AS usual, it was Winston Churchill who found the words to describe Tuesday May 8, 1945: “In all our long history, there has been no greater day.”

As news broke of the German surrender, the bells of London churches, silent for six years, erupted in sound.

All day, people poured into the capital from Essex and the Home Counties to join Londoners on the streets.

By the evening, the crowd was at least a million strong.

Silence fell at 3pm, as Churchill made the official announcement, over the radio, of the German surrender.

His words were piped into the streets through loudspeakers.

Then came a roar from the crowd which, in the words of one writer, “threatened to do what the Nazis never did, and bring London crashing down around our ears.”

Night fell, and the promised moment arrived when the lights of London were finally turned on again. The hated Blackout, which had blanketed the country in darkness and gloom throughout the war, was finally banished.

The crowds sang a song which had been a favourite in the lead-up to the war’s ending: “I’m going to get lit up when the lights go up in London, I’m going to get lit up as I’ve never been before...”

St Paul’s Cathedral, its great dome intact while all it around lay bombed-out buildings, had been a symbol of defiance and survival.

Now it too was lit up – with a giant version of the twofingered V for Victory sign.

At 10.30pm, crowds gathered in Whitehall, clamouring for a glimpse of Winston Churchill.

Standing on the balcony of the Ministry of Health, he joined them in singing Land of Hope and Glory.

Then he told them: “This is your victory. Everyone has done their bit. Neither the long years of war nor the fierce attacks of the enemy have in anyway weakened the resolve of the British people.

"God bless you all.”