Sir – The recent obituary articles in national newspapers about Group Captain Ronnie Churcher noted that he was deputy controller to Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, both flying Mosquitoes, in a raid on München Gladbach and nearby Rheydt on the night of September 19/20, 1944.

Gibson’s lack of experience in Mosquito aircraft was apparent, as he had trouble in dropping his markers.

He and his navigator failed to return from this raid and for years it was thought that he had crashed by flying too low or from running out of fuel. A taped confession after his death in 1992 by former Lancaster air-gunner Sgt Bernard MacCormack, finally revealed by his wife, that he had mistaken Gibson’s Mosquito for a Junkers 88 and fired off 600 rounds at it, bringing it down near the Dutch town of Steenbergen, may have solved the real cause of Gibson’s crash. That raid was my own 97 Squadron Pathfinder crew’s last sortie of a double tour. Our days and nights of dicing with death were over. Today at 91, I am the sole survivor of a dedicated bomber team of young volunteers who shared so many risks together. No doubt we were fortunate. Of 125,000 aircrew from the UK and the Commonwealth, 5,327 were killed in training and no fewer than 55,573 were killed in action — this is over 48 per cent of aircrew killed.

Sadly, it would seem that to past and present governments, we Bomber Command aircrew (disregarding altogether the essential ground staff who kept our aircraft flying) have been awarded only a paltry little clasp instead of the full campaign medal granted to others. But one has to wonder whether this is really all that we deserved?

Jim Wright, Abingdon