National events will mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day) on Friday 15 August 2025.
In All Hell Let Loose, Sir Max Hastings writes that the United States Navy and the US Marine Corps were chiefly responsible for the defeat of Japan.
The UK government's website for VJ Day 80 mentions the Fourteenth Army – the 'Forgotten Army' – but not the British Pacific Fleet (BPF), which is clearly the Forgotten Fleet.
By VJ Day in 1945, the BPF consisted of 190,000 men and women, some 273 ships, over 750 naval aircraft and bases ashore. The largest ever British fleet, it was supported by peoples of the Commonwealth in Australia, New Zealand, India and Ceylon. Seafarers from many more nations served in Merchant Navy ships in the 'Fleet Train', and some foreign nationals were at sea with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, all supporting America's huge Pacific naval forces.
After Japan's surrender, the BPF was the only force immediately available to safeguard British and Commonwealth interests in the Pacific, carrying out humanitarian work, particularly with prisoners-of-war. My father's destroyer, HMS Wager, returned home after eighteen months away in January 1946.
Max Hastings suggests that 'the Royal Navy and the United States Navy were their countries' outstanding fighting services' of the war. Indeed, the Royal Navy was the only service in the world engaged from the first to the last day of the Second World War.
Not just the Forgotten Fleet, today's sea blind Britain has forgotten the importance of the sea and ships to our nation's livelihood.
Lester May (Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy – retired)
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