Thousands of military personnel, veterans and members of the public gathered under blue skies on Sunday in London as King Charles III led Britain’s annual ceremony of remembrance for the country’s war dead. As Parliament’s Big Ben bell tolled 11 am, the crowd fell still for two minutes of silence, broken by a single artillery blast and Royal Marines buglers sounding “The Last Post.”The 76-year-old king, dressed in the uniform of an army field marshal, laid a wreath of red paper poppies on a black background at the base of the Cenotaph war memorial near Parliament. Erected over a century ago to honour the British and allied troops killed in World War I, it has become the focus of annual ceremonies for members of military and civilian services killed in that war and subsequent conflicts.
