Unfortunately, I cannot support this petition.
Whilst I have the greatest respect for George Johnson, whom I met years ago when escorting MRAF Harris and a group of Dam Busters, I am concerned where bestowing a knighthood would take us (I accept the comments above about sucking up to celebs etc).
My question and the reason for my discomfort is this: where do we stop?
Soon there will be the last BofB pilot, the last Dunkirk veteran, the last El Alamein participant, the last man who jumped in to Arnhem and any number of major and important operations.
A few years ago, we bade our farewell to people like Harry Patch and Henry Allingham but their passing was different. In their case they represented the final members of an entire generation who had been through (probably) the most appalling ordeal this nation and the world had faced.
It took over sixty years to get a memorial to the crews of Bomber Command and a clasp to a medal but those were 'collective' recognitions, rather than individual symbols of gratitude and acknowledgement. As I commented a few years ago, when it was proposed that Cpl Labalaba be awarded a VC, forty years after his exceptional courage at Mirbat: 'those who know what he did, know what he deserved and that is recognition enough now and a tribute to his memory'. In the case of the Dam Busters, we know what they did, what they sacrificed and what their (and the rest of BCs) legacy is- perhaps we should leave it there.
Old Duffer