The Allies formally celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich - Victory in Europe Day - on 8th May 1945.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had agreed that 9th May should mark the end of hostilities in Europe. However, Western journalists broke the news of Germany's surrender prematurely, precipitating the earlier celebration.
The Soviet Union kept to the agreed date. The Russian Federation and other countries still commemorate the end of the Second World War - known as the Great Patriotic War - in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, as Victory Day on 9th May.
However, it was a long, hard slog to get to VE Day through Western, Southern and Eastern Europe, against dogged Axis resistance and often inclement weather...
MAJOR ALLIED FORMATIONS
DECEMBER 1944
JANUARY 1945
FEBRUARY 1945
MARCH 1945
APRIL 1945
MAY 1945
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