Eyewitness accounts of all the excitement that was V.E. Day in Paris: "On the Champs Elysees they were singing 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary,' and it was a long way even the few blocks from Fouquet's restaurant to the Arc de Triomphe if you tried to walk up the Champs on VE-Day in Paris. From one side of the broad and beautiful avenue to the other, all the way to the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l'Etoile, there was hardly any place to breathe and no place at all to move. That was the way it was in the Place l'Opera and the Place de la Republique and all the other famous spots and in a lot of obscure little side streets that nobody but Parisians know." Click here to read about the liberation of Paris. "Hundreds of GIs were gathered at the Rainbow Corner Red Cross Club in Piccadilly when bundles of "Stars and Stripes" extras were tossed out free. The paper bore a huge banner headline, 'Germany Quits!' and contained the official Ministry of Information announcement which all England had just heard on the air."
"News of the Reich's final and complete surrender found Piccadilly, Marble Arch and other popular intersections jammed with people. At first incredulous, the cautious British worked up to a pitch of demonstrative joy..." Click here to read about VJ-Day in London.
Assorted reports from various European capitols concerning the capitulation of Hitler's Germany:
"Finally, when Paris believed the news, it was just a big-city celebration --crowds and singing and cheers and lots of cognac and girls. People stopped work and airplanes of all the Allied forces buzzed the Champs Elysees. Pvt. Ernest Kuhn of Chicago listened to the news come over the radio at the 108th General Hospital. He had just been liberated after five months in a Nazi PW camp and he still had some shrapnel in his throat. "I listened to Churchill talk", he said, "and I kept saying to myself, 'I'm still alive. The war is over and I'm still alive' I thought of all the guys in the 28th Division Band with me who were dead now. We used to be a pretty good band."
Click here to read how the Army intended to transfer men from the ETO to the Pacific Theater.
A report from Portland, Oregon, Houston, Texas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, California as to how those cities celebrated the surrender of Germany in May of 1945. The citizens of Philadelphia took the news calmly. There were isolated pockets of tremendous joy, but many were wary because they had celebrated the event the previous month when a false rumor had circulated.
"Many soldiers and sailors were gathered in small groups in Market, Walnut and Chestnut streets. One said: 'Even if it's true, it doesn't mean a thing. It's over for us when we get out of this uniform.'" An eyewitness account accompanied by a wonderful Howard Brodie sketch describing the enthusiastic rush enjoyed by all the wounded GIs in the dayroom at the 108th General Hospital in London: "The war was over, and I was still alive. And I thought of all the boys in the 28th Division band who were with me in the Ardennes who are dead now." Click here to read a short notice about how Imperial Japan took the news of Germany's surrender. | 
