The 2,000th Day

While yellow crocuses bloomed in Hyde Park, and on Oxford Street bright bunches of daffodils sold for 7s.6d. ($1.50), Britain counted up one day last week and found that it had been at war for 2,000 days & nights--2,000 days & nights of invasion threats, blitz, robombs, immense suffering, gnawing discomfort (equally immense) and imperturbable defiance of near defeat. For most of those 2,000 days Britons had stared into the hollow eyes of disaster and death; it had not occurred to them to wince. Now the unseasonably warm winds brought not only the scents of thawing soil and growing things, but the sense of long deferred victory.

There was no special celebration. But Britons attended to sundry matters:

P: The House of Commons passed a bill making rear lights compulsory on bicycles (in 2,000 nights of war more people had been killed by traffic on country roads than by bombs or V-weapons).

P: The Red Army was felicitated on its 27th birthday. G.I.s of an air base depot gave liberated Russian war prisoners 4,000 packs of cigarets, 5,000 candy bars, 50,000 cookies.

P: Some 6,000 Allied airplanes raided Germany, but the vast armada scarcely stirred a conversational eddy. Only the Daily Sketch recalled that, a year before, Winston Churchill had promised that "our bombing will increase beyond any power yet imagined."

P: The London Times noted "an invasion of robins" from the Continent and pointed out that European robins are quite distinct (smaller red breasts, whiter underparts) from British robins.

P: His Majesty's Government announced that since two rats a day were being killed, rodents were no longer a serious menace to wild fowl in Hyde Park.

P: Cambridge rowed to a surprise victory over Oxford's crew at Henley-on-Thames. Thousands of London evacuees watched the classic, in which the winning Light Blues used a shell borrowed from Oxford.

Britons, recalling the saturnalia of 1918's Armistice Day, were chiefly concerned about the forthcoming V-day celebrations. In the House of Commons, Lady Nancy Astor urged that all pubs be closed on V-day. She hinted darkly at "plans to get our men drunk on the one day when we should all be on our knees thanking God." Said Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "Those misgivings are very exaggerated." But Sir Andrew Duncan, Minister of Supply, shared Lady Astor's misgivings. He warned Britons to "behave in a dignified way and not become inebriated." Nevertheless, pubs and bars continued to lay in stocks, while brewers advised them to save 20% of their Scotch whiskey quota for victory celebration.

The Gubbins View. The Sunday Express' whimsical Nat Gubbins also discussed the V-day question:

"Many people will feel very ill indeed, and after the first jubilations a deep depression will hang over these islands, especially over those who wake up in police stations. . . . When the nation has recovered from the shock, a lot of bishops will make exactly the same speeches as bishops made after the last war. . . . This will make a lot of thoughtful people wonder if bishops are worth the money they get.

"Towards the end of the first week of peace, those who organized processions will put their long-laid plans into operation, and London and other big cities will be filled with the sound of hideous music. Thousands will march through the streets holding up traffic for days. . . . Patriotic people will sing patriotic songs, and those who have done the least to win the war will sing the loudest. The people who are the least likely to sing songs and wave flags will be the sailors, soldiers and airmen. The people most likely to sing and to be entirely smothered in Union Jacks will be the black marketeers.

"After the processions will come the discussions, especially on the question:

'Who won the war?' This will not only be a subject for international bickerings. It will also be a subject for internal political bickerings. Each political party, even the Liberals, will say that they won the war. The only people who will put in no claim at all will be the sailors, soldiers and airmen. Eventually (if we don't hang him quickly) Hitler will claim to have won it --and probably will in the long run, if you don't watch out."

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