This is the story of the VE Day thoughts of my late Mother-in-law Vera Eileen Guest expressed in a beautiful letter to her Husband Douglas Vivien Guest who was, on that day of mixed emotions, serving as a Sgt Carpenter on an RAF Station outside Kolkata (then Calcutta) in India.
On May 6th 1940 LAC Douglas Vivian Guest RAF was posted to RAF Marham in North Norfolk. He was immediately detached to the fishing port of Wells Next the Sea where a new unit of the RAF Marine Branch was located to aid in the creation of the new and badly needed Air Sea Rescue Service.
On May 10th he met Vera Eileen Baker for the first time. They were married on August 6th at Wells Next the Sea.
On January 1st 1945 Doug set sail for India. He, like many others did not return to the UK until mid-1946. Little Elizabeth was then two and a half.
On VE Day May 8th, many thousands of people in UK and throughout Europe celebrated joyously. Many others whose loved ones were still at war with Japan stayed away from the celebrations and hoped that another such a day would come soon.
On VE Day, Vera wrote another of the many letters that she had written to Doug over the war years and as luck would have it, Doug kept it.
