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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
2nd Battalion DLI: Burma 1945
Part of an online exhibition from Durham County Record Office commemorating the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe on 8 May 1945

In 1943, the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry (DLI), rebuilt after the losses it had suffered in Belgium and France in 1940, became part of the 14th Army in India. In late 1944, after battling Japanese forces in the Arakan and at Kohima, the 2nd Battalion DLI joined the 14th Army's advance towards Mandalay. There the Japanese Army in central Burma was destroyed.
On 7 May 1945, as German forces were surrendering in Europe, the Durham soldiers were allowed off their invasion ship to swim in the sea. The next day, when news of the surrender reached Burma, each soldier was given two bottles of beer to celebrate VE Day.
'A' Company, 2nd Battalion DLI, Pagoda Hill, near Mandalay, Burma, March 1945 (D/DLI 7/121/13(26)).
After landing in Rangoon, the Durhams patrolled the city and nearby villages looking for Japanese Army stragglers and collecting abandoned weapons. The rest of the time was spent in training, sports and other entertainments meant to keep the soldiers' minds off their longed-for demobilisation.
To celebrate the victory of the Allied forces in Burma, a parade was held in Rangoon on 15 June 1945, with the salute taken by the Supreme Allied Commander, Louis Mountbatten. The 2nd Battalion DLI took part in the Rangoon Victory Parade.
On 15 August, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered. The 2nd Battalion DLI, however, held no ceremony to mark the final victory and, within weeks, the first of the Durham soldiers were returning home.
Back to 'We have come through' - remembering VE Day 1945 exhibition homepage.