Antiques Roadshow 2025 - VE Day Special
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00:00Eighty years ago, here in Berlin, the Second World War was drawing to a brutal close.
00:11Soviet troops had encircled the city, and street by street, they were fighting their way to the heart of Nazi Germany.
00:19Here, at the Brandenburg Gate.
00:23The war had raged for almost six years, with the loss of more than 75 million lives, and the displacement of millions more.
00:32At the end of April 1945, with the Soviets and Western allies closing in on Berlin, Hitler took his own life.
00:40Two days later, Berlin fell.
00:43On the 2nd of May, a young Soviet soldier stepped out onto the roof of the former German parliament, the Reichstag, just a little way over there,
00:52and was famously photographed, raising the red banner of the Soviet Union.
00:57Six days later, on the 8th of May 1945, the Germans signed their unconditional surrender here in Berlin.
01:07For the Allies, it was a victory in Europe, VE Day.
01:12In this special episode, we'll be tracing the stories which led from D-Day to VE Day,
01:18through the various items and artefacts you've shared with us.
01:23I'll be in Berlin, and also joining our team of experts at Bletchley Park, the secret headquarters in Buckinghamshire for World War II's Code Breakers.
01:33Given the very personal and moving nature of the stories you're going to hear tonight,
01:38our experts won't be valuing any items. To each owner, these items are priceless.
01:44We'll also be hearing from those who played a vital part in the final year of the war.
01:50A member of RAF ground crew who travelled from the Caribbean to volunteer.
01:55Hitler, he become one of your enemies. Now you're sitting home and crying. Get up and go.
02:01One of Bletchley Park's top secret team.
02:04If the Germans had found out about Bletchley Park, we'd had a bomb on us and that would be the end of that.
02:10And a mosquito bomber pilot who flew 50 raids over Germany.
02:14I leaned across to my navigator and said,
02:18You weren't frightened, were you, Doug?
02:20And he said, No, I wasn't frightened. He said, I was bloody terrified.
02:28Welcome to a special edition of the Antiques Roadshow, commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day,
02:34the end of the Second World War in Europe.
02:44Our story begins in the aftermath of D-Day, 6th June 1944, when Allied forces stormed the coast of France
02:52and began the gruelling battle to reclaim North West Europe from Nazi control.
02:58Secret intelligence gathered by code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire
03:03had been crucial in the build-up to the Normandy invasion.
03:07Codenamed Station X, Bletchley Park had grown from a small team of specialists
03:12into an intelligence factory employing thousands.
03:18As they continued to decrypt German wireless traffic after D-Day,
03:22the Allied troops flooding into France began sending messages of their own back home.
03:28Frances Christie took a look at some at Bletchley Park.
03:32We've got a tabletop of drawings here.
03:35When you look closely, they've all been annotated to David and Catherine,
03:41with love from Daddy. Now, who was Daddy?
03:45Daddy was my father and my niece, her grandfather. His name was Arnold Glover.
03:52He came from Yorkshire, came from a town called Osset, and that was where he was born and brought up, as I was.
03:59What do you remember about your grandfather?
04:00He was a really loving and caring man. And I think what's interesting is he never, I didn't know he could draw.
04:06What these drawings track, which he sent to you and your brother David, is his journey from Yorkshire through to France and then to Holland.
04:18And actually on this letter, which I think is possibly the first of these.
04:21I think so.
04:22I think the idea was that we would remember him if anything happened to him.
04:38Writing letters and communicating with your family was clearly a really important part of that time.
04:54And I think here, what you see is him really thinking about how he can explain this journey to his children who felt very far away.
05:04And without frightening us.
05:06Without frightening you.
05:07Yes, we could have been.
05:08Well, it looks like on this same sheet, he's now on board the ship and he writes to your brother,
05:14I have written this in France, ask mummy to show you where it is on the map, which is amazing.
05:22And actually on this letter, it's interesting, he's used pen and ink.
05:25Amazing to get that effect of the sea with his ink.
05:28He probably just smudged an ink cartridge.
05:30Yes.
05:31And then he's used coloured pencils.
05:33I can't believe he took a little pack of coloured pencils to war with him.
05:37Well, I think it's also a reminder that although obviously there was a lot of action for soldiers, there was a lot of time waiting.
05:45He was clearly thinking of you and your brother all the time.
05:50Yes.
05:51And finding ways to show you what he was doing.
05:55Yes.
05:56This drawing here actually shows him doing his job.
05:58He was a sergeant in the signals.
06:00These are the signals here laying the lines for the infantry.
06:04And what's really interesting though is that all of them are for you and your brother.
06:07Yes, yes, definitely.
06:08You know, these aren't formal sketches or drawings.
06:12And I think ultimately they're even more special because they're a real reminder to us that every soldier was someone's child.
06:21Every soldier was someone's partner and every soldier was also someone's parents.
06:27Yes.
06:28Someone's daddy.
06:29Someone's daddy.
06:30I do really miss him.
06:32He was a great man.
06:33Yeah.
06:34I do really miss him.
06:39Secure communications were vital in the field of battle.
06:42And German forces used a portable machine called an Enigma to encrypt messages about everything from troop movements to plans of attack.
06:51They believed their codes were unbreakable.
06:55Our military expert Mark Smith met up with Bletchley Park historian David Kenyon to see an original Enigma machine and find out how the Allies managed to crack it.
