Veterans from World War Two’s "forgotten army" have marked the 70th anniversary of a great battle that turned the tide in the war against the Japanese.

Members of Burma Star Association remembered fallen comrades at a service to commemorate the Battle of Kohima in India in 1944.

MP Chris Grayling and other dignitaries joined the veterans and their family and friends at the memorial service at St Martin of Tours Church in Church Street, Epsom, on Sunday, April 27.

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John Rogers, PR officer for the Epsom branch, said: "It was a lovely service.

"There are a diminishing number of Burma Star members themselves but an increasing number of friends, family members and people who come along.

"The veterans remember their friends and colleagues who died and for them it is at least as important as Remembrance Day.

"Because it was the 70th anniversary, it was particularly poignant."

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The war in the Far East continued after the war in Europe and the soldiers fighting there became known as the forgotten army because their efforts received little public attention.

The anniversary came the day before a service, today, in the same church in memory of Major Bill Towill, from Tadworth, who fought behind enemy lines in the Burmese jungle.

Attached to 3rd Battalion, 9th Gurkha Rifles, Maj Towill, a former pacifist, survived a glider-landing in the jungle and a gruelling five-month campaign as part of a special force known as the Chindits.

He was among 10 "elite warriors" who spoke about the horrors of war in a book called Tales from the Special Forces Club by journalist Sean Rayment.

He also wrote his own book called A Chindit’s Chronicle.

Maj Towill, who also took part in the rescue of wounded soldiers at Dunkirk during the war, died in December at the age of 93.

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Major Bill Towill, from Tadworth, who died in December

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Major Bill Towill as a young man

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Dame Sarah Goad, Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey.