Prime Minister under fire from convoy heroes

Veterans were joined over the weekend at Loch Ewe by royalty, diplomats and politicians to mark the 70th anniversary of the first Russian Convoy.

But amid the commemorations there was growing anger that a promise by both coalition government parties to create a medal to properly recognise the four-year campaign which helped to turn the war has not been honoured 18 months after Mr Cameron became Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister, who signed up to the campaign for a medal before he became party leader and said in the Commons earlier this year that one should be created, has received a letter from Tory Gosport back-bencher Caroline Dinenage, the wife of a Royal Navy officer, pressing him to create a medal.

It is understood that within the Cabinet, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has also been pressing the case.

But with a decision into an overall medal review expected next month, there are fears that the government will not keep its promise to the convoy veterans, whose services have gone largely unrecognised by the UK government.

The weekend’s commemoration at Loch Ewe, where the convoys sailed from 1942, was attended by representatives of the Russian, Norwegian, US, Canadian and Scottish governments, as well as Prince Michael of Kent on behalf of the Queen.

But veterans feel that they are being left out in the cold by the British government.

The chairman of the Scottish Russian convoy club, Jock Dempster, of Dunbar, said: “The trouble is that for some reason the British government would rather not acknowledge the Russian convoys. Parties keep promising to create a medal, but keep failing to keep their promise.

“The Russians have awarded us three medals, the convoys are part of their school curriculum. They understand how important they were.”

The campaign leader, Commander Eddie Grenfell, originally from Peterhead, who was leading another commemorative event in Portsmouth over the weekend, added: “It is outrageous that we are treated in this way. A promise is a promise. Mr Cameron should just get on with creating this medal before it is too late.”

The Arctic convoys helped keep the Soviet Union in the war after they were launched on 21 August, 1941 and involved Royal and Merchant Navy sailors running the gauntlet of submarine, air and battleship attacks in arduous sub-zero conditions to ship vital supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel, which in 1942 were both under siege.

The conditions, which saw temperatures as low as -60C, were so cold that men could lose their hands if they touched a ship’s surface with their bare skin.

The campaign was also notorious for suicide flights by RAF pilots who were launched from Cam ships to defend the convoys, but then had nowhere to land and had to bale out when they ran out of fuel or crash-landed.