07:06So, David, where are we today?
07:09Today we're in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, which was the hut specifically set up to break Enigma.
07:13When was this actually introduced by the Germans?
07:16The Germans adopted these machines in the late 20s and early 1930s.
07:20By the time you get to World War II, they are ubiquitous really.
07:24The Army, the Navy and the Air Force are using thousands of these machines to encipher their wireless communications.
07:31So, radio messages.
07:33Sent in Morse code.
07:34They'd write out their message on a piece of paper.
07:36They'd encipher it on this machine and then they'd give that to the wireless operator and he would send effectively gibberish over the airwaves.
07:43And the person at the other end would have an Enigma machine and reverse the process.
07:47So, how does this actually work?
07:48Once you've written down your message, you press a key.
07:51I'll press B.
07:52And you can see R is lit up.
07:55The clever part is you probably saw these rotors at the top here moved.
07:59Yes.
08:00So, if I press B again, it's not R this time, it's A.
08:04So, if I were to press B over and over, the encrypted letter would change.
08:09So, once you've pressed that key and the rotors have generated another letter, how many permutations are there for that?
08:17There are 103,000, million, million, million ways of setting up this machine which would produce a unique encryption.
08:25How on earth did we break that?
08:26Different parts of the machine add to the encryption.
08:30So, if you can break the process down and attack each of those sections one at a time, if you like, you gradually reduce the number of possibilities.
08:38A team in the stable yard here at Bletchley Park, which included famously Alan Turing, but of course Gordon Welshman, another Cambridge mathematician,
08:46they worked out that if you could guess part of a message, what they call a crib, you could guess what it said.
08:53And Turing and Welshman developed the bomb machines, as they're called, which are these enormous electromechanical machines about the size of a wardrobe.
09:01And what you can do with those is you can plug them up in a way that models the Enigma machine and they will give you clues to how the machine was set up.
09:10How critical was breaking those codes to D-Day?
09:13It's fundamental. Bletchley Park has been working, intercepting and reading messages for literally years beforehand
09:19and building up gradually, piece by piece, their understanding of the German army by listening to message after message after message.
09:26So Enigma was giving us that intelligence, so we still had that moment of surprise really.
09:31Exactly. One of the wonderful things we have in our collection is a series of German messages that were sent on D-Day.
09:37And this says to Sea Defence Commandant Seine Somme,
09:42Everywhere along East Coast up to the edge of your area, parachute landings and bombing attacks.
09:48In some places landing boats, situation still confused.
09:52What's more important about this message is if you look at the top here,
09:55the time of interception is 02-03 on the 6th of June 1944.
10:00So, early hours of D-Day. And down here, this timestamp here, 04-32 on the same day,
10:08is the time this message was sent to the Admiralty.
10:11So, just under two and a half hours.
10:13The Admiralty is able to read these German messages almost as quickly as the German commanders themselves.
10:19Yeah, it's virtually real time, isn't it?
10:21It's been a real honour to stand next to this machine,
10:23which is such an important part of not only D-Day but World War II.
10:27And thank you so much, David, for showing it to us.
10:30It's been a pleasure.
10:34The success of D-Day and the Allies' foothold in France
10:38enforced a feeling among some prominent members of the German armed forces
10:42that Hitler was leading their country to catastrophic defeat
10:46and that the only solution was to remove him from power.
10:52Early on the 21st of July, just six weeks after D-Day,
10:56an Inigba naval intercept appeared in the Intre of Block D here at Bletchley,
11:01and it bore a startling message.
11:04It read,
11:05An attempt on the Führer's life was made by a clique of generals
11:08who'd undertaken a military putsch.
11:11Arrange for all officers to be informed immediately.
11:15Long live our Führer.
11:17Just hours before this deciphered message came through,
11:22Hitler had narrowly escaped a bomb,
11:24hidden in a briefcase planted at the Wolf's Lair,
11:27his headquarters on the Eastern Front in occupied Poland.
11:31This might have been a signal to the Allied leaders just how strong the German resistance was,
11:36but in fact it served only to galvanise the Nazi leadership and tighten Hitler's grip on power.
11:43His retribution was swift and merciless.
11:47Over 5,000 people suspected of plotting against him were rounded up and imprisoned or executed.
11:56With Hitler determined to fight to the bitter end,
11:59the Allies would need all the help they could get.
12:02Campaigns in the Mediterranean and the Far East had already drained manpower reserves,
12:07but the Commonwealth countries continued to provide essential support for Britain's war effort.
12:13One of those answering the call of duty in July 1944 was Jake Jacob from Trinidad.
12:20Got to Liverpool, got off the ship and, my God, it was cold.
12:26Didn't realise that things could be that cold.
12:30We ended up at camp in uniform and from then you were sent any part of Britain where there is a vacancy.
12:42Today I brought along something I suppose you have never seen, an RAF identity.
12:49I can see myself as a young 18 years in comparison to me, 99 today.
12:55I was 14 MU equipment assistant, RF drone crew.
13:02This is very precious to me in the sense that he carried me through life in England.
13:10There were a lot of West Indian pilots and navigators that came to various camps in this country.
13:21I had friends who was pilots that flew out to Germany.
13:27Suddenly they disappeared and you ask,
13:30where's so-and-so?
13:32It's nothing.
13:34You know, that's it.
13:37It happened that quickly, that sharply,
13:40and you think, oh God, you know, it could have been me.
