Brothers in arms united in bravery
tHe desecration of the bomber Command Memorial in london upset me because my uncle Arthur was a World War II navigator in RAF bomber Command, 83 Squadron, serving in Pathfinder Force lancasters. His brother, my father, benjamin boar, was a Royal Navy Arctic Convoy signalman. two medal awards, the bomber Command Clasp and the Arctic Star, were created in recent times to recognise wartime service. Uncle Arthur’s lancaster failed to return from the Krefeld raid, battle of the Rhur, during the night of June 21/22, 1943. His body was washed ashore on the Dutch Frisian islands and he is buried in the RAF cemetery on terschelling. As his closest living next of kin, I was able to apply for the bomber Command Clasp award in his memory because the details of his loss are documented in RAF records. My father’s Royal Navy service included two Arctic convoys to Murmansk, which he often talked about. the Arctic Star award requires official records to show at least 24 hours of service north of the Arctic Circle during the war. However, convoy signalmen were only recorded against the shore bases to which they were assigned for administrative purposes, not the ships or convoys in which they served. they were sometimes assigned to ships shortly before convoys sailed. Royal Navy records at Swadlincote, Derbyshire, advised me that wartime record keeping was shambolic. Consequently, Dad’s service record gives no indication of meeting the Arctic Star qualification. For the past six years I battled the Medal office at Imjin barracks in Gloucester as I tried to honour my father’s memory. I made the application on behalf of my stepmother, my father’s widow, who has since died. the Russian convoys are well documented in terms of the ships, dates, routes and losses due to enemy action. However, most of the crew lists of the merchant ships are lost, discarded or destroyed — so for many of the surviving veterans, or their next of kin, this is an unawardable award. After he died in 2003, in my father’s personal effects I found a pouch containing his Royal Navy identity tag and banknotes as souvenirs of his voyages, including a wartime Russian rouble note. A fellow signalman and friend of my father, who is in his 90s, sent me a letter confirming my father had completed two Russian convoys. Nevertheless, the medal authority discounted this evidence. It agreed that my father might well have completed Arctic service, but unless corroborated in official records, I was told that no award would be made. If my father had lost his life at sea through enemy action, the circumstances would have been well documented. Yet because he was fortunate enough to survive the war, there is no record of his service. However, last week I received a call from the Medal office. they have found sufficient evidence to be able to give the Arctic Star to my father. they are now satisfied that my father’s pay and victualling traces matched an Arctic convoy in January/February 1944. His long-awaited Arctic Star is now proudly displayed alongside his brother’s bomber Command Clasp.
DAVID BOAR, Sandbach, Cheshire.