ADRIAN BAILEY MP LEADS CALLS FOR ALL BLACK COUNTRY D-DAY VETERANS TO BE HONOURED

West Bromwich West MP Adrian Bailey is spearheading a drive to ensure all surviving Black Country veterans of the D-Day landings are honoured at a ceremony in France next month(Jun).

A group of 16 veterans will make the trip to Caen in Normandy on June 5 ahead of a presentation ceremony in Arramanche the following day.

The ceremony will see Normandy Bar medals – inscribed 1944-2009 Normandy, Terre de Liberte - given to survivors of the seaborn invasions which paved the way for the liberation of Europe in 1944.

At least 47 D-Day veterans from across the Black Country are unable to make the trip due to ill health, however, and so the MP has acted in an effort to ensure they are not forgotten.

Mr Bailey has written to Madame Sandie Cordonner of the Normandy Council, which is staging the ceremony, in a bid to pursuade her to allow the visiting veterans to take home Normandy Bars for their ill comrades back home.

He said: “I have written to Madame Cordonner in the hope that, because of the symbolic importance of the commemorative bars, it would be possible for the veterans able to make the trip to take home honours for those richly deserving comrades who are unable to get to France.

“All of these men put their lives on the line for us and we owe them a massive debt of gratitude. The bars may seem like small tokens but they mean an immense amount to those men who took part in the D-Day landings.”

Next month’s trip will be the fifth organised by Hilary Brown of Alexandra High School in Tipton which has forged close ties with the veterans and has welcomed several into classes to help students with their studies.

Nine 14-year-olds from the school who are currently studying the Second World War as part of their curriculum will accompany the veterans on the trip to Normandy next month.

A total of 54 people in all, including the Year 9 pupils, their head teacher Mr Ian Binnie, Mrs Brown and other staff from the school, the veterans and their wives, carers and families, will make the trip.

Mrs Brown, Alexandra High School’s extended services manager, said: “There are 47 D-Day veterans who have registered with us who are unable to attend the presentations. They come from areas such as Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley, Birmingham and Staffordshire.

“More are registering all the time but then we are also hearing from the widows of verterans who would very much like to receive the commemorative bars in memory of their dead husbands.

“I truly hope we are going to be able to bring back bars for all these deserving men and women.”

If the campaign is successful, Mr Bailey plans to present the bars brought back from Normandy to the remaining veterans not on the trip at a ceremony at Alexandra High School at a later date.

ENDS.

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Notes to editors:

• Adrian Bailey is the Labour and Co-Operative member of Parliament for West Bromwich West. A Government Parliamentary Private Secretary from 2005 until 2007, Adrian has worked with the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
•  He is currently a member of the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Select Committee, the European Scrutiny Committee, Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Building Societies and Financial Mutuals and Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Steel.