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Our Chairman, John Hart, joined council leaders and staff today to raise the Union Flag above County Hall to mark VE Day, the first of two annual commemorations that together mark the end of the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year marks the 80th anniversaries of VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) on May 8 and VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day) on August 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Councillor Hart was joined by our Chief Executive Donna Manson, councillors and other members of the senior leadership team to honour and pay tribute to the Second World War generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of that generation will remember clearly and vividly where they were and what they were doing when, late on May 7 1945, the BBC interrupted their schedule with a newsflash declaring the following day VE Day – and that it would be a national holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some their memories are of wooden tables and benches adorned with Union bunting hastily erected in the streets; a street party tea, with junket \u2013 a milk-based \u2018jelly\u2019 pudding – and blancmange, with evaporated milk as cream, and perhaps even a few chocolates. A considerable feast in those days of rationing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But others, such as service personnel like Lt. Launa Mary Stevenson, have quite different memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because Launa, 104, from Exmouth served as assistant surgeon in a number of field hospitals in France, Belgium and Holland, she witnessed the reality and brutality of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was February 21, 1944, and Launa, a 23-year-old nurse, was working a shift. She had trained at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. She had a strong faith and fully expected to enter monastic service and become a nun. Then she was approached by a Hospital Chaplain who offered her a chance to work in a leper mission in North Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was while she was waiting for safe passage, she was called into the office by her matron for a meeting that would change the course of not only her life but the lives of the countless others she would go on to save.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe was a recruiting officer for the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS also called QAs),\u201d recalls Launa. \u201cThey desperately needed nurses in the field hospital as part of D Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hesitate,\u201d she said. \u201cYes, I said, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a few short months, and postings to Catterick and the New Forest, she boarded a Royal Marines landing craft; and in the dead of night they landed on Gold Beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She recalls spending her first night in France \u2013 memorable, not only because she slept in a hedge, but because of the sound of gunfire and the intermittent roar of a Messerschmitt 109 flying overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When their first field hospital was set up near Bayeux a Royal Marine warned Launa and her fellow QAs not to drink or bathe in the water of a local stream for fear of snipers lurking in the cover of a nearby copse of trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned quickly because one shot at me \u2013 it went through the metal plate that was holding my stew. I lost my stew and there was quite a hole in the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allied soldiers returned fire, and Launa soon discovered it was these very snipers who were to be her next patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turned out that it was the cover of the trees that they were using that had caused the injuries; the bullets had hit the trees, and the resulting splinters of bark and wood must have flown in all directions tearing at the skin of the snipers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI still have a little smile when I think back, I had to treat them for their wounds when they were the ones who had tried to kill me,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For almost a year, from D-Day on June 6, 1944, through to Germany\u2019s surrender the following May, Launa worked in field hospitals across France, Belgium and Holland, moving as the Allied advance pressed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was days and nights of the injured coming in and going out, it felt as though it would never stop. English soldiers, Canadians, Americans, death\u2019s-head (Waffen SS), innocents, children; together with my lovely surgeon we tried to help them all and we did what we could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On one occasion she completed a full theatre with a Canadian surgeon until both collapsed on the floor with exhaustion. They stayed there, paralysed from fatigue, unable to move as the next shift came in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was one very young boy. It really broke my heart. He was a beautiful boy, a beautiful boy. I cry thinking of him now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHis eyes were injured. Shrapnel you see. He had come in before and we tried to treat them, but of course it didn\u2019t work, they didn\u2019t improve so he came in again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat could we do? To save his life, to prevent infection we had no choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy heart breaks when I remember him coming out of theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe had to take his eyesight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Launa\u2019s kindness and compassion shines through, she held the hand of a young German soldier who has also sustained severe injuries from shrapnel across his chest and neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was no saving him, his wounds were too great,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was calling for his mother. \u2018Mutti, mutti, (mummy) he kept saying. I just held his hand. Something I said seemed to give him comfort, and I just stroked his head, and whispered gently \u2018schlafen\u2026 schlafen\u2026\u2019 (sleep) like this, and I said I would stay with him. He passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One injured Wehrmacht serviceman was convinced that Allied soldiers intended to kill him in the Field Hospital when Launa wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI spoke to the officer and told him that I knew all about it and that this wouldn\u2019t do. \u201cThe German chap was so grateful I intervened he pressed his Iron Cross into my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to take it, but he insisted. I still have it. It has the same mud on it as the day it was given to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not all of the injured were soldiers and when the British and Canadian troops liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, they saw first-hand evidence of the Holocaust, thousands of emaciated, hungry, sick and brutalised prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to go in and help but the Colonel said \u2018no, no you can\u2019t go in there\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was terrible; we operated on a number of them. These were young men and women in their 20s and they looked as though they were in their 80s; they were skeletal, just bones.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When VE Day came Launa says she was barely aware – she says that the trajectory of the war had slowly been turning against Germany for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel like celebrating. It was a relief of course that the War in Europe was over, and Germany had surrendered, but I was so tired, and I was just waiting to be reassigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had seen so much death and horror I was just numb. So much of it I had to block out of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t have long to wait when she heard that she was being reassigned to one of the southern Japanese islands to support the Allied manoeuvres in the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was all very secret. I was driven to a safehouse and told by MI6 not to talk to anybody, which is difficult because I really like talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe waited and waited, for weeks. And then we were told it was off. Why I asked?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe bomb I was told. The bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Launa went on to have a family and lives in Exmouth, the place of her birth.<\/p>\n\n\n
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