Service of remembrance

The 80th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day was marked on Friday with a national service of remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. King Charles and Queen Camilla stood alongside Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and more than thirty veterans aged between 96 and 105.

At midday, the crowd fell silent for two minutes before the roar of the RAF Red Arrows filled the sky, joined by historic Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft. Later in the evening, landmarks across the UK and beyond — from Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London to the White Cliffs of Dover — were illuminated in tribute to the men and women who brought World War II to its final close.

A message from the monarch

Earlier that morning, King Charles addressed the nation in a six-minute audio message recorded at Clarence House. He opened with the words his grandfather, King George VI, spoke on the same day in 1945: “The war is over.”

The King paid personal tribute to his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten, who commanded Allied forces in Southeast Asia, recalling lessons he had learned about both the “horrors and heroism” of that campaign. He also acknowledged the toll carried by survivors: “Measured not only in gravestones, but in the mental and physical scars of those who returned.”

He spoke directly to the so-called “Forgotten Army,” soldiers who continued fighting in Burma and beyond after victory was declared in Europe. “They and their fallen comrades,” the King vowed, “shall never be forgotten.”

Remembering all who suffered

The monarch widened his tribute to include prisoners of war who endured starvation, disease and cruelty in Japanese camps. In a rare acknowledgment, he also mentioned the immense price paid by civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saying it was a price “we pray no nation need ever pay again.”

Despite the grief recalled, Charles stressed that the war left behind a legacy of unity, as countries and communities learned to work together across cultural and religious divides. He underlined this with one of the address’s most striking lines: “The greatest weapons of all are not the arms you bear, but the arms you link.”

Concluding his message, the King said the dwindling number of veterans gave the day even more urgency. Their sacrifices, he reminded the nation, “gave us more than freedom; they left us the example of how it can and must be protected” — a lesson he warned remains “vital for our times.”