Sir, On Pathfinder Sunday, August 17, at RAF Wyton this year, we surviving Bomber Command veterans, our carers and next of kin of former Pathfinders, were disappointed to learn that the promised flypast of two Lancasters (one British and one Canadian) would have to be cancelled due to bad weather.

On Thursday, August 21, I saw a very brief clip on the 10pm BBC TV news which showed a Vulcan and the same two Lancasters in formation flying from RAF Waddington across Lincolnshire to overfly a turf-cutting ceremony taking place not far from Lincoln Cathedral itself.

That was all the time that the BBC could spare apparently for their viewers to witness a unique event in aviation history.

I had to discover from other BC veterans who were lucky enough to be actually present to see and to hear this flypast. An Air Vice Marshal Sir Stuart Pearce, Vice Chief Of Defence Staff, had apparently cut the piece of turf involved. It was to be the site of a tall, narrow, shaped memorial bearing the names of over 25,000 members of BC aircrew who had died whilst operating from squadrons based in “Bomber County”. With luck and good fortune that sufficient funds will be raised for this memorial and surrounding buildings, this will be ready by June next year.

Whilst acknowledging that our Prime Minister is facing serious international problems at this difficult time, I must say that in my opinion, shared by so many others, he made a genuine mistake when accepting his review panel recommendation in December 2012 for the award of only a mean and insignificant clasp instead of the full campaign medal for BC which we and others thought we had deserved: just as he had granted to the Arctic convoys seamen.

Jim Wright

Abingdon