13:44Caribbean pilots would take part in various operations over Normandy,
13:51but despite the heavy air support, Allied advances proved painfully slow,
13:56given Normandy's maze of lanes and hedgerows.
14:01The breakthrough came in early August,
14:03when the American Third Army under General Patton made rapid advances in the West,
14:08forming a pincer movement which trapped the German panzer divisions into a pocket near the town of Falaise.
14:16Mark Smith hears the story of one British soldier who got caught up in the fighting.
14:22So one of the things I love about this job is that I get to see people who have done extraordinary things,
14:27but are actually just ordinary people.
14:29Who was Sergeant White?
14:31He was my grandfather.
14:33He served as part of the 8th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade,
14:37landed in France about ten days after D-Day and fought all the way across to northern Germany.
14:43We've got his beret with his Rifle Brigade cap badge on it
14:46and the pistol that we know at some point in this story he captured.
14:50So tell me more about this pistol.
14:52We're talking about the era of the Falaise Pocket towards the end of the Normandy campaign.
14:58The fighting gets very confused and the Brits are making significant advances.
15:04And Grandfather's platoon meets an elderly French lady who points up at a farmhouse and shouts,
15:11Les Boches! Les Boches!
15:12And they surround the farmhouse, poke their stem guns in through the windows,
15:17and lo and behold they've captured an entire divisional headquarters.
15:20Wow! A general?
15:22A general.
15:23General Kurt Budinsky, the first German general captured in France,
15:28the general and his officers were enthusiastically searched.
15:34So the general loses his watch, his wallet and his pistol.
15:38And then the platoon officer comes around that evening and says,
15:41I'm sorry, different rules apply to generals.
15:43And he has to have his watch, his wallet and his pistol back
15:46because general officers were allowed to keep personal side arms he's watching
15:49his wallet reappeared but by then the pistol was in the petrol tank of one of
15:55the vehicles and grandfather reckoned he wasn't going to be capturing too many
15:59more German generals and so it came back from France with him as a souvenir a
16:05little later Wow and we must just point out just between us that it is
16:08deactivated now yes it's not a weapon yes it came to me through the family and
16:13obviously I want to pass it on as a family heirloom and that's this is the
16:17safe way to do that Belgian FN 9mm very much an allied weapon really I know it
16:23has the German Fafenat stamp on it it's very hard to see but here is the German
16:29mark so it's an issued weapon it's not really the the weapon you would expect a
16:34German general to have you would think a Luger it had a certain snob value because
16:39yet your average German officer would have a Luger these were used by the elite
16:44forces and by people of influence and so it would be regarded as a more elegant
16:50weapon for a general a bit like pattern with his pearl handled pistols indeed now
16:56also a fantastic picture very cheeky looking man he does look like he's a a nice
17:01chap but he has this he has the military medal he's 39 45 his France and Germany and
17:07his 39 45 war medal the the classic set for someone who fought in that Normandy
17:12campaign and all the way up to the end of the war and they did extraordinary
17:16things but the thing that always gets me is that they were just ordinary people
17:20but when the chips were down they really did pull out all the stops for us
17:28the defeat of the German forces at Falaise with the loss of hundreds of tanks and 60
17:34thousand troops either killed or taken prisoner now opened up the Allies route
17:39to Paris following an uprising by the French resistance on the 19th of August
17:44general Eisenhower ordered the city to be taken and six days later the German
17:50garrison was overwhelmed and surrendered
17:54on the 25th of August general Charles de Gaulle declared the city liberated after four years of
18:01occupation and the next day he made a triumphant walk down the Champs-Elysées
18:05at our road show in Belfast Richard price was shown a watch worn by an American serviceman who
18:13reached Paris and collected a souvenir from Armistice Day this is actually rather a lovely watch tell me
18:20about it my father-in-law whose picture is here J Robert Jacobs he was an electric
18:27lineman he went into Utah Beach three days after the initial group went in you said
18:38Utah Beach and then I see this Paris liberation yes did he get as far as Paris I believe he did and then he
18:46brought this little as a little souvenir back yes and it has about 20 pictures all sorts of goodies and
18:53then the the Arc de Triomphe with all the tanks parked outside it fabulous little souvenir isn't it
18:59and so he yes he got all sorts of goodies he certainly did that he then brought back yes that's most
19:05interesting I have to say but this to me is more interesting it's signed Jardor this brand was
19:11introduced by two American brothers both pilots when war broke out they saw a business opportunity
19:19and they thought we'll make some rather nice pilots watches just the sort of thing you would use for
19:26flying navigating that sort of thing I like it and I have to say it's the first time I've seen one of
19:31these on the roadshow oh my thank you following the liberation of Paris Field Marshal Montgomery proposed
19:41a daring airborne assault aimed at seizing key bridges in the Netherlands which would allow the Allied forces
19:48a swift passage into northern Germany if successful Montgomery hoped it could end the war by Christmas
19:55launched on the 17th of September operation market garden comprised one and a half thousand transport
20:02aircraft and 500 gliders carrying over 35,000 British American and Polish troops to the drop zones in a bit
20:12to solve an enduring wartime mystery Mark Smith looks into the story of one glider pilot who ran into
20:19difficulty we have this fantastic collection on the table but it has quite a sinister start because
20:27this thing here is called army form B10483 and that is missing in action who was this person he was my dad
20:37Ken Lodge he was a glider pilot went through some dreadful experiences so we have the logbook here and we can
20:45see here from his logbook that it is September the 18th what we know as the Battle of Arnhem the ground
20:52attack was Operation Garden the air attack was Operation Market and here he is in what is known as a
21:00Hamel car glider however forced landing so on this particular day he's only actually flown for one hour so
21:09they don't actually make it out of England you would have thought perhaps maybe that was enough but no the
