Further down the Hansard link there is The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair) I will read this list of the special operations: France, Belgium Holland, Norway, Greece and Crete, the North-West Frontier of India, the Lofoten Islands (March to December, 1941), Lucania, Syria, Spitzbergen, Hong-Kong, Malaya, Vaagso, Burma in 882 February, 1942, and Burma in February, 1943, General Wingate's Force, Brunewald, St. Nazaire, Hardelot, Madagascar, Spitzbergen, Boulogne, Le Touquet, the Aleutian Islands (air crew service only), Dieppe, Sark and Sicily. All in all its a very lenghty debate on the subject - havent read it all yet TD
Fascinating stuff TD. Thanks for posting this. I did indeed have a Winston voice in my head while reading it.
Petition is live as of today. My local MP’s office have been in touch and he wants to meet to discuss further. Thanks to all who’ve contributed additional information and their options. In light of what I’ve learned I suspect the petition in its current format is likely to be unsuccessful by dint of the fact that, as has been pointed out, the Norwegian Campaign is covered by the Arctic Star and the France and Flanders campaign is covered by the existing 1939-45 Star. So while neither campaign has a specific award, it can’t be argued that they haven’t been accorded some official recognition - although you could also point to there being additional clasps for Bomber Command and the Battle of Britain and perhaps such an award might be a suitable compromise? I’ll be interested to see what my MP has to say in the matter and will report back anything of note after I meet him.
Hi you do realise your family can still claim these Go to the gov.uk site search claiming Medals The official nok has to claim Regards James
Just back from meeting my MP. It turns out he’s a bit of a history buff and is interested in the 1940 campaign himself so I didn’t have to spend a great deal of time explaining what it was all about. He is happy to support a campaign for some sort of official recognition in the Commons. We talked for a bit about the criteria for the existing campaign stars and I referred to what I learned from reading the Hansard transcripts of the original debate held in March 1944 - interestingly, the then MP for his constituency spoke in that debate - Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Thornton-Kelmsley MP for Aberdeen and Kincardine West (as it was called at the time). If you’re interested you can read the whole transcript here: WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS (Hansard, 22 March 1944) He is going to write to Gavin Williamson (current Defence Minister) and Tobias Ellwood (Secretary of Veterans Affairs) to find out if there is already anything being done to address the issue by the government and to make them aware of the petition. He is also going to request an Adjournment debate once the House is back in session to draw more attention to the matter. I’ll post up any more information when I have any.
It was a very lively debate by the look of the transcript. A lot of the arguments I’ve seen on this thread being put forward yet with a general consensus that service in operational areas be recognised - the devil, as so often is the case, is in the detail. It’s clear that the original intention was not really to gloss over the defeats of 1940 or POWs - indeed the 1939-43 (as it was then) Star criteria specify refer to France and Flanders and Norway as operations which qualified for the medal. The issue of whether POWs would qualify also briefly crops up and the reply of “they’ll get it!” Was noted. There was also much spirited discussion on how the Africa Star should be awarded and the additional 8th Army clasp as it ignored much of the fighting that had gone on prior to El Alamein. The problem for me is that the award of the 39-45 Star eventually became so broad as to become almost as generic as the War Medal. As someone earlier in the thread mentioned, a clasp or entitlement to the France and Germany Star might have gone some way towards addressing this issue. Edit - just scrolled back a page, it was Rich Payne who mentioned it.