- 70th anniversary of V.E Day today
- Former Islander Leslie Lewis back in Jersey for the anniversary
- He will be ringing the bells at St Mark’s Church as he did seven decades ago
- Listen to Winston Churchill’s V.E Day speech, announcing the end of the Second World War, below
THE date is 8 May 1945 and hundreds of Islanders are beginning to huddle around wirelesses in excited anticipation of an announcement from Winston Churchill proclaiming German surrender.
Two teenage boys are frantically pedalling in a race against time from Bel Royal to St Mark’s Church tower to mark the moment of victory.
As the clock nears three the boys rush up the stairs to their positions and minutes later, the sound of freedom echoes out across St Helier.
Seven decades to the day, one of those boys, Leslie Lewis, has made another momentous journey to mark the memory of that historic day.
This time, however, he has travelled slightly further than the stretch of Victoria Avenue – 10,000 miles further to be precise.
And having flown half way across the world from his Brisbane home, Leslie has returned with son Dennis to the same church to ring out the bells one more time.
At 86 years of age, Mr Lewis is slightly slower than during his bell ringing prime, but his enthusiasm is unrelenting – especially when he sees his name inscribed on a wooden panel in the clock tower.
‘Would you look at that!’ he exclaims as he catches a glimpse of his signature and a number of others who marked their ringing on Victory in Europe day 1945.
‘It’s 70 years since the Liberation and it’s important to come back because it’s memories that you can’t really miss out on.
‘I’m glad that I’m alive and that I’ve come to see the celebrations and to ring the bells once more.
‘This is my fourth time back in Jersey and when I see those old bells it always brings tears when I play them. It brings a lot of memories back to me, because you go back in time then.’
‘I remember when my friend George Pinel and I got up the stairs and the clock struck three, goodness me, we played the bells until our arms fell off!
The now great grandfather, who emigrated to Australia with his wife and six children some time after the end of the Occupation in September 1965, says that he also vividly remembers the next day, when the Island was officially liberated by English troops after five years of Occupation.
‘I was standing underneath the Pomme d’Or Hotel. I remember the soldiers being mobbed and kissed by the Jersey girls as they came over from the harbour.
‘The officer in charge looked like he was seven foot six because he was very tall and he had this giant hat on.
‘The Swastika was flying over the hotel and I remember hearing: “Get that bloody thing down!”
‘The order was really boomed out, everybody clapped and we were all very happy.
And after ringing the St Mark’s bells for what he says will be the final time, tomorrow together with dozens of other Occupation survivors, he will mark the other high point of his 10,000 mile journey and watch the raising of the Union Jack to celebrate the jubilant moment of freedom.
The scene will bring back a mixture of emotions for the former Islander.
‘Thinking about it, it was sad to see some of those young German officers who kept me prisoner for five years – they must have thought we were mocking them because we were pushing them behind barbed wire where the old slaughterhouse was at the Weighbridge and we were shouting and cheering,’ he said.
‘Some of these young boys were only 17, 18 and all they wanted to do was go home to their parents because they were so young.
Mr Lewis remembers that it was near impossible to escape the gaze of German soldiers – and the often harsh punishment that they handed out for those that didn’t toe the line.
‘Young men and boys weren’t allowed to walk side by side,’ he said.
‘One time I was walking up New Street with a mate of mine and we were laughing together. The next minute a car pulled up and a German officer jumped out and started shouting at quite a speed in German – we didn’t have a clue what he was saying.
‘I must have looked ignorant or something because as I was standing there he raised his hand and he smacked me right across the face.’
Others his own age, were less fortunate – and some, he poignantly recounts, paid with their lives.
‘I lost a friend – he was only a little boy of 13,’ recalled Mr Lewis. ‘He had a pigeon and the Germans said he was sending messages back to England. he wasn’t doing anything of the sort and everybody tried to save him, but they wouldn’t listen.
‘They took him to St Ouen’s Manor and shot him. I think they’ve still got a picture of him at the War Tunnels photograph of boy holding pigeon.’
- Today marks the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day when Winston Churchill broadcast to the nation that a ceasefire had been signed the previous morning at the American advance headquarters in Rheims in northern France.
- During the message, which went out from the Cabinet room at Number 10, he famously announced the unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe and that our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today
- In London, more than one million people celebrated in the streets to celebrate the end of war with Nazi Germany
- Despite victory in Europe, the war on the eastern front continued and it was not until 15 August that Japanese forces surrendered, marking Victory in Japan Day
