May 5 (UPI) -- King Charles III and other senior members of the royal family kicked off four days of national celebration to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe by attending a military parade in London.
The king saluted the procession of 1,300 Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel as they marched past a viewing platform outside Buckingham Palace, where Charles was accompanied by Queen Camilla, William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales, and their children, Princess Anne, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and around two dozen veterans.
The family joined a crowd of thousands in applauding a small, 11-strong contingent from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as NATO and personnel from the U.S., French and German militaries taking part in the procession, which set out from Parliament Square with the tolling of the bells of Big Ben at noon and a rereading of Winston Churchill's famous VE Day speech on May 8, 1945.
Medleys of popular music from the war and the massed pipes and drums of the Scottish regiments rang out in Whitehall and the Mall from military bands as the parade passed the Cenotaph, completely draped in union flags for the first time ever, and the Queen Victoria Memorial.
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Prior to that, the Commonwealth Graves Commission presented a Torch for Peace to 100-year-old RAF veteran Alan Kennett, one of only a handful of surviving British military personnel.
"VE Day is a chance to acknowledge, again, that our debt to those who achieved it can never fully be repaid," Starmer said in a letter addressed to all veterans in which he said the week's events were a reminder that the victory over Nazi Germany was "not just for Britain."
The royal family later moved inside to take to the balcony of the palace ahead of a flypast by the Red Arrows and other military aircraft, some of them from World War II, scheduled for around 1:45 p.m. local time.
The BBC noted that it marked the first time that no member of the Royal Family was in attendance for a VE Day anniversary who was on the balcony at the original spontanous Buckingham Palace celebration in May 1945, referring to the absence of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the oldest daughter of the then-King George VI, and a war veteran herself.
Starmer watched the flypast from the steps of the garden of Buckingham Palace, where he was joined by senior members of his cabinet, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Charles and Camilla were scheduled to host a tea party reception for around 50 veterans and World War II generation survivors.
Events, including street parties, are expected to take place in cities, museums, schools and churches and war memorials and cemeteries across the four countries of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth in the coming days.
Britain will also join Australia and New Zealand in celebrating Victory in Japan Day on Aug. 15, although the United States, to whom Japanese forces surrendered, marks VJ Day on Sept. 2, the day formal surrender was signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay in 1945.
