Parliament Square

This is a Magic Lantern Slide showing the preparations in Parliament Square for V-Day which took place on Saturday 8th June 1946. The view is looking east from the middle of Parliament Square, from the left is Bridge Street, the entrance to Westminster Underground Station and St. Stephen’s Club on the corner with Victoria Embankment, the roof line of County Hall can be seen on the south bank of the River Thames; the statue of Viscount Palmerston was removed from the east side to the west side during the 1950 re-modelling of the square. On the right is the Palace of Westminster and the base of the clock tower. The structure being built is a street decoration for the V-Day march past of contingents from all the nations which fought on the allied side during WW2. I can only describe it as the S.H.A.E.F Tower, a tribute to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force headed by General Eisenhower and staffed by senior Military Officers from the allied powers. This is probably late May or early June and the finished tower would have large depictions of the SHAEF emblem which was worn as a shoulder patch by its members, between the columns of the tower. The emblem (see below) consisted of a Gold flaming Crusader’s sword on a black background which represented the Nazi occupation of Europe and above five narrow bands of colour which represented all the colours on the flags of all allied nations, it was topped by a broad band of blue which represented future Peace and Tranquillity. SHAEF was disbanded in July 1945 and replaced by USFET, United States Forces European Theatre, then in 1948 by WUDO, Western Union Defence Organisation, then in 1951 after the NATO treaty was signed in 1949, SHAPE, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Needless to say, the Soviet dominated countries which were previously allies were not members. I did say that the march past consisted of contingents from all allied powers, this is not strictly true, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Poland did not send contingents and the large Polish population of the UK did not either. The day was marred by the absence of a contingent from the free Polish forces which was the fourth largest contributor in terms of manpower to the allied cause. In 1945 the new Labour Government had recognised the Soviet puppet regime in Poland as the legitimate Government of Poland and not the Government in exile which had been based in London throughout the war. In April 1946 the Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin sent a letter to all the Poles still living in the UK urging them to return to Poland, he didn’t get many takers for obvious reasons. There was an outcry in Parliament regarding the situation and a group of Polish pilots who had fought in the Battle of Britain were invited to take part in the march past, they declined because of the existing invitation to the Government of Poland, so in the end no Pole took part. This has been a running sore in the Polish community ever since and it was only in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe that a free Polish contingent took the lead in the march past down the Mall after the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair had apologised to the Polish community for a previous Labour Government’s omission. The march past in 1946 also ended up in the Mall at the saluting base opposite Marlborough Road where King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took the salute.

Done