Originally Posted by
Islandlad
This is new to me, which means nothing; however, can you direct me towards some detail on the www.
It shines a different light on all I knew - which is not very much.
I will do a search on Pprune etc
A bit of a mistake on my part, a medal wasn't offered, but I suspect that had Harris asked for just one for the aircrew, he would have got it (the decision on what was going to be awarded was made before Dresden) . Somebody wrote a paper about the public perception of Bomber Command has changed over the years for the RAFHS a few years back and it was in one of their journals (No. 58). Part of that paper covered how the awards of campaign medals and stars for the 39-45 war came about and Harris's input into the process. Harris wanted a campaign medal for all of his staff, aircrew and those on the ground, seeing that without the efforts of the later, there would have been no campaign. Churchill made the final call on what medals were issued and he decided that all personnel who never left the UK would only get the Defence Medal (originally he only wanted personnel who had actively engaged the enemy in the UK to get such an award, such as the Army's AA Command). Harris felt that was an insult to his command as its role was very much offensive and that his ground crews did just as dangerous work (if not more so) as the ground crew in the tactical air forces did, but they got medals from just being in theater for the required time period. It also the reason that Harris rejected a peerage in 1945 (he was offered one).