Philip pays tribute 75 years after VJ Day

THE Royal Family and Boris Johnson will today join Second World War veterans to mark 75 years since VJ Day.

Prince Philip, 99, will be among those paying tribute to the heroes who fell during the campaign in the Far East. The duke was aboard the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Whelp in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will also attend today’s service at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire. For the first time since the 2012 Olympics, the Red Arrows will conduct a flypast over the four capital cities of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Some 71,000 British and Commonwealth troops died during the war against Japan, including 12,000 in captivity. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said yesterday: ‘VJ Day is sometimes seen as the forgotten victory, but this year, on its 75th anniversary, our celebrations are rightly focused on paying special tribute to the Greatest Generation and their service and sacrifice in the Far East.

‘These commemorations have been specially designed to include our veterans and pay tribute to the wartime generation as much as possible despite these challenging times.’

His comments came as a poll for Armed Forces charity SSAFA found that 46 per cent of Britons do not know the meaning of VJ Day. Japan’s capitulation came more than three months after VE Day saw the war end in Europe, when Germany surrendered to the Allies following the suicide of Adolf Hitler.