From Normandy to Ukraine: Why VE Day still matters in a world fighting for freedom, writes James Cleverly
8 May 2025, 08:44 | Updated: 8 May 2025, 09:35
In 2001, I trudged up the Normandy beaches with British Army veterans who had done the same—under fire—over half a century earlier.
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I was a young officer in the Army Reserves (at that point called the Territorial Army) on a visit to Ver-sur-Mer with young soldiers from my Battery and veterans from our antecedent regiment, the 86th Field Regiment Royal Artillery.
Quiet old men who had served in 1944 joined noisy young men who were serving then.
On the ferry trip over to France, the old and the young sat apart—little in common. On the trip back, after a couple of days together, the young soldiers were clustered around the veterans, listening to their stories, bombarding them with questions, laughing at their jokes.
It was wonderful to see the decades separating the two groups of soldiers melting away. Bonds were made despite the years.
A huge degree of respect and admiration had grown for those who stormed the beaches, not knowing when—or if—they would return home.
In 1944, those veterans were young men from Hertfordshire, plucked from their Home Counties pre-war calm and thrown into the maelstrom of Operation Overlord.
Their first experience of combat was on Gold Beach, where almost a third of those who landed were killed.
The Normandy veterans stood on the beach, retrieving memories, pointing at landmarks, recounting the actions of their friends and themselves, pausing occasionally to force back tears when talking about those who were killed beside them.
Landmarks from a lifetime earlier still fresh in their memories, they pointed out the locations of German pillboxes, buildings they had sheltered within, roads they had travelled along as they pushed on towards victory, almost a year later.
It was an honour to spend time with those men who risked their lives for the freedom of those who came after.
Very few of that generation are left. That is why this week’s celebration of VE Day is so important—it is a chance for the generations that followed to remember them and to thank them again.
But just as important as those who stormed the beaches of France, or who defended the UK in the skies above the Channel, or in ships crossing the Atlantic with supplies, were those on the Home Front.
The Women’s Land Army trying to feed the nation, the medics and mechanics, air raid wardens and firefighters, the teachers, and those who hosted evacuees in their rural homes while our cities were under attack—all those people, and more, are being celebrated this week.
And as we think of them, our minds naturally turn to those who fight against invasion today. Ukrainian soldiers marching through London was a powerful sight.
They represent not just those who are in battle on the front line, but also those keeping Ukraine’s economy alive: the farmers, the people who repair the energy infrastructure, those developing drone technology and apps that track the path of incoming Russian missiles, and those who host Ukrainian refugees.
They remind us of the whole-nation sacrifice that wars of national survival demand.
We are lucky that we are not fighting for the very existence of our nation and the protection of our values today. But the people of Ukraine are.
As we celebrate that glorious time when WWII ended and swords could be turned into ploughshares, let us redouble our efforts to ensure the same happens in Ukraine.
Rt Hon Sir James Cleverly TD VR MP is a former Foreign and Home Secretary and Army Reserve officer
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