VE DAY 80 Sermon Preached at St Mary’s Yelden 4.5.25, Revd. Simon Aley

I have been reading a sermon this week from a Canon Reverend Francis Richards an impressive looking man who looked a bit like James Robertson Justice for those who can go back that far back. This sermon was preached the first Sunday after VE day in 1945 in Crediton, Devon and begins: (source: https://exeter.anglican.org/crediton-vicars-ww2-ve-day-sermon-shared-by-daughter-80-years-on)

“During this past week great events have come to a final issue, and we have celebrated the day of victory in Europe to which we had long been looking forward. No doubt you have all been reading reviews of the progress of the war through these years in your newspapers, and I need not quote instances here to remind you how often or for how long, the prospect of victory seemed remote and unattainable, and many of us lived through moments when we wondered whether we ourselves should be spared to see it come to pass.”

Canon Richards knew all too well the suffering of war. At the start he had been in London, a minor canon at St Paul’s Cathedral and a firefighter in London. During the war he had taken a calling in Crediton, Devon so his family might be safer. But even in Crediton the rectory had all its windows blown out following a raid on Exeter, one of the historic cities that Hitler had wanted to destroy in revenge for allied attacks on German cities. Similar events took place here in Yelden when on 24th March 1944 a Flying Fortress took off from Chelveston US airfield and crash landed in Yelden just a few yards from here in what is now Forge Close killing 19 American servicemen and two children from Yelden, Keith and Monica Phillips aged 14 and 4 respectively in the farmhouse at Glebe Farm, Yelden. The mother Mrs Phillips was in hospital still on VE day, where she spent 2 years recovering from her injuries. My predecessor Revd Paddick reported all the windows in the rectory at Yelden were damaged as were many in the church.

War inflicted huge suffering on many lives and escaping to the country whether to Bedfordshire/Northamptonshire or Devon gave you no immunity. Worse still, many had gone to war but not as many returned including those American servicemen so far from home and they were not the only ones not to return from sorties from Flying Fortresses, Many who did return were haunted by their war experiences and the things they had to do. So, the story of the prodigal son that we had read is appropriate today. Servicemen that returned were changed by what they had experienced and done. One serviceman from Yelden did not return to celebrate VE day and so VE day was bittersweet. Yes, there were great celebrations across the country, pictures of embraces at Trafalgar Square even a recording of the jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton on VE Day but many who did return had scars and wounds to prove it. May be the prodigal son’s wounds were internal but as Canon Richards observed comparing the troops return with that of Christ’s return after he rose again, “it was a bittersweet victory for many people: “Our Lord came back with wounds in His hands and feet and side – let that not be forgotten by those who have come to the end of this German war wondering whether they can or ought to rejoice, because there has been so much sorrow; our Lord’s experience is the same – the joy that was set before him was only reached through death and wounds.”

Maybe it is easier after 80 years to simply celebrate and forget the injured who return, the frightened who returned and all those sleepless nights. And yet as Christians we are reminded that it is by Christ’s wounds that we are healed and saved and it is by the price of those who put themselves on the line for freedom that we are free today. But we can only celebrate 80 years on if we strive for peace in our world today. The prophet Micah as we heard wrote that in the days to come people will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. I would love to tell you that we are in those times now but the sad reality is that there have been more wars since 1945 than there had been throughout history before 1945 and so if we are really to celebrate, we have a way to go yet, resolving wars in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere. Canon Richards finished his sermon as follows and so shall I “Our victory in Europe is won, but there is a long job ahead to make liberty available again to everybody. But can’t you see it is a job after God‘s own heart, since he himself is doing the same thing? If God is with us, in the fight, in the sorrow, in the victory, in the rejoicing, in the reconstruction – if God is with us, who can be against us?” Amen