2 days ago
King Charles's poignant VJ Day reminder
It has been one of the hallmarks of King Charles's reign so far that, when he makes a commemorative or ceremonial address, especially when he is remembering Britain's wartime victories, he usually manages to hit the correct note. He has become very adept at persuading even the most dyed-in-the-wool republicans that he is the right man at the right time.
Therefore, when it was announced that he would address the nation in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of VJ Day – the grimmer, less obviously triumphal cousin of VE Day – expectations were high that the King would once again deliver. What was less expected was how personal the speech would be.
In his six-minute message put out earlier today, there was an unexpected nod to none other than Lord Mountbatten, the King's great-uncle who was murdered by the IRA in 1979. Charles said that:
While that final victory… was achieved under the strategic command of our steadfast American allies, the war in South-East Asia had reached its climax under the leadership of my great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, from whom I learnt so much about the particular horrors and heroism witnessed in those furthest fields of combat.
At first glance, this was innocuous enough, but as ever with the King's carefully chosen choice of words and allusions, the remembrance of Mountbatten – once described by Charles as 'the grandfather I never had' and the inspiration for Noel Coward's heroic character in the classic second world war film In Which We Serve – will have been a very resonant one.
Still, if he was drawing the slightest of connections between wartime Japanese barbarity and similarly horrific events that had occurred rather closer to home and in living memory – Charles was well into his thirties when his great-uncle was assassinated – then much of the rest of the address was more innocuous. Drawing on the famous words of his grandfather George VI, who announced simply on 15 August 1945 that 'The war is over', the King said:
Seldom can a simple message have resonated with such a potent mix of relief, celebration, and sorrow for those who never lived to see the glow of freedom's new dawn. On this day of profound remembrance, I speak to you in that same spirit of commemoration and celebration as we honour anew all those whose service and sacrifice saw the forces of liberty prevail.
The King attended an emotional service today at the National Memorial Arboretum, alongside his fair-weather friend Keir Starmer. It was deeply moving to also see the presence of 33 veterans who had served in the Pacific and the Far East. Aged between 96 and 105, it was clear to everyone attending that this would almost certainly be the final occasion they would be seen at such an event. When the 101 year-old Ronald Gumbley recited the poet Laurence Binyon's famous lines – 'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them' – it could not help but be affecting.
Charles's thoughtful and well-chosen words were entirely suited to the gravity and seriousness of the day. Yet amidst them, the tribute that he paid to the 'courage and camaraderie displayed in humanity's darkest hour' might be thought to have been equally true of other, more recent times, too. Barbarity, after all, is not confined to the distant past, and this carefully constructed address was a moving reminder of that.
