King Charles III has issued a six-minute audio message to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, declaring that the "service and sacrifice" that ended the Second World War "shall never be forgotten" and warning that war’s true cost reaches far beyond the battlefield, citing the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The monarch and Queen Camilla joined Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Japanese ambassador and 33 veterans—now aged between 96 and 105—at a remembrance service at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The ceremony featured a national two-minute silence, readings by veterans, and a fly-past by the Red Arrows alongside Second World War-era Spitfire, Hurricane and Dakota aircraft. Commemorations began at dawn with bagpipers at London’s Cenotaph, Edinburgh Castle and the Arboretum, and will conclude this evening when landmarks including Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the White Cliffs of Dover are illuminated. VJ Day, observed on 15 August, commemorates Japan’s 1945 surrender, an event that cost the lives of about 71,000 British and Commonwealth service members and more than 12,000 prisoners of war. Charles urged today’s generation to honour their legacy by safeguarding the international cooperation that secured peace eight decades ago.