British PM wants to give Arctic convoy veterans medals
British Prime Minister David Cameron has said Arctic convoy veterans, who delivered supplies which kept the Soviet Union going during World War II, should get medals.
David Cameron said they endured “incredibly harsh conditions” while escorting supplies to ports in the Arctic Circle between 1941 and 1945, BBC reports.
Winston Churchill described the convoys as the most dangerous of the war.
Cameron told the House of Commons he had been in contact with the Ministry of Defence about the medals idea.
- Of course you have to have proper rules here, but it seems to me that the important fact is that the people on the Arctic convoys served under incredibly harsh conditions and weren’t actually allowed to serve for very long periods of time, he said.
In 2010, British Arctic convoy veterans were given Russian medals by the Russian Government to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Many of the Arctic convoy veterans were merchant seamen, rather than Royal Navy servicemen, and served aboard 1,400 merchant ships which were pressed into service. Supplies of British and American military equipment - everything from bullets to tanks and planes - enabled the Red Army to stay in the war and fend off the Germans until the battle of Stalingrad, when the tide was turned.
