9th of May

Dante09

Not really celebrated here, but its known in Russia as "victory day". Arguably their biggest national holiday. Rang my great-granny(in St. Petersburg) today to congratulate her with the 64th anniversary.

FiSe

Good man yourself

Nor 8th of May alas V-E Day is remembered in this part of the world...

arnhem44

My wife works with a couple of Russian girls and they were saying that it was a big national holiday at home but it never clicked with me,were the celebrations low key this year as normally you see something on tv about Victory day

Dante09

Not that im aware of. Every year there are basically the same celebrations (at least they were when i lived in moscow) Parade in red square/lots of TV documentaries/fireworks at night for about two hours.
I would highly doubt that the Russian recession has impacted victory day celebrations...?..though you never know!!...but no my relatives didnt mention anything so i assume they were the same as every other year.

marcsignal

sent a sms to a mate of mine from Moscow on the 9th, wishing him a happy victory day, he was chuffed to bits

arnhem44

Sorry,low key as in coverage on tv here,not the celebrations in Russia,I just didn't see much mentioned here,maybe I just missed it myself

Dante09

Yeh, the reason for this is that the russians view the 9th as THEIR victory because as far as they're concerned THEY won the war. Thats the day the placed the soviet flag on top of the reichstag (or what was left of it)
The 9th is of little significance for western europe.

FiSe

That's 2 different things mixed together, I'm affraid. The Red flag over the Reichstag flew twice, for real and for propaganda purposes, sometimes in very late April or very early May, I think.
Berlin itself fell a day or so afterwards.

The war went on and it officially ended with the Prague liberation on 9th of May 1945.

If you look at the front dates of '45, you'll see that heavy fighting and considerable loses to the Red Army were inflicted on the territorry of Czech Rep. or around the boundries well after the fall of Berlin and even after the official V-E day /8th/.

arnhem44

Even when the war was actually over you still had die hard soldiers fighting to the bitter end who refused to accept any surrender,wasn't there a Japanese soldier who was found on an Island still in the belief that the war was still on years after.Its sad too that they would re-do the placing of the flag a second time,they said that was because the soldier who got there was not Russian and was from one of the other Soviet countries.

Morlar

arnhem44 wrote: »

Its sad too that they would re-do the placing of the flag a second time,they said that was because the soldier who got there was not Russian and was from one of the other Soviet countries.

Wasnt there also a story that he had a couple of looted wristwatches on his wrist that had to be removed from the press photo ?

I read another story years ago a story about 2 Japaneese who were on an isolated island till either the late 50's or early 60's- when told what happened they could not believe that Japan had surrendered and that they had been completely forgotten about!

Tony EH

Yevgeny Khaldei had to stage Meliton Kantaria and Mikhail Yegorov raising the flag over the Reischstag, simply because nobody was there the first time to photograph Mikhail Petrovich Minin raising the flag the first time.

There were several different photos of the event taken and Khaldei was inspired by another staged photo, Iwo Jima.

After the photo's were taken, numerous attempts were made to doctor them, including adding smoke in the background and tanks on the streets. Khaldei also had to edit out the watches on Yegorov's wrist as the censors at TASS stipulated that that would look bad in the eyes of the world, at whom the propaganda was aimed at.

Tony EH

Re: Jap soldiers fighting on after the war ended. The most incredible (genuine) case is that of Hiro Onada, who was found in the Philippines 1974, 29 years after Japan surrendered. He was completely forgotten about in the chaos of the final part of the war.

arnhem44

The last WWII soldier: didn't surrender until 1974!
Published on 10/26/2007



On December 17, 1944, the Japanese army sent a twenty-three year old soldier named Hiroo Onoda to the Philippines to join the Sugi Brigade. He was stationed on the small island of Lubang (Philippines), and his orders were to lead the Lubang Garrison in guerrilla warfare. As Onoda was departing to begin his mission, his division commander told him, "You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we'll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that's the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you to give up your life voluntarily." It turns out that Onoda was exceptionally good at following orders, and it would be 29 years before he finally laid down his arms and surrendered.

In February 1945, towards the conclusion of World War II, he was still there when the Lubang Island was reclaimed by the Allies, but Onoda, and several other men, hid in the dense jungle. Onoda continued his campaign, initially living in the mountains with three fellow soldiers, Akatsu, Shimada, and Kozuka. One of his comrades, Akatsu, eventually surrendered to Filipino forces, and the other two were killed in gun battles with local forces—one in 1954, the other in 1972—leaving Onoda alone in the mountains. For 29 years, he refused to surrender, dismissing every attempt to convince him that the war was over as a ruse. In 1959, Onoda was declared legally dead in Japan.

Found by a Japanese student, Norio Suzuki, Onoda still refused to accept that the war was over unless he received orders to lay down his arms from his superior officer. Suzuki offered his help, and returned to Japan with photographs of himself and Onoda as proof of their encounter. In 1974 the Japanese government located Onoda's commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, who had since become a bookseller. He flew to Lubang and informed Onoda of the defeat of Japan in WWII and ordered him to lay down his arms. Lieutenant Onoda emerged from the jungle 29 years after the end of World War II, and accepted the commanding officer's order of surrender in his dress uniform and sword, with his Arisaka Type 99 rifle still in operating condition, 500 rounds of ammunition and several hand grenades. Though he had killed some thirty Philippine inhabitants of the island and engaged in several shootouts with the police, the circumstances of these events were taken into consideration, and Onoda received a pardon from President Ferdinand Marcos.

After his surrender, Onoda moved to Brazil, where he became a cattle farmer. He released an autobiography, No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, shortly after his surrender, detailing his life as a guerrilla fighter in a war that was long over. He revisited Lubang Island in 1996, donating $10,000 for the local school on Lubang. He then married a Japanese woman and moved back to Japan where he established a nature camp for kids. At the camp Onoda shares what he learned about survival through resourcefulness and ingenuity. As of 2007, Onoda is still living in Japan.