By Q Radio news
Events to mark the 75th anniversary of Japan announcing its intention to surrender during the Second World War are underway across Northern Ireland today.
Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, is broadcasting a pre-recorded service which it hosted earlier this week in line with Covid-19 restrictions.
In London wreaths have been laid at the Cenotaph and a service is taking place at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
A two minutes silence was also be observed at 11am.
A silence was held at Belfast City Hall during a socially distanced memorial event at the Cenotaph.
Lord Mayor Frank McCoubrey laid a wreath after the Last Post was played by a bugler.
(The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Frank McCoubrey lays a wreath to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VJ Day - pic by Photopress)
Afterwards, Mr McCoubrey said it was frustrating that health restrictions had prevented the occasion being marked with a major event, but said it was important to avoid mass gatherings.
"We're in difficult times at the moment and there wasn't very many people here but I think it was very, very important that we came out and remembered those who sacrificed their lives to give us our freedom," he said.
The Red Arrows flew over Belfast city centre at 2pm to mark the 75th anniversary of VJ Day.
The Red Arrows fly over the H&W cranes in Belfast to mark the 75th anniversarry of VJ Day. Copyright Photopress Belfast. pic.twitter.com/nbOImbbGwe
— Q Radio News (@qnewsdesk) August 15, 2020
The aircraft passed the landmark Titanic building and the Harland and Wolff shipyard cranes as they flew up Belfast Lough, leaving their famous red, white and blue smoke trails in their wake.
The Red Arrows pass over The Titanic Quarter in Belfast, as part of VJ Day on the 75th Anniversary of victory over Japan marking the end of the Second World War. Pic - STEVEN MCAULEY/MCAULEY MULTIMEDIA pic.twitter.com/ivEnC7ib8x
— Q Radio News (@qnewsdesk) August 15, 2020
(The VJ commemorations at City Hall Belfast - pic by Photopress)
The Northern Ireland War Memorial (NIWM) also commemorated the 75th
anniversary of Victory over Japan Day (VJ Day).
While VE Day (Victory in Europe) marked the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, many
thousands of Armed Forces personnel were still engaged in bitter fighting in the Far East.
On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered, which in effect ended the Second World War.
Victory over Japan would come at a heavy price. Veterans of the Far East campaign who often
considered themselves as the ‘forgotten army’, were at the heart of the commemoration
which took place in the museum on Talbot Street.
Sadly, very few veterans of the Second World War are still alive, but many have been interviewed through the museum’s ongoing
oral history project The War and Me which seeks to capture wartime memories.
The small closed ceremony was attended by Austin and Mandy Harper, son and daughter of
Hugh Harper (1918-2000) who served with the RAF during the Second World War and was
a Prisoner of War of the Japanese from 1942-45.
They were joined by Trustees of the NIWM and Reverend Albin Rankin from Stormont Presbyterian Church.
Austin Harper placed a poppy wreath on a granite plinth within the museum which contains a
Roll of Honour for the fallen in the First and Second World War.
The Rolls of Honour stand in front of a memorial wall which bears the following inscription ‘Let those who come after see
to it that their names be not forgotten’.
A 2 minute silence was observed at 11.00. The silence was broken by a Piper performing
Battle’s O’er on bagpipes.
The performance took place outside the museum owing to the current pandemic restrictions.
(A wreath-laying ceremony at
The small closed ceremony the
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