VE-Day 1945, LondonDerry, Eyewitness - U-Boat Fleet Surrenders; German patient arrives at Hospital

14th May 1945, soon after the excitement of VE-Day, ending World War 2 in Europe, a QARNNS nurse witnesses the German U-Boat Submarine Fleet surrender at HMS Ferret, Lisahally, Londonderry.
Then, amidst reports of wartime horrors, a young German submariner arrives at our Royal Naval hospital. Here's what happened next...
An extract read from our eyewitness book: "Hemyock Memories of World War II 1939-45," now available worldwide on Amazon Kindle.
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Image: Surrendered U-Boat Fleet at HMS Ferret, Lisahally, 12 June 1945: Nine, 21 class (1600 tons carrying 23 torpedoes); four, 9 class (500 tons); thirty nine, 7 class (also 500 tons: A total of fifty two German U-boats.
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New Version. This video replaces the version spoken by a computer program.
© 2014-19 www.hemyockcastle.uk
All proceeds from these Kindle books go to the Blackdown Support Group charity, which helps the frail & elderly of the Hemyock area.

[@stephensmith4480]

During the 1980s I met a German Gentleman who heard my accent and asked, did I know a certain road in Liverpool, I told him I did and he went on to tell me that, that was where his wife was from and that he met her in The Isle of Man, when he was a prisoner of war and she was serving the prisoners their food. He went on to tell me that they were all treated very well and had a really easy life, so long as you behaved, which he said they all did.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Thanks. Glad to hear that account, and that the German POWs were treated humanely.

[@Steve14ps]

German treated Allied POWs far better than the Japanese. To be fair to the Germans, they followed the Geneva Convention to the letter of the protocol.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Thanks. I hope POWs held by the British were treated as humanely as possible. I know many pleaded to be allowed to remain in Britain after the war.

[@sevenodonata]

How ignorant of you. You should never be fair to the Nazis, they mass-murdered millions. Soviet (allied) POWs werre routinely starved and worked to death.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Thankfully, I was not there. However, as well as zealots, weak, and evil people; presumably there were large numbers of ordinary people and large numbers of conscripts?

[@Steve14ps]

@@sevenodonata I was being fair to the Germans, not the Nazis. I quoted the Germans, you quoted Nazis, not all Germans were Nazis and many Germans were killed by Nazis

[@RichardSheppard1]

@@Steve14ps Yes, according our book of eyewitness accounts, even amongst German POWs in camps near Hemyock in Devon, there was just a small "hard-core" of POWs who bullied and threatened the others; ordering them not to co-operate or to accept offers of local paid farm work.

[@marshawisniewski5341]

Ppl

[@RichardSheppard1]

Did you like this video?

[@sevenodonata]

LondonDerry is the only county in Ireland with SIX silent letters.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Answer to a pub quiz? ;)

[@Steve14ps]

Doire to be correct

[@sagartzoli]

Derry/Doire.

[@philipmulville8218]

@@Steve14ps😂 You beauty, Steve.

[@petergambier]

My grandad was Captain Robin Gambier who there at the surrender on the day and on my wall at home I have his framed aerial view photo of that day, (the same picture you used here) and there is also a short film of him taking the salute from his commanding officer on the 12 June 1945 along with footage of some of the U-Boat captains on the dock. I watched your film and...that's it, 1 picture, some quotes and an ad for a book.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Thanks for that interesting comment & info about your grandfather. I've now found this long article: www.uboat.net/articles/95.html This is one of several KZbin "videos" containing short excerpts and photos from our book (all royalties go to the village support charity). We originally assembled this book in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of VE / VJ Day, from personal interviews with about 70 people in the village who supplied their personal memories of those times. The book contains their memories, told in their own words, with only minor editing & correction of place-name, spellings etc. Astonishingly, people from this small village had served in many of the well-known & the lesser-known theatres of the war. But very few would have had access to personal cameras (or video cameras), so the Kindle version of the book is mostly text. In this particular excerpt, a young QARNNS nursing sister (who happens to be my late mother) tells her story of those little-known events, and of people's surprising, conflicting emotions. We try to make this material available publicly. I hope you found it interesting.

[@petergambier]

@@RichardSheppard1, Thanks for the response and link Richard, I'll take a look.

[@petergambier]

@@RichardSheppard1, just looked and it is a great link to my grandpa. My other grandpa, Gordon Hawes, was an RAF Squadron Leader flying in Lancaster bombers as a navigator and took part in the 1st of 4 raids on Hitler's holiday home, the Eagles Nest, and missed him by half an hour. The Navy grandpa mostly skippered submarine depot ships, 4 in all and was the last Naval commander of a coal fired ship. When he commanded a submarine (Fr Rubis) he would hang a brace of pheasants in the torpedo tubes to mature.

[@RichardSheppard1]

Thanks. I have immense respect for people who served, at home or overseas.

[@BFDT-4]

[@RichardSheppard1]

Glad you liked it