A SECOND service to commemorate Victory in Japan Day was held in Ross-on-Wye last week.

Following on from the flag raising ceremony, held on August 15, outside the town’s historic Market Hall, a service was held at St Mary’s Church officiated by the Branch Chaplain, Canon Freda Davies.

The service was part of the Ross and District Branch of the British Legion’s commemorations to the ‘forgotten army’.

The Standard was proudly paraded by Ian Hedges and the congregation featured Deputy Lieutenant Paul Deneen and the deputy Mayor of Ross, Cllr Sarah Freer. The highlight of the service followed the last strains of the Reveille magnificently played by Des Auld.

The congregation together recited the Kohima Epitaph, the inscription carved on the 2nd Division Memorial at Kohima.

With two daughters of Chindit servicemen, a British special forces unit that operated in Burma (now Myanmar) during the Second World War, being present at the service, tears began to flow.

Adrian Taylor, the organist, rounded off the service with rousing rendition of the National Anthem.

Following the Service members and families sat down to a feast prepared byJo Morris and Janet Auty.

Mr Deneen said: “It was humbling to be involved in the community events involving VJ Day, 80 years on. “Everyone involved playing their part so well, at both the flag raising ceremony at the Market House as well as at the St Mary’s Church. We are so very fortunate to have such a great team in Ross.”

King Charles, who led the country’s VJ Day commemorations from the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, acknowledged the immense price paid by the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where more than 200,000 people died as a result of the US atomic bombings in August 1945.

He said it was a "price we pray no nation need ever pay again".