200 pay last respects to Bomber Boy hero Harry
ALMOST 200 mourners turned out yesterday to pay last respects to a man who flew on 60 RAF missions during the Second World War in the most dangerous role of all…rear gunner.
Harry Irons, who died aged 94, was given full military honours as serving personnel held his medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Among those gathered was Israeli ambassador Mark Regev, 58, who has revealed in the Daily Express he owed Harry his life.
Lucky
In 1945, Harry took part in a raid which allowed Mr Regev’s grandfather and family to escape slave labour and survive the war.
Readers knew him as a campaigner for a memorial to Bomber Command. He faced losing his home as bills ran up.
Harry lied about his age to join aged 16 and went on his first raid aged 17. He survived 60 missions when men were lucky to survive four or five. After he married Catherine in 1944, he spent his honeymoon on a raid.
Bomber Command suffered the highest casualties of any British command, losing more than 55,000 of its 125,000 volunteers, but after the war MPs shunned it, embarrassed at civilian deaths.
Readers raised more than £1million towards the memorial which was opened by the Queen in London’s Green Park in 2012.
On its sixth anniversary, Harry, from Romford, Essex, said veterans had been treated badly.
He said: “I survived but I never thought I would. The worst thing was flying through the flak night after night. Thousands of shells all trying to shoot you down.
“After the war we were ignored. It was terrible the way we were treated. We’d done what we were asked and we did it properly… nobody ever refused to go.”
His son Bryan told a packed crematorium in Upminster: “I want you to know my pride when I say Harry Irons was my father.”