RAF Hero Receives Medal-68 Years Late

By William Mills

Roy Amerena of Steyning, West Sussex proudly displayed  yesterday the medal he deserved  more than 68 years ago.

Roy, who celebrated his 90th birthday a few weeks ago,  has finally received his Bomber Command campaign medal.

From September 1939 to May 1945 during the Second World War, 125,000 young men flew operationally for RAF Bomber Command.

Roy took part in sixteen missions between October 1944 and April 1945 as the navigator of his seven man Lancaster plane flying night raids over Nazi Germany.

55,000 of those young men never returned falling to German anti aircraft fire, known as ‘ flak!’, and night fighters, as well as crashing in the dark and cold North Sea when struggling home after taking the fight to the enemy.

After the war some RAF fighter pilots took the limelight with films like ‘Reach for the Sky’ starring Kenneth More, becoming an instant hit.  However Bomber Command, immersed in controversy over wartime bombing tactics, were largely ignored and forgotten about.

A campaign was started to justly recognise all those who fought in Bomber Command by awarding them a campaign medal.

Sixty eight years later the medal finally arrived.