Recognition of our Arctic heroes is long overdue
Today's announcement that veterans of the Arctic Convoys are to receive official recognition for their heroic efforts during the Second World War brings to a close one of the more shameful episodes of the Cold War.
It is estimated that 66,000 Royal Navy sailors and merchant seamen braved sub-zero temperatures, U-boats, surface warships and enemy aircraft to keep the supply lines to Russia open during a critical stage in the war against Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill described the mission as the "worst journey in the world", and some 3,000 sailors suffered terrifying deaths in the icy wastes of the Arctic as the 78 convoys that delivered some four million tons of fuel – thereby enabling the Russians to maintain their war effort – lost eighty-five merchants ships and 16 Royal Navy vessels.
But despite the heroic efforts of all those who took part in these convoys – there are only around 200 survivors who are still alive today – they never received the recognition they deserved because of the Cold War, which descended on Europe in the immediate aftermath of the war as Moscow sought to impose its "barbaric" – Churchill's word, not mine - ideology over the entire continent.
Now that the Cold War is over, and the Western democracies have emerged triumphant, it is only right that David Cameron should redress this grave injustice. After all the Russians, who can hardly be said to be well-disposed towards us today, recognised the heroism of the Arctic convoys years ago. It just seems perverse in the extreme that it has taken until today for the British Government to do the same.
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