21:15very next day forced landing but three hours and ten minutes so now we know that that's long enough
21:21to get you over to the other side you know what happened to him no he didn't really like to talk
21:25about it he obviously kept all of this and as kids we knew about it but didn't know any details I
21:32couldn't find an account of him anywhere but I found the pilot and the story of them coming down in that
21:41Belgian village is actually in his obituary what happened was that they were towed over towards
21:48Arnhem by a Halifax bomber and it was the bomber that developed a fault so at some point the bomber
21:57dropped the tow and returned home leaving the Hamel car to come down in an emergency landing somewhere in
22:06Belgium as far as the squadron is concerned they've disappeared which is why you get this form saying
22:14missing in action and then actually they've come down near to allied forces and eventually they're
22:21repatriated back to the allied forces and then they're flown home and that's when we get this letter
22:27which is the happier part of the story army form B104 ATB no longer missing that's probably the most
22:37important thing in your life that letter I think so yes because without that you're not there yeah
22:41it's a very dangerous job it really is a dangerous job what did you do before the war worked in a bank
22:49worked in a bank you see again it's those ordinary people from world war ii who stand up and do
22:55extraordinary things it's been wonderful to meet a glider pilot today thank you so much for bringing
23:01it in and letting me know all about your dad it's great to have his story heard aside from the
23:10difficulties gliders and transport aircraft faced with poor weather and mechanical failures the
23:16American British and Polish airborne troops soon faced problems of their own as Operation Market Garden got
23:23underway German resistance was far stronger than anticipated and the narrow route to the south
23:31bringing in the supporting allied ground forces was prone to repeated ambush soldiers referred to it
23:37as hell's highway and many of them such as corporal George Bell of the 5th armored brigade would be
23:44forced to hide out in order to evade the enemy my dad was marooned in a counter-attack from the Germans
23:51and he had to take shelter with a friendly Dutch family he was there for two days and two nights and all
23:59he was wanting to do was to get home to see his new wife the couple actually give my dad these
24:06clogs and underclogs that says to George and his new wife and he kept hold of these throughout his time
24:13through the rest of his time in Holland into Germany and onwards nine months after he got back from
24:21Germany I appeared 79 years ago I don't know whether I've ever warned them but by goodness they mean so
24:29much to me the setback of Operation Market Garden underlined the continued need for gathering secret
24:38intelligence monitoring not just the war in Europe but also the war in the Far East
24:46staff numbers at Bletchley Park would soon peak at almost 9,000 the majority of them women one of the
24:55new recruits in late 1944 was 19 year old Hazel Holter now aged 100 so tell me about when you were taken
25:04on to work here at Bletchley Park I'd wanted to join up the war was on I decided to join the Wrens when I
25:12was sent for they said there was this special job it was secret I couldn't tell anybody about it first of
25:19all we signed the official Secrets Act before he ever came into the park I didn't know what I was going to
25:24do what it was all about and what did you end up doing I was in a group of six girls we're all
25:32shorthand typists we were the help to a man who was a Japanese linguist commander McIntyre so he
25:40converted it into English and then we took over from there and copied it sent it out to who was appropriate
25:49so one of your jobs then was to type up these secret reports which were from decrypted German
25:55messages German or Japanese we occasionally got something that was quite exciting like a ship being
26:04sunk or something meant probably more to people it was going to than it meant to us so paint a picture
26:10for me of what life was like here at Bletchley Park you've got all the different huts here what was the
26:16atmosphere like on the whole we kept the six of us to ourselves we we lived together we'd see other
26:22ATS girls maybe RAF girls but we never mixed with them you just kept yourselves to yourselves we did we
26:28didn't meet Americans at one stage because the Americans used to invite us to their dances that
26:35sounds fun and they formed two lines you walked down the middle and they picked out the one they
26:40wanted what to dance with yes and they presented us with a corsage and a pair of nylons we never had
26:50nylons before so we used to go to these dances after that there are other things they wanted which
26:56we weren't prepared to give so I get the general idea I think you do I want to read you something I think
27:04you'll like it this was written by John Herrivel I don't know if that name means anything to you he's
27:09one of the leading mathematicians code breakers here and he wrote this in July 1945 and it says
27:14nothing is left for me to say except good luck and goodbye some of you who live to be very old
27:23may read one day what the work in Bletchley Park as a whole of which yours was a vital part really
27:31meant not only to your own country but to the world you were part of that Hazel
27:36hmm I don't know I mean my family have never never thought about it or said anything about it
27:46but one of my godchildren wrote to me the other day and said I've just been reading about you on my
27:53phone and he said I'm really proud of you auntie Hazel and I thought oh wow somebody I was really
28:01thrilled about that we are interested and we owe you a lot so even though you're so modest about
28:08what you did thank you still available for call-up if anybody wants me
28:13the winter of 1944 brought one last throw of the dice for Hitler in what would become known as the
28:27Battle of the Bulge he launched a surprise attack in the Ardennes forest between Belgium and Luxembourg
28:33with the aim of splitting the Allied lines and recapturing the vital port of Antwerp
28:39one member of the British 29th Armoured Brigade which saw action at the Bulge carried with him some
28:46items which appeared to be toy tanks but as Adam Schoon reveals they had a more ominous purpose
28:52this little collection of tanks and half tracks was collected by Norman Gray wireless operator West
29:01Yorkshire regiment he was your dad your granddad let's look at his military career now we actually
29:08have a photograph of Norman Gray with three of his colleagues at the turret of a Sherman tank I know your
