Ceremony marks 60 years since VE Day

Bands of light slid across the names of the dead carved in marble at the Auckland War Memorial Museum yesterday where more than 180 people gathered to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe.

Prime Minister Helen Clark told the crowd: "On VE day we remember all those who gave so much in the service of New Zealand, and whose own hopes and dreams were subsumed in the interests of our nation and world peace for six years of their lives."

VE Day marks Germany's surrender to Allied forces, but that was not the end of the war, Helen Clark said. The conflict continued in the Pacific until August 15. "Even so, there can be no question about the sense of relief in New Zealand which greeted the news of Germany's surrender," she said.

New Zealand sent 140,000 citizens to serve abroad in World War II.

"We suffered 11,625 deaths, the highest ratio of those who were deployed of any Commonwealth country," Helen Clark said.

The St Cecilia Singers performed The Peace Song, as the Catafalque Party - a guard made up of each branch of the military - stood motionless around the memorial.

The Prime Minister led the laying of wreaths, placing a large bouquet of fresh roses, irises and carnations at the base of the memorial where a victorious figure lunges forward atop a globe.

New Zealand had declared war on Germany independently of Britain, and it sent a military unit to the war, rather than dispersing its troops among foreign units as in the past.