8 May in military history: VE Day, 1945

In the early hours of 7 May 1945, at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims, General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces on land, at sea and in the air. The act was signed at 0241 and ordered German forces to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May. The Soviet command asked for the surrender to be signed again in Berlin.¹

Karlshorst

The second ceremony took place at Karlshorst, in the east of Berlin, where Marshal Georgy Zhukov had his headquarters. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg and Colonel General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff signed for the German armed forces; Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder and Zhukov signed for the Allies, and General Carl Spaatz and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny as witnesses. The Berlin act differed from the Reims text in only a few particulars.²

The hour is given differently. Pogue, following Tedder's report, puts the German signatures at about 2330 on 8 May and notes that other accounts place them an hour later; the Karlshorst museum gives about 0.45 a.m. on 9 May, on a document dated 8 May. In Moscow it was already 9 May, and the Soviet Union announced the surrender only then.³

Victory in Europe Day

Britain and the United States announced the surrender on 8 May. In Washington President Harry S. Truman read his proclamation to the press that morning: "This is a solemn but glorious hour. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations". The day became known as Victory in Europe Day, VE Day. The war with Japan went on: it ended only in August, four months later.⁴

In Poland, 8 May has been National Victory Day (Narodowy Dzień Zwycięstwa), a state holiday, since 2015. The same act abolished the National Day of Victory and Freedom, which had been kept on 9 May under a decree of 8 May 1945.⁵

Spotsylvania, 1864: the race to Laurel Hill

On 8 May 1864 the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House began in Virginia. After the Battle of the Wilderness, told on our page for 5 May, Ulysses S. Grant's army moved south in the night; Grant reported that it began moving at 9 p.m. on 7 May. Fitzhugh Lee's Confederate cavalry barred the Brock Road by felling trees across it. Richard H. Anderson, now leading Longstreet's corps, marched for Spotsylvania through the same night on a parallel road.⁶ › Battle of the Wilderness, 1864

On the morning of 8 May Warren's Fifth Corps came out of the woods at Laurel Hill and attacked. Anderson's infantry had got there first: fire from their entrenchment drove the leading Union division back, and its commander, General John C. Robinson, was severely wounded at the first fire. "The Confederates had won the race," wrote the Confederate general E. M. Law, and the National Park Service uses the same words.⁷

The Mule Shoe and two weeks of attrition

Ewell's corps, coming up on Anderson's right, built its line in the dark along the high ground and made a great salient pointing north, which the soldiers called the Mule Shoe. On 10 May Colonel Emory Upton's column broke into its west face before being driven back. At dawn on 12 May Hancock's Second Corps attacked the tip of the salient, and the struggle for the Bloody Angle went on into the night; early on 13 May the Confederates were found to have fallen back to a new line in the rear. Sedgwick's death on 9 May is told on our page for 9 May, and the assault of 12 May on our page for 12 May.⁸

Hancock's corps moved south on the night of 20 May, and the rest of the army followed on the 21st. The Union return in the Official Records counts 18,399 killed, wounded and captured or missing for 8 to 21 May, the figure the American Battlefield Trust also gives. Confederate losses were only partially reported; the National Park Service puts them at 10,000 and the American Battlefield Trust estimates 12,687. The Trust calls the battle tactically inconclusive, and the Park Service says the Federals could not gain an advantage at Spotsylvania. The full story is in our article on the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.⁹

Also on 8 May: Palo Alto, 1846

On 8 May 1846 Zachary Taylor's army, marching from Point Isabel to relieve the fort besieged opposite Matamoros, met Mariano Arista's Mexican army on the prairie of Palo Alto. Taylor put his own strength at no more than 2,300, the figure the National Park Service also gives; he believed the enemy about 6,000 strong, while the park gives Arista 3,200. It was mostly an artillery battle, and Taylor's guns, two 18-pounders among them, did most of the damage. Major Samuel Ringgold of the artillery was mortally wounded.¹⁰

The losses are counted differently: Taylor first reported 4 killed and 42 wounded, Grant, who was there, nine killed and forty-seven wounded, and the park 9 killed, 44 wounded and 2 missing; for the Mexicans the park gives 102 killed, 129 wounded and 26 missing. By the next morning Arista had left the field, and the armies fought again at Resaca de la Palma on 9 May.¹¹