
A British army veteran who fought and survived one of his country's harshest battles known as the Burma Campaign against the Japanese during World War II traveled to Japan to lay flowers at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at a memorial ceremony on Monday to stress the importance of reconciliation.
Richard Day, 97, who survived the decisive 1944 Battle of Kohima in northeast India — where Japan fought to capture the then British-controlled territory — stood up from a wheelchair, placed a wreath of red flowers on a table and saluted the souls of the unknown Japanese soldiers at Tokyo's Cihdorigafuchi National Cemetery.