29:20granddad your dad is the gentleman on the left with the goggles and some of some of his equipment
29:27yes my grandfather wrote that his good friend Barney Culkin was the driver so they decided that they
29:35would call it their tank was Barney's bull except for every year tank began with a B so you know brave
29:41man I mean these these aren't toys they were never made as toys how old were you when you got them from so
29:48I was I was in sort of late teens one day he was clearing out a cupboard and then he produced a box
29:56of tanks can you also remember where he got them from did he actually tell you so dad told me that he
30:04found them when he was driving through Germany in the tank they stopped at what they think was a tank
30:11school and got there and there was nobody there so they went in and had to look round and this is what
30:17they discovered looking at these they're made of porcelain and when I looked underneath earlier
30:24and I'll take a little peek now at this incredibly detailed little model of a Sherman tank underneath
30:32we have a little tablet and intriguingly the turret of the tank actually revolves and it's held in place
30:43by a sort of a little button and on that button there's a little crown and the initials WG that's
30:52W Goebel a well-known German ceramic manufacturer and it's funny because in the world of antiques I knew
31:02Goebel as the factory that made little rosy-cheeked figures of children after drawings by a famous lady
31:11called Maria Hummel so you get Hummel and Goebel figures these were made specifically for use on a what
31:20the Germans called Sandkasten a sand table and from ancient times people learnt about warfare and strategy
31:30by setting up on a table a mock battle so that you could see a particular scenario you know where would
31:40the enemy tanks come from and indeed we have models of a Churchill tank as well as the Sherman and then a
31:47range of panzers and two German half tracks as well. Now I have seen a photograph of two German cadets
31:57standing in front of a Sandkasten using little tank models just like this and quite probably Goebel ones
32:06so what does this little collection of tanks and half tracks represent to you?
32:14Well really this is part of my father before I was born but it's one of the very few things that I have that was his
32:23there's something tangible here that is very much part of his life and it's good to have that memory
32:28it's been fascinating to to learn about Norman Grey
32:32absolutely
32:39into January 1945 the poor weather which had benefited the Germans initially at the Battle of the Bulge
32:45began to clear allowing for the Allies to launch a counter-offensive and for their air support to resume
32:52over the coming weeks the RAF intensified its bombing raids targeting industrial cities to cripple
32:59Germany's war making capacity
33:01taking part in those raids was flight lieutenant Colin Bell
33:05now aged 104
33:07Colin flew 50 bombing raids over Germany in a de Havilland mosquito bomber
33:13nobody of course can tell you what it is like to fly over enemy territory and be shot at
33:23everything over Berlin was more intense than any other target
33:28our job was to go in bomb and get out and speed was our defense
33:34the mosquito could reach 420 miles an hour
33:40enemy anti-aircraft fire had radar controls on their searchlights
33:46when the searchlight opened up on you they got you
33:52they also had stacked up at 30,000 feet
33:56Focke-Wulf 190's which were known as wild boar squadrons
34:01and these chaps would try and dive down and pick you off
34:06and if they were successful they were credited with two kills
34:10which shows the respect the German Luftwaffe had for the mosquito
34:16one night over Berlin we got caught by anti-aircraft fire
34:21and the shell exploded under the aircraft
34:24we got lifted up
34:26it shredded the whole of the back of the aircraft
34:29and it caused both engines to lose power
34:32the props were just windmilling around
34:36my navigator Doug
34:38who was normally quite unflappable
34:40leaned across to me and said what do we do now
34:44I said well we wait
34:46I put the aircraft into a glide
34:48and after what seemed like six months
34:51hallelujah the power came on
34:54and I edged the aircraft away from Berlin
34:59I leaned across to Doug and said to him
35:03you weren't frightened were you Doug
35:06and he said no I wasn't frightened
35:08he said I was bloody terrified
35:13In the morning when I went down with Doug to inspect the damage
35:19my fitter walked up to me and said I think you would like to have a memento of last night sir
35:26and he handed over two shell fragments about four inches long
35:32and I said where did you find them
35:34and he said I found them in the parachute that you were sitting on
35:38which made me thoughtful
35:40on fifty missions I dropped fifty tons of bombs
35:46so you see all this activity on the ground
35:50flashes and fires burning
35:52but that's war
35:54and let's face it
35:56it was a war that had to be won
35:58with Berlin under constant bombardment
36:07Hitler retreated to his underground bunker near the Brandenburg Gate
36:11from here he would oversee the final months of the Third Reich
36:15and as the Allies closed in on both fronts
36:18they began to come across new evidence of what we now know as the Holocaust
36:23the liberation of a series of concentration and extermination camps revealed the full horror of the Nazi regime
36:33they were designed to systematically murder millions of Jews
36:38and many others who didn't fit Hitler's racialized ideal of Aryan perfection
36:47in some of the camps the Nazis tried to hide their atrocities by demolishing gas chambers
36:52and forcibly relocating prisoners on death marches
36:56but when Soviet troops entered the gates of Auschwitz Birkenau
37:00in occupied Poland on the 27th of January 1945
37:04the scale and brutality of the genocide became shockingly apparent
37:09on a site covering fifteen square miles
37:13and housing up to a hundred and fifty thousand prisoners
37:16it was estimated that at least one point one million people died at Auschwitz
37:22between 1940 and 1945
37:25a million were Jews
37:27the others largely Polish, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war
37:31further camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald
37:35would soon be liberated by American troops
37:37and at our roadshow in Colchester
37:40Mark Smith heard about one soldier's experience
37:43when British troops entered the camp at Bergen-Belsen in April
37:49your father was a medic
37:51who found himself in April 1945
37:53right at the very end of the Second World War
37:55in Belsen concentration camp
37:57and the photographs that he has are such a witness statement
38:04to what that place must have been like
38:06this is your dad?
