Japan is paying tribute to more than 3 million war dead as the country marks its surrender 80 years ago, ending World War II.

TOKYO: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's use of the word "remorse" in his address about World War II at the annual government-organised national memorial service for the war dead reflected his distinctiveness.

Right wing groups in Japan continue to push historical denialism in a bid to whitewash wartime atrocities. South Korea, which suffered under Japanese occupation, wants Japan to be more open about the past.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday pledged that Japan will never again take the path to war, expressing “remorse” over World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba referenced “regret” in his memorial address on Friday, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, marking the first such mention in 13 years in an address by the head of the former imperial nation.

President Harry Truman announced Aug. 14, 1945, that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to end World War II. In several stories published in an extra edition Aug. 15, the Democrat and Chronicle reported that “Joy reigned supreme” in the area.

The story of an extraordinary mission of Lala Gopal Das — a senior officer in British India’s Criminal Investigation Department — to Japan on the eve of World War II, as revealed in hitherto hidden papers from a Delhi family archive tracing its ancestry to the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.