VICTORY over Japan Day on August 15 marks the surrender of Japanese forces, which in effect ended the Second World War.

For months after VE Day on May 8,1945, war continued to wage in the Asia-Pacific region and only came to an end after two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Eighty years on the Ross-on-Wye community will remember the contribution of all British Commonwealth and Allied Forces, without whom victory and the freedoms and way of life we enjoy today would have not been possible.

These events will be remembered in the town with a short commemoration and flag raising ceremony at the Market House at noon on Friday, August 15 which will coincide with the National commemoration.

This will be followed on Sunday, August 17, at noon, by a Service of Remembrance, reflection and thanksgiving at St Mary’s Church.

VJ Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered, in effect bringing the Second World War to an end.

in the United States and the rest of the Americas and Eastern Pacific Islands) the day is commemorated on September 2 which was the actual date in 1945 when the surrender document was signed, officially ending the Second World War.

The formal surrender occurred aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In Japan.

Last week, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorated the bombings at which white doves were released into the sky, while an eternal “flame of peace” burned in front of a cenotaph in Hiroshima dedicated to victims of the world’s first nuclear attack.

The ceremonies were seen as the last opportunity for significant numbers of ageing survivors now down to 100,000 of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki– to pass on first-hand warnings of the horror of nuclear warfare.