Campaigners urge full medal for Bomber Command

SURVIVING veterans of Bomber Command have joined leading military figures in calling for their comrades to be honoured with a full campaign medal for the sacrifices they made during the Second World War.

Supporters of Bomber Command have long argued the men – who never received a campaign medal for their part in the defeat of Nazi Germany – should be properly recognised.

Now they are calling on the public to support their appeal for the honours and decorations committee to re-examine the issue.

Many of the surviving veterans were too frail to have been able to travel to last month’s opening of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln, which commemorates the sacrifices made by thousands of their comrades.

In a letter published in The Sunday Telegraph, Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, chief of the defence staff from 1997 to 2001, along with Andrew Roberts, visiting professor of war studies at King’s College London, the author Louis de Bernieres and a number of veterans, point out that the only official recognition was the Bomber Command clasp awarded to the men in 2013 – described as an “insult” by many of the surviving veterans. The letter states: “For many years, Bomber Command has campaigned for a proper medal. Veterans would like it not so much for themselves, but for their many comrades who died alongside them during the Second World War – and for those who have died since the war ended in 1945.”