Poignant plea for peace on VJ Day 80

A poet has drawn inspiration from the Bible, the site of Nagasaki’s ground zero, and a conversation with Devon's High Sheriff to write a poem marking today’s anniversary of the end of World War II

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A DEVON poet has written a new poem which commemorates the 80th anniversary of VJ Day today.

Clare Bryden wrote VJ Day 2025 for Devon’s High Sheriff Caroline Harlow, whose father was a prisoner of war in East Asia.

Victory over Japan day marks the end of the Second World War. It was on August 15 in 1945 that Japan announced its surrender to the Allied forces, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6.

Clare, who is a Christian and attends Exeter Cathedral, explained: "There were three prompts that came together to write this poem. First, I had been thinking and wanting to write for some time about the coincidence of the Christian Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus on August 6 and the anniversary of the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima.

"Then I found out the hypocentre of the Nagasaki bomb (directly beneath its detonation) was close to Urakami Roman Catholic Cathedral, where more than a 1,000 people were attending Mass in preparation for the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, and were incinerated.

"The final prompt was a conversation with the High Sheriff Caroline Harlow about the relative emphasis placed on VE Day and VJ Day in Britain. She told me a little about her father’s history, and it felt important to me to write something for them both, acknowledging and honouring the returning prisoners of war and how difficult it was for them."

Caroline said: "My father was 26 and in the regular army, when he was captured in Singapore in February 1942. The ship he was on was the last to arrive in Singapore, before it fell to the Japanese on February 15, 1942.