38:08yes
38:09this one here, what was his name?
38:10yes, William
38:11Bill for short
38:12and what he's actually doing is he's delousing
38:16yes
38:17there were 63 of them, medics
38:20and they had to do this on a daily basis
38:23twenty of them caught typhus
38:26one of them never made it out
38:28this one here is a view of the camp
38:31you imagine what that camp must have been like
38:34the size of the place, it's huge
38:36the height of that barbed wire fence
38:39it's such a bleak place
38:42and then some of the guards
38:45but they're women
38:47you look at their faces
38:49it's a really
38:51telling photograph
38:53yes
38:54that's just
38:55pure
38:56hatred
38:59and this one
39:00as it says on the back of the photo
39:02the beast of Belsen
39:09then we've got this photograph here
39:11it's a room
39:12full of women
39:14sitting on the floor
39:15yes
39:16what gets you is what it says on the back
39:19a view inside of one hut
39:21the military would sleep about fifty in a hut that size
39:24but there were thirteen hundred women and children in it
39:27and three to four hundred of them had been dead for days
39:31but were being used for pillows
39:34it's beyond appalling
39:36but he's a medic
39:38yes
39:39bless him
39:40and he's there to help isn't he
39:41yes
39:42and we finished
39:43then he did bless him
39:44and we finished with this fantastic photograph
39:46look at that
39:47two weeks later
39:49look at that smile
39:51one of the young lasses that er
39:54they pulled out
39:55i suppose if your dad ever looked at these photos
39:57that must have been the one that gave him the most heart
40:00we have this letter
40:02we have this letter
40:03so there's a special order of the day by Lieutenant Colonel M.W. Gonin
40:07Royal Army Medical Corps
40:08and what it's doing is it's thanking all of the men of his unit
40:12including your dad
40:13you have without hesitation acted as undertakers
40:18collecting over two thousand corpses from the wards of the hospital area
40:23and removing them to the mortuary
40:25a task which the RAMC can never before have been asked to fulfil
40:30did he talk about this
40:32did he talk about this
40:33no
40:34he suffered terribly
40:36um
40:38bad nightmares
40:40where my mother and I had to physically hold him down in bed
40:44really
40:45because of his trembles
40:46never left him
40:47it's been
40:50an absolute privilege to meet you and your dad today
40:53thank you very much Mark
40:54my pleasure
40:55my pleasure
41:01in the coming weeks several more camps would be liberated by the allies
41:05at Westerbork
41:06a transit camp in the northeast Netherlands
41:08one Canadian soldier was to come away with a poignant memento
41:12as Adam Schoon discovers
41:14you own a French Jewish yellow star
41:19a very potent symbol
41:21but it's linked to this man here
41:24who is he?
41:25so that's my great uncle Howie
41:27Howard Simon Weinberg
41:29he joined up like many of the other Canadian Jews to fight Hitler
41:33of course he didn't realise what he was going to come up against
41:37he thought he was going to be fighting Germans
41:39he didn't think he was going to be liberating his own people
41:42so the Canadians were absolutely crucial to the liberation of the Netherlands
41:47where the infamous Westerbork camp
41:52which was a transit camp for Jews
41:55they were deported from there to the east
41:59and great uncle Howie he was there
42:02when the camp gates were thrown open
42:05the prisoners just hid in there in the cabins
42:09because they thought the Germans had come back to slaughter them
42:12and then when they realised that it was their liberators
42:15they came out in droves
42:17the Jewish prisoners were removing their stars
42:21and giving them to their liberators
42:23and of course for my uncle and other Jewish soldiers
42:26it must have been incredibly poignant
42:29now interestingly this is a French issued yellow star
42:33because we have Zwift, French for Jew
42:36these are very very scarce
42:38I must say I have never seen a French example
42:42what I notice about the star itself is it's crudely printed
42:47they're using a sort of stylised Hebrew lettering
42:51but it's slightly padded
42:53the padded ones from what I've read
42:56were used by people who could transfer them
42:59from one item of clothing to another
43:01and the yellow stars had to be worn
43:04on the left upper chest of the unfortunate recipient
43:09I mean this is an incredibly moving story
43:12you grew up with great uncle Howie
43:15I mean what was he like?
43:17he was a gentle giant
43:19and he was very much part of my family growing up
43:22but he never talked about the war
43:24no
43:25I was visiting my family in the mid 80s
43:27my grandmother just out of the blue said
43:29I have something to give you
43:31and came back with the star and placed it into my hands
43:34and...
