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Exhibitions
- 'Adventurers and Pirates' - Hetton Coal Company, 1820
- Looking back at Consett Steel Works
- Celebrating Gala Day 2020
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County Durham remembers VE Day 1945
- 'We have come through' - Remembering VE Day 1945
- 9th Battalion DLI: From D-Day to Berlin
- 9th Battalion DLI: VE Day
- 9th Battalion DLI: In Berlin, June - September 1945
- Berlin Victory Parade, 7 September 1945
- Victory Parade at Belsen, 8 May 1945
- The Northern Echo, Victory edition, 9 May 1945
- VE Day and Durham Schools
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Burma 1945
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Rangoon Victory Parade, 15 June 1945
- VE Day and the Durham Miners' Association
- County Durham celebrates VE Day
- Haswell Victory Celebrations, 1945
- Soldier: Victory Souvenir edition, 8 May 1945
- Parade: European Victory edition, 26 May 1945
- VE Day not forgotten by one Spennymoor family
- County Durham celebrates VJ Day
- Victory Day, 8 June 1946
9th Battalion DLI: From D-Day to Berlin
Part of an online exhibition from Durham County Record Office commemorating the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe on 8 May 1945

Only one battalion of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was in action from the Normandy beaches in June 1944 to the final defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945 - the 9th Battalion DLI.
In 1939, the soldiers of this Territorial battalion, many recruited from Gateshead, were new to war, but after years of hard fighting in France, North Africa and Sicily, these veterans were chosen to land on D-Day, as part of the 50th Northumbrian Division.
Then, in late 1944, after months of bitter fighting across northern France and Belgium, whilst other DLI battalions were disbanded, the 9th Battalion was transferred to the 7th Armoured Division - the Desert Rats - and joined the advance across the Rhine and on into Germany.
Soldiers from 10 Platoon, 'B' Company, 9th Battalion DLI waiting in Kangaroo armoured carriers to attack Weseke, late March 1945. Note the 'Desert Rat' badge (D/DLI Acc: 10050).
This photograph belonged to Alan Capstick from Stockton on Tees, who served with 9 DLI in North West Europe. On the reverse, Lieutenant Capstick wrote that this photo, widely published in newspapers at the time, was of his platoon.
Captain Roy Griffiths with 'D' Company Headquarters, 9th Battalion DLI, Nienberg, Germany, April 1945 (D/DLI 7/273/15(10)).
Roy Griffiths, who served with 9 DLI from Sicily to Berlin, is wearing a parachute silk scarf and a pair of 'liberated' German Luftwaffe boots. After the war, he compiled an album of his war-time photographs.
Back to 'We have come through' - remembering VE Day 1945 exhibition homepage.