemen, who were protecting the trenches outside where we were holed up, and they all starting shooting and it was a  pretty fair barrage so I ran up to the loft where the other two boys were sleeping. I said, ‘Counter attack!’ As soon as I got the right effect out of them from hopping out of bed and throwing the bed rolls and ready to go, I said it was over, that [the rapid gunfire] was the boys in the trenches. That’s the effect it had on us at that moment. You might say I played a practical joke.”

- Rivers’ Ken Williamson, 91 years, was in northern Germany.