Remembrance and Veterans

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In the time that I have I would like to raise a couple of matters particularly relevant to Wales and also say what a delight it is to hear all the maiden speeches this evening.

The post of Veterans’ Commissioner for Wales was established two years ago and is held by Colonel James Phillips but his appointment is due to come to an end on 31 December. Please will the Minister in his closing remarks update the House on approval to extend this role? Colonel Phillips’ second annual report was published last month and it makes clear why a commissioner is crucial for veterans in Wales so they are not failed by the jagged edge of devolved and reserved powers. Core state funding from both the Welsh and UK Governments is necessary to make sure veterans receive proper care in health and housing, which are devolved, as well as reserved matters such as welfare and justice.

Some 50% of the veteran population in Wales is over 65 years old and 20% is over 85. Alongside health, the cost of living is a significant challenge for older veterans, and of course military compensation should not be treated as income for the purposes of benefits and pensions. An income disregard should be introduced for the war pensions and armed forced compensation scheme. This is about not just the veterans themselves, but the third sector providers on which veteran support relies so heavily in Wales. Those providers have seen a steep increase in operational costs and reduced funding. Organisations such as Woody’s Lodge and VC Gallery have been particularly hard-hit. That is important. While initiatives such as Op Courage, Op Restore and Op Nova have received new money in England, in Wales they do not exist and we have not seen equivalent funding either, leaving many critical services funded hand to mouth from year to year through grants.

This evening, I am also proud to support the campaign for an official memorial to remember and honour the pilots and navigators of the RAF’s Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. That is being organised as we speak by the Spitfire AA810 project. The PRU flew highly dangerous, clandestine missions to take intelligence photos. Its stripped-down planes were unarmed, so as to carry as much fuel as possible. For that reason, the PRU included conscientious objectors among its crews. The death rate was horrific, with around 48% losing their lives. One PRU survivor was Edward Bacon of Y Felinheli near Caernarfon in my constituency. The project is keen to reach out to families to collect their stories, so that their loved ones will once again be more than just another name carved on a war memorial.

Talking of memorials, the project is also campaigning for a UK memorial here in Westminster. When that comes to fruition—and it will—wreckage from a PRU aircraft will be its centrepiece. That poignant reminder of the courage and horrendous risks faced by PRU airmen was retrieved just last month from a Mosquito aircraft that crashed on Aran Fawddwy in Meirionnydd 80 years ago—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Sarah Hall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I also had the opportunity a few weeks ago to meet representatives of Spitfire AA810, to which the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) have already paid fine tribute.

It is appropriate to reiterate the incredible contribution of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, which took more than 26 million images of enemy operations and installations throughout the war. These images were used in the Cabinet war rooms—now the Churchill war rooms—located underneath the Treasury, and were instrumental in the planning of major operations throughout the war. Despite this incredible contribution, and with one of the lowest survival rates of the war—life expectancy in the PRU was around two and a half months—there is no national memorial to the unit. That troubling oversight is why the Spitfire AA810 project is leading the campaign to establish such a memorial to the pilots and navigators.

I take this opportunity to mark the contribution of four veteran pilots from my Sutton and Cheam constituency, three of whom gave their lives and all of whom would be commemorated by this memorial. Cyril Harley Sergeant Kirkus joined 241 Squadron and flew armed reconnaissance missions in Hurricane aircraft. He was killed on reconnaissance operations in Tunisia on 23 April 1943, aged just 27.

Donald Nevill Gallai-Hatchard, who lived with his wife Joyce in Cheam before the war, was a trained photographer. His experience in the PRU saw him posted to work with the American 97th Bomber Squadron operating in Tunisia. In April 1943, he was put on an American Boston aircraft to photograph the results of a raid on Tunis, but he was killed at the age of 31 when the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He is buried in Tunisia.

Desmond Laurence Matthewman started the war in Bomber Command, flying with 51 Squadron. In February 1941, he brought home a bomber from a mission over Bremen whose tail flying controls had been damaged, making the aircraft almost impossible to control. Once over the UK, he and his crew jumped by parachute, an act which earned him his first Distinguished Flying Cross. On 8 August 1944, he and navigator William Stopford took off on a photographic mission to Munich but were met by the new German Me 262 jet fighter. Matthewman and Stopford were shot down over Ohlstadt in what has been recognised as the first jet aircraft combat kill in history.

Ronald Henry Smyth DFC lived in North Cheam and attended Sutton high school. He joined up in May 1939 and flew Bristol Blenheims with 25 Squadron.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting these names on the record, because it is essential that we have a memorial for these men who lost their lives so bravely.

[Luke Taylor]

I completely agree that the importance of this memorial cannot be overstated.

With the battle over, Smyth spent a short time flying Hurricane fighters, and in December 1943 he joined 541 Squadron, a photographic reconnaissance squadron, commanding reconnaissance operations from Gibraltar. He was awarded the DFC in July 1945 for his work in reconnaissance and ended his time in the RAF in October 1945. Following his incredible wartime service, he returned to his pre-war job at the Stationery Office, retiring in 1980 and passing away in 2017 at the age of 96.

It is only right that we take this opportunity to commemorate the contributions of Cyril, Donald, Desmond and Ronald. Will the Minister meet the Spitfire AA810 campaigners and help their campaign to honour the brave contributions of the PRU by delivering the first memorial to its work, outside the Churchill war rooms, where its work made such a profound difference to the course of the war?