Timeless images of relief and joy

It’s over! The guns in Europe are silent and the troops are coming home. As the news marking the Allied victory in Europe spreads from east to west, so does the party. At the front, “men pinch themselves and feel they’re still alive,” CBC war correspondent Matthew Halton reports. In Halifax, a symphony of ships’ horns and whistles begins celebrations that travel like a wave overland to the West Coast, where air-raid sirens summon still-sleeping Vancouverites to join in the jubilation. Forgotten for the moment are the black armbands and the grim task ahead with Japan.
Today—May 8, 1945—our part of the world is free.

Waving flags and tooting horns, young revellers join the party along Bay Street in Toronto.

City of Toronto Archives/f1266_it96241

Children waving flags to celebrate VE-Day, Rouyn-Noranda, Que.

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Broad smiles telegraph the mood of staff of the Canadian Naval Mission Overseas as they join the throngs in London near Piccadilly Circus.

Canadian War Museum/19790488-010-2

A Montrealer wraps himself in the Union Jack.

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A woman dances with a soldier on Barrington Street in Halifax. Celebrations here degenerated into a riot involving thousands of servicemen, merchant seamen and civilians, forestalling official city celebrations.

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Decorated pickup trucks with horseback escorts join a victory parade in Blairmore, Alta.

Glenbow Museum/nc-54-2123