Ulster Unionist Leader, Steve Aiken OBE MLA, has paid tribute to the sacrifices of our finest generation as the United Kingdom marks VE Day.

Mr Aiken said:

“Friday marks the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. The tremendous sacrifices that were made by what has been described by many, including me, as our finest generation, have all too often been forgotten in the intervening years. As a veteran of several conflicts I, like many other ex-members of the Armed Forces, are in awe of their achievements and also of those who supported our forces wherever they served – because above all the Second World War was a total war – a war against fascism and totalitarianism that killed as many civilians as it did combatants.

“For Northern Ireland, at the centre of the Battle of the Atlantic, providing a base for Canadians, Belgians and many thousands of United States Servicemen, an arsenal for the thousands of aircraft and hundreds of ships built, providing food and linen for all of our war effort, and the direct target of Nazi aggression in the Blitz against Belfast, it was a war very close to home.  Many thousands of our citizens volunteered for our Armed Forces, fighting in every theatre of war, from the frozen Arctic, to the frightening skies over Germany, and on the battlefields in the Western desert of North Africa, Italy, France and then finally on the German plains itself.  There can be few other areas of our great nation that provided and committed so much to help defeat Hitler’s tyranny.

“Tomorrow I will stand in silence in marking Ulster’s unforgettable sacrifice and that of our Nation.”