43:35Gosh, how did that feel?
43:37it felt like a huge weight actually
43:41thank you for sharing this potent symbol
43:44of the persecution of the Jews of Europe
43:47what I take from this is
43:49I know that the bearer of that star survived
43:52thanks to my uncle and the other Canadian soldiers
43:55who liberated Holland
44:04the war in Europe was nearing its end
44:07in mid-April the Soviet Red Army reached the outskirts of Berlin
44:11and began to surround the city with more than one and a half million troops
44:15among those called upon to defend Berlin with a Volkssturm
44:20a people's militia formed of all men up the age of 60 capable of bearing arms
44:27now aged 95 one of the youngest of their new recruits was 15 year old Hans Munkerberg
44:34in the clear war
44:36the British Army was í•‘s
44:37and in the clear war
44:38the British Army was not a soldier
44:39man was a soldier
44:40also an doctor
44:42he was not a young man
44:44but a boy
44:45he was a soldier
44:46in uniform
44:47there were then
44:51a Japanese war
44:54they were assigned to the brigade
44:55and with the team
44:57with this
44:58military war
45:00to prevent the Zingling of Berlin.
45:04I had a very good friend.
45:07It was on Friday, in Spandau,
45:11in these fights, next to me.
45:15And when it was called back,
45:19there was first a rifle from the Red Army,
45:23immediately the SBW was left.
45:25And then T-34.
45:28On Friday, I wanted to tell Bertil,
45:31we have to go back.
45:32He didn't hurt himself.
45:34And when I went around,
45:35I said that there was no face in the ring.
45:38It was just a blood match.
45:41He was dead.
45:45On the 30th of April,
45:47two weeks into the fighting,
45:49with Soviet troops less than 500 meters from his bunker
45:52and not wishing to be taken prisoner,
45:54Hitler took his own life.
45:57But the version of events hands-heard broadcast the next day
46:00showed the Nazi propaganda machine still in full flow.
46:05And there came the message,
46:07that the captain was from the captain's headquarters
46:10to the fighting troops
46:12and then, on the way to the Reich's council,
46:16through a Soviet grenade-buffer attack,
46:19died on the side of his soldiers
46:21by the Helden-Tot.
46:23So, this murder,
46:24there was a Helden-Tot of the captain.
46:27And he was sent in the front of his army.
46:30The next morning,
46:31Wednesday, the 2nd of May,
46:33came the news that the German garrison
46:34holding the city had surrendered to the Red Army.
46:37But for Hans,
46:38the battle of Berlin was not quite over,
46:40as he came under fire from a Soviet T-34 tank.
46:44Da schrie der Lanza auf einmal voller Deckung.
46:49Ich warf sich hin und ich auch.
46:51Und in dem Moment schlug neben mir eine Granate ein.
46:55Ich hatte Gott sei Dank einen Splitter an den Stahlhelm.
47:03Ich war bewusstlos.
47:04Der Schlag war heftig.
47:06Dann einen Splitter durch die Brust
47:09bis zum Magenförtner, der undicht geworden ist.
47:14Ich hatte ja damals diese Sache umgehängt.
47:19Das ist Blut.
47:21Das ist mein Blut vom 2. Mai 1945.
47:24Nachdem der Panzer weg war,
47:28sind zwei Frauen aus dem Keller gekommen,
47:31haben festgestellt,
47:33der atmet noch und haben mich in den Keller geschleppt.
47:36Bleib hier, der Krieg ist für dich zu Ende, Junge.
47:41Das war von einer falschen Ideologie.
47:45Wurden große Teile eines Volkes vernebelt
47:49und kampflustig gemacht.
47:52Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
47:55Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
47:59Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:02Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:04Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:06Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:09Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:12Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:15Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:18Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:20Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:23Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:27Der Krieg war ein Verbrechen Deutschlands.
48:28So a second surrender was called for,
48:31this time to be signed by all three heads of the German army, navy and air force,
48:36and to be ratified here in Berlin.
48:40The Soviets wanted this surrender to symbolically acknowledge
48:44the Red Army's role in capturing the city.
48:46And so it was hurriedly arranged for the very next day, Tuesday 8th May,
48:52in this former German officers' mess in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst,
48:56which was then serving as the Soviet headquarters under Marshal Zhukov.
49:04It now operates as the museum Berlin Karlshorst.
49:10And here it is, the Great Hall where it all took place in 1945,
49:14looking just as it did on that day.
49:18Tables set out in readiness.
49:20The atmosphere must have been intense as each of the Allied representatives arrived
49:26and the huge number of cameramen and journalists jostled for the best position.
49:31But things didn't proceed without a few hiccups.
49:33First of all, there was a sudden power cut,
49:35so the final draft of the surrender had to be typed up by candlelight.
49:39And with everything planned at such short notice,
49:42at first, a French flag hadn't been included amongst those hanging on the wall.
49:47So one quickly had to be cobbled together from a strip of white cloth,
49:50a piece of blue material from a mechanic's overall,
49:53and a strip of red cloth from a Nazi pavilion.
49:57It wasn't until late in the evening that everyone was ready and assembled.
50:01And from his seat here, Marshal Zhukov presided over proceedings.
50:05The doors over there were flung open,
50:10and in marched the German delegation, led by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.
50:15He took his seat, and in turn, each member of the delegation signed their name.
