Special virtual service featuring veteran’s memories commemorates VJ-Day in Peterborough

The live service included videos featuring reminiscences of Peterborough veteran Harry Jeffries, a former soldier and Hotpoint employee.

Mr Jeffries said people were happy before the war.

He said:”It was very happy as far as I can remember because nobody had got a lot of money... but they were still happy. An ice cream was a really rare thing.”

He spoke about memories of wartime and working in a factory before being called into the Army.

“From where I worked I was seconded into the aircraft factory at Peterborough making parts for Wellington bombers and I was there nearly four years,” he said. “We worked hard and we worked at least 72 hours a week.

“I got married in 1941 and I was only allowed four days for my wedding and honeymoon.”

Mr Jeffries said that the end of the war brought huge relief to the country.

He said: “Just a relief that’s all, that everything was over and there was no more killing.”

See the service and the interviews with Mr Jeffries here: https://www.facebook.com/PeterboroughCathedral/videos/2735688490011132

See the Peterborough service on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agk7X-ROQHE

During the service - which included a two-minute silence - the Mayor of Peterborough, Cllr Gul Nawaz, will laid a wreath in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the Far East during the Second World War.

Both Cllr John Holdich, Leader of the City Council, and Gillian Beasley, city council Chief Executive, gave readings and prayers were led by the Revd Canon Ian Black, Vicar of Peterborough. These will be based on those used in a VJ Day service held in Westminster Abbey in 1945.

During the service the Last Post was played and Major Anthony Elsey read the Exhortation and the Kohima Epitaph.

Members of the Royal British Legion raised and lowered the ensign during the service.

Nationally the 75th anniversary of VJ Day – victory over the Japanese which signalled the very end of the Second World War – has been commemorated with a series of events honouring those who fought in the Far East.

A televised remembrance service took place at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, where a two-minute silence was led by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall at 11am.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson read the Exhortation before the silence, which was followed by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flypast over the arboretum.

Richard Day, 93, from Boreham Wood, north London, who was involved in the decisive Battle of Kohima in north-east India, which marked a turning point in the Far East land campaign, was among about 40 veterans at the ceremony of remembrance.

Mr Day, of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, served in the forces which relieved Kohima and Imphal and told of how he contracted malaria and dysentery at the same time, while fighting a highly determined enemy.

He said: “I think the worse part was crossing rivers at night, it was cold at night – then all night in wet clothes and wet equipment, still having to move about.

“They (the Japanese) were very determined for their emperor.

“It was a glory for them to die for their emperor. They didn’t appear to have any fear at all.”

Prince Charles and the duchess laid poppy posies and wreathes at the Kwai Railway Memorial, while veterans looked on from benches dotted around the memorial, to maintain social distancing.

The prince’s wreath read: “In everlasting remembrance, Charles”, while the duchess’s poppy posy read: “In everlasting remembrance of your service and sacrifice.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant tributes to mark the landmark anniversary have been organised online and in television, with the Duke of Cambridge to appear on screens across the country in VJ Day 75: The Nation’s Tribute, a pre-recorded BBC programme filmed at Horse Guards Parade.

Developed with the Ministry of Defence and involving 300 members of Armed Forces personnel, the programme scheduled to broadcast at 8.30pm promises a host of famous faces reading tributes, military bands and dramatic visual projection, with the duke to give a special address thanking veterans and the wartime generation.

In a video also be published online, the Prince of Wales read an extract from the diary of his grandfather, King George VI, written on August 15th 1945, when thousands watched him and the Queen drive down the Mall in an open carriage.

He reads: “By 10am there were already large crowds outside Buckingham Palace and we drove in procession in a state landau with an escort to Westminster where I opened the first Peace time Parliament since 1938.

“The Crown was carried in the full procession but no robes were worn. My speech took 16 minutes to read, in which I mentioned the surrender of Japan.”

In a separate video, the Duke of Gloucester reads an extract from the speech delivered by King George VI on VJ Day, which forms part of an online service of commemoration from Leicester Cathedral.

In a special message, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh – who himself was aboard HMS Whelp in Tokyo Bay as the Japanese signed the surrender aboard USS Missouri on August 15, 1945 – gave “grateful thanks” to all those who fought for the Allied nations.

In a statement, the Queen said: “Prince Philip and I join many around the world in sending our grateful thanks to the men and women from across the Commonwealth, and Allied nations, who fought so valiantly to secure the freedoms we cherish today.”

The Duke of Edinburgh, 99, featured alongside other veterans on a number of large screens across the UK, including the Piccadilly Curve, in a photo-montage showing veterans today and when they served.

In a first since the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, the RAF’s Red Arrows scheduled a UK-wide tour with flypasts to take place over the four nation’s capital cities.