Centenarian Edward Rutherford – Ted to his friends and family – is spending the 80th anniversary of VJ Day , which marked the end of the Second World War, at a street party in his home town of Gateshead. In his mind, though, he will be running through memories of the conflict in the Far East theatre of war, and especially what exactly he was doing there as a 20-year-old on VJ Day, Aug 15 1945.

A gunner in the Royal Navy, he was on board HMS Howe, part of the British Pacific Fleet, when Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ted’s V-class battleship was berthed in Singapore, which had been captured by the Japanese in a calamitous defeat from the British in February 1942. Now he was there to see it liberated.

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