A-Z of the Second World War

V

Vichy France. When Germany invaded France in 1940they actually only occupied the northern part. The rest was to be ruled under General Petain and Laval. It accepted Nazi rules and was known as the Vichy government. Some people have questioned how France fell so quickly. Gamelin said that the French were outnumbered, had inferior weapons and inferior methods. The fact was that only the last point was true. It was certainly true that the French put far too much faith in the maginot line, but Petain had actually thought Vichy rule was an acceptable price to pay to get rid of the French Prime Minister, Raynaud, who had worked against him in war preperations.

V-J. Victory in Japan. The Japanese finally surrendered in September 1945. Many British soldiers felt forgotten as the happiness of Victory in Europe seemed to take away from the battle in the far-east.