Britain is a country where Russia makes a 'personal presentation' of Ushakov Medals to old Second World War Arctic Convoy Veterans

On Monday 24th November, Peter Ward from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire and Harold Biddulph from Rubery in the West Midlands, both in their 90s, were among 44 Arctic Convoy veterans invited to County Hall in Worcester to receive the 'Ushakov Medal', Russia's highest naval honour. It was given to them by Sergey Nalobin, Head of Bilateral and Political Affairs at the Russian Embassy with the Third Secretaries Sergey Belyakov and Sergey Fedichkin and Assistant Naval Attaché, Commander Dmitry Sharapov, as part of a programme to honour surviving veterans all over Britain.

Sergey Nalobin, told the assembly that the men were "all heroes who will never be forgotten in our country" and speaking after the presentation :
“It's hugely important for Russia to recognise the veterans, these people are remembered quite well in Russia. The importance of the Arctic Convoy to our victory was crucial at that moment. We understand that without the help from our Allies it would have been difficult to defeat the Nazis. For four years on the convoys, thousands of people risked their lives, many of them volunteered for the job and I think it's right we are remembering them and decorating them with the Ushakov medal.” 

Peter and Harold were present because, when they were in their late teens, during the Second World War in 1940, Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, promised to supply his Russian ally, Stalin, with war supplies to help him fight Germany on the Eastern Front, knowing that, if Russia fell, the full weight of the German military machine would be targeted on Britain. Churchill himself described the Arctic route to Russia as "the worst journey in the world."

Peter and Harold :

* played their part in delivering 7,000 warplanes, 5,000 tanks http://ow.ly/FD0YT and other battlefield vehicles, ammunition, fuel, totalling four million tons, as well as food, medicine and further emergency supplies. 

* made sea journeys to Russia in convoys along the hazardous Arctic route facing the twin dangers of attack from German U-boats and warplanes and the ferocious seas and sub-zero temperatures, as they made their way to the northern ports of Murmansk and Archangel.
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*  were not numbered among the 3,000 seamen who lost their lives in the venture.

* after the War, as survivors of the convoys, did not have their contribution and sacrifice recognised because, with the onset of the 'Cold War' with Russia, it was deemed unacceptable by successive British Governments to recognise the efforts of the men who had supported the erstwhile ally.

* by the same token, the Russian Government was forbidden from offering any recognition of the efforts .

* were part of the dwindling band of 200 veterans who finally received recognition when they received their 'Arctic Star' Medal from the British Government last year, but were not among the 40 invited to a ceremony presided over by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in 10 Downing Street in March http://ow.ly/FCpsQ , nor the one in which he gave out the medals to 21 more veterans, alongside President Putin who gave them the Ushakov Medal at the same time.

* on November 24th had their Russian medals presented to them by Sergey Nalobin in a velvet-covered case with a certificate confirming ownership and a letter from the Russian Ambassador with an expression of gratitude and a transcript of Sergey's speech.

Peter said :
"There was such a contrast between receiving this medal in its beautiful case at a wonderful ceremony and the Arctic Star from the Government which just came through the post."

The experiences he had faced, for which he received his medal through the post, may have not been dissimilar to that of Bill Sheppard from Portsmouth who has said : 
"The ships were solid with ice. If you put your hand on a rail without gloves on, you’d strip the skin off. Sometimes the ships would tilt to 45 degrees, so we had to clear the ice quick. We came dangerously close to the ice taking us over. The most horrendous thing I remember is when an oil tanker got hit by a bomber. It broke up and there were huge flames. There were men on fire falling over the side in to the freezing sea that was also on fire because of the oil on the water. There are things that never leave your mind. Sometimes at night those terrible images will invade my dreams. It never leaves you."

 Or Lieutenant Comander Dykes : 
"It was gale force wind after gale force wind coming from all different directions.
The spray would turn to ice on your face. Your eyebrows and nose would be covered in ice.
It was horrendously cold in every way imaginable, but we had to keep going out and chipping the ice off the ship because if it built up too much we could go under. It wasn’t just the weather, though. There were enemy attacks from dive bombers and torpedoes on an hourly basis at times.
We would be at action stations for weeks on end and we’d live off cold food because the chef would be too busy supplying ammunition to cook anything - not that we had much time to think about eating at all."

Or Eric Alley, who served as a radar operator on HMS Inglefield and made 15 convoys between 1941 and 43 :
"After they woke up, all hell broke loose. They shifted all their most able Luftwaffe squadrons and U-boats to Norway and we’d be under constant attack from the air and sea. You’d hear a horrible bang and one of the ships would disappear. Once I was moving across the deck and there was a huge explosion. I saw a column of smoke and fire and one of the ships start to sink. The poor blighters on board didn’t stand a chance. We heard ships call for help but couldn’t do anything about it.’

The Russian Government's 'personal' as opposed to 'postal' delivery of its medal has seen :

17 November : Counsellor Nalobin present Medals to 25 veterans at a ceremony in Plymouth.







20 November : Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko
present Medals to 46 veterans at the Russian Embassy in London.





20 November : Third Secretary Belyakov present the Medal to Francis Melbourne.




23 November : Secretary Kozlov present the Medal to Richard Davies.




2-3 December : Counsellor Nalobin, Secretary Fedichkin, Attaché  Elizaveta Vokorina and Naval Attaché Commander Sharapov visit Wales to present Medals to veterans in the region.






4 December : Counsellor Nalobin and Secretary Fedichkin, present Medals to Reginald Guy, Douglas Potts and Edward Tann during a meeting of Woking County Council.





7 December : Third Secretary Pavel Kozlov present the Medal to Cyril Porter,  Glynn Jones and John Clerc

Back in May, Charles Erswell received his medal from the Chargé D’Affaires, Alexander Kramarenko, on HMS. Sheffield. He served as a gunner on HMS Milne and remembered having to recover the name tags of men from a sunken merchant ship and on the same day witnessed the sinking of another : "It went down stern first, absolutely vertical. There were about five or six lads climbing up the fo'c'sle as it was going down and one managed to get to the bow. He was sat astride it, waving at us, calling out for help, but we couldn't get there, it went down that quick."

                                 
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