Sir - Following on from Wg Cdr A J Wright's letter (February 1) regarding the continuing official refusal to recognise those who served in Bomber Command. I am of a younger generation who like many of your readers have thankfully not known a world war or been called upon to sacrifice my life for my country.
I was, though, the editor of the Bomber Command Association newsletter for seven years and had the honour and pleasure of getting to know many of the veterans who served in Bomber Command, a sadly rapidly diminishing group of very brave and modest gentlemen.
Many of your readers from Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties may feel that the war and aerial battles took place in far-off lands and that it has little to do with them in this present day, but I urge your readers to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Botley and take time to ponder over the graves.
They will notice quite often that many of the headstones bear the same date, usually indicating that a bomber crew lie side by side, having died in the Thames Valley region, many far from home, their headstones indicating that they came from countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Poland.
As there were more than 1,200 aircraft that crashed in Oxfordshire alone during the Second World War, only one being German, most villages in the county have at least one aircraft crash nearby, so as all your readers go about their daily business perhaps they will occasionally spare a thought for all the young airmen who never had the chance to join with their comrades in campaigning for an injustice to be rectified, even more than 60 years after events took place.
Nigel Parker, Wantage
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