Horizon

Not just the end of the war, but the last time the peoples of the West would pour into the streets to celebrate a military victory. Perhaps future war-planners would do well, before they launch their campaigns, to consider how the populace will react to victory once it is acheived.

I'm looking at a souvenir reproduction of the May 8th 1945 edition of the Yorkshire Evening News ['a Kemsley newspaper - three-halfpence'] with its picture of 'Goodramgate gaily bedecked for VE-Day', its Victory Greetings from Rowntrees, its story about the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes and the Hammer and Sickle hanging together in York windows and doors, its small ads for Office Boys and Capable Girls and Reliable Women [1s 6d an hour for cleaning] and a little letter saying: "We remember as we rejoice, but this time let us keep our promises."

As Patric Dickinson wrote:

The bells proclaim the immediate joy,
The horror and the killing cease;
They drag within the walls of Troy
The wooden horse of Peace.

Bobby Farouk wrote:
Not just the end of the war, but the last time the peoples of the West would pour into the streets to celebrate a military victory.

He obviously meant to write "the end of the war in Europe" because, of course, it went on in the Far East until 14 August.

There was a war in the Pacific?