50:21And here's a copy of the Act of Military Surrender.
50:25It's quite something to read it.
50:27It starts,
50:29Just these few pages meant the end of years of bloodshed.
50:42Six years of war, finally over.
50:46With seven signatures.
50:51After the departure of the German delegation,
50:54the room erupted.
50:55The gathering turned into a great big party,
50:58with singing and dancing until dawn.
51:01Egged on by his generals,
51:03Marshal Zhukov even did a Russian folk dance.
51:06And outside, the city resounded with celebratory gunfire.
51:11The war in Europe was finally over.
51:17News of the end of the war was greeted with an outpouring of emotion
51:21and scenes of jubilation
51:23as people took to the streets to celebrate.
51:26In London, tens of thousands thronged Trafalgar Square and the Mall
51:31as the royal family made multiple appearances on the balcony at Buckingham Palace.
51:35The E-Day remains a vivid and lasting memory to all those who witnessed it.
51:43I was that time on the west coast of Greenland
51:47and I was woken up in the middle of the night
51:50by pistol shots and flares
51:53and I said, what the hell is going on?
51:56And they said, the war in Europe is over.
52:00And I said, good, and now can I go back to sleep?
52:03We were told the E-Day had happened.
52:09Somebody got us a special meal and we had that.
52:14And then I went home
52:16and my dad had got a boat on the water
52:20with my brothers and sisters
52:21and we had a little day
52:22and then we came back
52:23and started all over again.
52:25When we were told the war was over
52:30I thought, oh, thank God for that.
52:33At least we have some peace
52:35and I'll be able to get back at home, you know, and start life again.
52:45As the celebrations died down
52:47thoughts turned to the continued fighting in the Far East
52:50and what kind of legacy the war would leave.
52:53An American war correspondent
52:56arriving at the ruins of Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat in late May
53:00felt compelled to write something down for posterity
53:04as a friend of hers recalls.
53:07Today I've brought along a letter
53:09which is by American war correspondent Tanya Daniel
53:13which is on Hitler's gold-embossed notepaper.
53:19It's dated the 24th of May 1945
53:23and addressed to my husband
53:25who was a baby at the time.
53:28It says,
53:29Greetings from the ruins of Hitler's country mansion
53:32near Berkestaden.
53:35These walls, which saw so much evil pondered and done
53:39were shattered by bombs of the RAF
53:42and it was from among the rubble
53:44that your godmother liberated
53:47some sheets of Hitler's fancy stationery.
53:51I had no idea how important Tan was
53:54and this photo shows six female American war correspondents.
54:01It was taken in 1943.
54:04At one end is Tan.
54:06She was very short.
54:07You can see her feet sort of dangling above the ground.
54:10Sitting next to her is Lee Miller, camera in hand.
54:17What I love about the letter is its intention.
54:20I mean, to send a letter to a six-month-old baby is a bit doffed
54:23but her intention, I think,
54:26was to mark for his generation and subsequent generations
54:30how this incredibly evil regime could be defeated.
54:38In Berlin, on 21st July 1945,
54:42the British held a victory parade
54:43to commemorate the end of the war.
54:47Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery
54:49were there to review the troops,
54:51as were a soldier and a nurse who'd met the year before
54:54and had planned to meet up again
54:56when and if the war was over.
54:58Siobhan Tyrrell looks into their story.
55:02When we see military items,
55:06we often think of the horrors of war.
55:09But actually, in this case,
55:10it's a story of finding love in amongst the ruins.
55:14Who are the people that we're talking about?
55:17Well, this is my mother, who was Della Griffiths then.
55:20She was a lieutenant sister.
55:23Also my father, Alan Lusty.
55:25He's the chap in the middle here.
55:26Who is a lieutenant colonel.
55:28They're both D-Day veterans.
55:30So let's start with your mum.
55:31How did she come by all of these badges and insignia?
55:37The nurses themselves were of an approach by soldiers
55:42who wanted to give them money.
55:43Cigarettes.
55:44Cigarettes.
55:45Currency in their own right.
55:46And the nurses made a pact not to take anything from the soldiers.
55:51Yes.
55:51If they were forced to have something,
55:53they asked them if they could have a shoulder badge.
55:56And we have a lovely Christmas menu here.
55:59What's the story about this?
56:01So menu from Christmas 1944 for a dinner and dance party at Eindhoven
56:06that they were both at.
56:07The hospital was seeking some cannon fodder for the nurses.
56:14And he was one of the officers, I think, who got an invitation.
56:17You can see the holly leaves here.
56:20And both of their signatures are on the menu.
56:23And at the top it says,
56:24please return to moi, Della Griffith.
56:27So she clearly intended to have it back at some time.
56:31Yeah, absolutely.
56:32They obviously hit it off.
56:33It was the beginning of a romance.
56:35And they made sure they met again in Berlin for the Victory Parade.
56:38And here we have the British Victory Parade programme.
56:42Berlin, 21st July 1945.
56:45Isn't it lovely that your parents met in such dire circumstances?
56:50They got together, they got married,
56:52and the rest is history.
56:54We've heard so many moving and inspiring stories today
57:18from the final year of the Second World War.
57:21So for all those who served,
57:24and all those who gave their lives
57:26in the name of victory in Europe,
57:29we remember you.
57:31From the Antiques Roadshow,
57:32bye-bye.
57:33¶¶
57:39¶¶