IN 2008 a national newspaper raised 10,000 letters in support of an appeal to PM Gordon Brown for a campaign medal for WW2 personnel in Bomber Command (BC).

That appeal was refused but, after David Cameron became PM, he initiated an independent review in 2012 to decide whether BC personnel and sailors in Arctic convoys should be awarded campaign medals.

The two-man committee recommended a new campaign medal for the convoys’ seamen but only a clasp on an existing medal for BC aircrew only, and nothing for the rest of the Command, such as essential ground staff on whom we relied for serviceable aircraft for our attacks on all our targets.

PM Cameron accepted these recommendations on December 19, 2012, and legislated the awards without further debate.

The Arctic Star was taken up with alacrity but only about 7,000 veterans or their next of kin applied for the clasp, out of potentially 125,000; the number of BC aircrew involved.

We now seek a debate in which all present-day MPs will be the fina arbiter under our new PM Theresa May.

National newspapers are not interested in this appeal today, which is a pity, because a much larger number of readers might have responded.

However, I think your readers may be more interested because Botley Cemetery in Oxford contains so many young BC Commonwealth aircrew who rest there.

In my younger days I would join with fellow Oxford branch Aircrew Association members there for our annual Remembrance Sunday parade: and the late Sir Arthur Harris is buried in Goringon-Thames.

I ask your readers to write to their constituency MPs to support a debate on this issue as soon as possible.

Wg Cdr A J WRIGHT DFC Legion d’Honneur (Fr) RAF (Ret)

Abingdon member of Royal British Legion and Blind Veterans UK