Arctic Convoy Veterans Medal

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am very pleased to be acting as a referee in this particular discourse.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Dinenage]

In two moments, I will. I welcome the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North, whom I think is still a serving member of the Army. I am sure that he very much represents the views of the service people of today, who recognise fully and fully appreciate the sacrifice that these gentlemen made.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and echo everything that he has said. I know that he has also been a great supporter of the Arctic convoy veterans in their campaign for a medal.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

The hon. Lady has been generous in giving way. She is making a powerful and eloquent case. I just want to underline the strength of cross-party support for her campaign, and the support it enjoys among the wider British public, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) has said. We owe these veterans a vote of thanks, and we owe them a distinctive Arctic convoy medal.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that good intervention. He has, in many ways, hit the nail on the head.

The Minister talked about qualifying periods for medals. The Arctic convoys sailed in excessively awful conditions. It is important to point out that nobody could possibly have managed six months of continuous service in those horrific conditions. There were people who sailed on the convoys, and many who lost limbs in the horrific extreme cold, who did not serve long enough to qualify for the Atlantic star. The Atlantic star qualification—albeit perhaps inadvertently—was therefore set up in such a way as to make sure that nobody who only served in the Arctic convoys could qualify. The Arctic convoy veterans who did receive the Atlantic star—there were a good number of them—only did so because they had also been part of an Atlantic convoy during other parts of the war; they did not receive it purely on the basis of their serving in the Arctic campaign.

Why was the Arctic the only campaign of the second world war to be ignored? The most likely explanation is that, as world war two ended, the cold war began and our relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated. Fear of communism was growing internationally and it was somehow seen as inappropriate, or perhaps even unfashionable, to recognise the efforts of our country in supporting the Russians. In some ways, this whole incredible, valiant episode was just brushed under the carpet. It was only in the 1990s, after the end of the cold war, that this incredibly heroic band of gentlemen felt that they could put forward their case for a medal.

Commander Eddie Grenfell survived his ship being bombed five times, and being plunged into the icy water where life expectancy was just minutes. He somehow managed to get rescued from the water and then spent many months recovering in Murmansk hospital. He is now 91. Lieutenant-Commander Dick Dykes spent more time in the Arctic convoys than anyone else alive today. Such men are heroes, yet they are still fighting. Portsmouth’s The News has led a campaign for more than 10 years to get a medal for Eddie, Dick and the ever-dwindling band of brave men: only 200 now survive. The News might be the champion, but the cause matters not only to people in Portsmouth.