Duke of Edinburgh leads VJ Day commemorations

The Duke of Edinburgh has joined veterans of the Second World War in the Far East theatre, at a 60th anniversary VJ Day reunion at the Imperial War Museum.

His Royal Highness, who is Patron of the Burma Star Association, joined the reunion of Fourteenth Army veterans and former Far East prisoners of war, held to mark VJ Day and Japan’s surrender in 1945.

The Duke, who served with the British Pacific Fleet and witnessed the final surrender of the Japanese, was the guest of honour at the event.

The other guests at the event included: Lord Slim, President of the Burma Star Association; Countess Mountbatten of Burma, daughter of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command; Dame Vera Lynn; actress Joanna Lumley, whose late father served with the Chindits – an elite guerrilla unit, which fought in Burma; and Lieutenant Commander Ian Fraser, who won one of the last Victoria Crosses to be awarded during the Second World War.

The Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas also performed at the event.

Captain Paddy Vincent, chairman of the Burma Star Association, said that Monday’s event ensured that those who served in the Far East would be remembered. He said: “It is a reassurance that the public do not forget, as people sometimes like to say they do.”

Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi marked the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, by apologising for Japanese aggression. Mr Koizumi issued a written statement expressing “remorse” and “heartfelt apology” and offering condolences to “victims of the war at home and abroad”.

Tensions over the Second World War still run high between Japan and its neighbours, primarily China and South Korea. They have been angered by Mr Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, which honours convicted war criminals among the war dead. There has also been anger in China over Japanese school textbooks, which, the Chinese claim, gloss over wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese.

The Japanese surrendered in the Second World War on August 15, just days after the US devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs.

(KMcA/SP)