On May 4 1945 — four days before VE Day — British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in northwest Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands at Lüneburg Heath. The formal documentation required distribution to multiple German command posts simultaneously across a wide area with functioning communications largely destroyed. A British dispatch rider named Corporal Thomas Finch was assigned to deliver surrender terms to a German regimental command post approximately eleven miles from the signing location. His motorcycle had no fuel. Finch located a civilian bicycle outside the signing tent, loaded the sealed surrender documents into a canvas bag, and cycled eleven miles through German-held territory to deliver them. The German colonel who received the documents examined Finch’s bicycle, looked at the documents, and asked if this was a joke. Finch said no sir. The colonel accepted them. Finch cycled back. He filed an expenses claim for the bicycle. It was rejected.
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