See Prince Philip's Death Marked By Gun Salutes Across the U.K.
Tributes continue to pour in for Prince Philip.
On Saturday, April 10, one day after his passing, Queen Elizabeth II's husband was honored with gun salutes across the United Kingdom and overseas.
At noon local time, U.K. military batteries—in London, Wales, Edinburgh, Belfast and elsewhere—began firing 41 rounds, with one round per minute, in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh, who was 99 at the time of his passing.
Philip began his military career in 1939 as a cadet in Royal Naval College at Dartmouth and later served on warships during World War II. According to Reuters, he took part in the Allied landings in Sicily and was in Tokyo Bay when Japan surrendered in 1945, the year the war ended.
Two years later, in 1947, Philip and the queen married in London. He left the navy in 1951 and concentrated on his public duties full-time after Elizabeth acceded to the throne in 1952.
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The same guns used at one of two locations in London were also fired in honor of Philip and the queen's wedding and her 1953 coronation. Annual gun salutes have also traditionally been fired in the U.K. to mark other royal and national events, such as Elizabeth's birthday as well as the deaths of Queen Victoria in 1901 and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1965.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">To mark the death of His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, at 12pm BST today a gun salute began firing from the Tower of London.<br><br>In total 41 rounds are being fired, with 1 round every minute, in unison with other saluting batteries across the UK. <a href="https://t.co/0j3lmRwQ8u">pic.twitter.com/0j3lmRwQ8u</a></p>— The Tower of London (@TowerOfLondon) <a href="https://twitter.com/TowerOfLondon/status/1380842219377156102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Following Philip's passing, public figures across the world began paying tribute to the extraordinary man.
"His Royal Highness Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh was a constant supporter and ambassador of the Armed Forces," U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement. "We celebrate his life of service and offer our condolences to Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family."
Meanwhile, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took to their Archewell website to pay tribute. "Thank you for your service," the couple wrote on their page, now serving as an in memoriam to Harry's grandfather. "you will be greatly missed."