Speaker leads parliamentarians in a week of VE-Day events

Sir Lindsay Hoyle read out the names of six MPs whose lives were cut short during the Second World War when he turned the first page of Parliament’s Books of Remembrance.

MPs, staff, and visitors were there to witness the inaugural event, which was introduced by Speaker’s Chaplain, Canon Mark Birch; heralded by a bugler playing the Last Post and Reveille and ended with a moment of silence and a prayer.

The ceremony, which will be held every Wednesday when the House is sitting, will also commemorate the families of MPs and staff who died while serving.

Earlier in the week, the Palace of Westminster was illuminated red, white and blue as historic landmarks across the UK were lit up to join in the marking of VE Day.

Sir Lindsay also arranged for a projection on to the Elizabeth Tower of archive images capturing the joyous reaction to wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s broadcast that the war in Europe was over.

On the actual anniversary of VE Day – 8 May - the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament processed with senior politicians, including the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, to Westminster Abbey for a Service of Thanksgiving.

As Mr Speaker suspended the Commons ahead of the procession, he reminded MPs that they were recreating an historic moment.

‘We will now follow in the footsteps of our predecessors 80 years ago,’ he said.

‘On 8th May 1945, Honourable Members formed a procession out of the House of Lords, where they had been secretly relocated, because the House of Commons Chamber had been destroyed during the Blitz.

‘Today, we shall again follow the Mace – but this time from our own Chamber - through the bomb-scarred Churchill Arch, which stands as a permanent reminder of the fortitude of those who stood firm through the war - and I ask that those invited Honourable Members do the same ...’

Among those MPs remembered in the Books of Remembrance:

Major Lord Apsley – MP for Bristol Central – was aged 47 when he died in an air crash in the Middle East in December 1942.

He served with the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars from 1915 until 1918, winning the MC in 1917 and the DSO in 1918. An enthusiastic airman, and president of the UK Pilots’ Association, he had many adventures while flying. In 1938, he took an air trip to Poland and on his return journey left a trail of seven forced landings in various parts of Central Europe. He often would fly to political meetings.

Colonel James Baldwin Webb – Conservative MP for Wrekin – was aged 47 when he died on board the SS City of Benares en route to Canada from the UK on 18 September 1940.

The liner was carrying 90 child evacuees to ‘safety’ when it was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat on 18 September 1940, killing all but 13 children.

According to a survivor, Col Baldwin Webb wanted to see all the women and children into the lifeboats before he left the deck. When he tried to join a lifeboat, he hit his chin and fell into the water and disappeared.

Captain Robert Bernays, Liberal-Nationalist MP for Bristol North, and John Dermot Campbell, Conservative MP for County Antrim, died together on a parliamentary mission to visit British forces in Italy in January 1945.

The two men were killed on a flight from Rome to Brindisi on 23 January during a snowstorm.

Commander Rupert Arnold Brabner was British Under Secretary of State for Air and Conservative MP for Hythe in Kent when the Liberator plane taking him to Canada was lost off the Azores on 27 March 1945. All on board were assumed dead. Cdr Brabner was aged 33 and married only five months.

A Fleet Air Arm fighter ace, he shot down five enemy aircraft in battles over the Mediterranean Sea, earning him the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Order.

Major Ronald Cartland - Conservative MP for King’s Norton, Birmingham - was one of the first parliamentarians to be killed in action during WW2, in May 1940, aged 33 years of age. He was also one of the youngest.

He was the younger brother of prolific romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland, whose step-granddaughter was the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

During the war, he served in the Worcestershire Yeomanry, Royal Artillery, and was tasked with defending the hilltop town of Cassel in northern France. He was shot and killed when his unit joined the retreating British Expeditionary Force, which was heading towards Dunkirk.

In a memoir to her brother, Barbara Cartland remembered Ronald as ‘terribly inspiring’ and said Winston Churchill ‘adored him’.