Winston Churchill's "Stolen Valour"?

In the United States, wearing military uniforms or medals to which you are not entitled is collectively known as

stolen

valor. In Britain, these people are commonly called Walts, after the famous fantasy film character Walter Mitti. In Britain the most common form of Walting is to pretend to be a former member of the SAS or Parachute Regiment apparently this drives the ladies crazy and very few people claim to have been a former member of the Army Catering Corps or Pay Corps of the royal army; however, in reality, these fake heroes are usually easily identified as Spud's losers. who seem as if the only thing they have ever raided is the buffet, the Americans are perhaps a little further along in dealing with these antitists, as they have made

stolen

valor a criminal offense, unfortunately in Great Britain.

Britain there are no such laws and politicians have even We are now adopting a form of military dance to appear more determined and in touch with the armed forces they normally underfund and cut. Here are some recent examples of British politicians appearing on camera. Another politician with a pontoon to disguise himself. Box was the renowned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who I discovered may have committed the cardinal sin of stolen valor. To call Churchill Walt would be completely wrong, of course, he had been a brave professional soldier in several colonial campaigns and in the World War.

No less important was riding in the cavalry charge at the Battle of Oman in 1898, where he personally massacred several dervishes with his Mousa c96 broom handle, and of course in South Africa, where as a war correspondent he dramatically escaped captivity, but Churchill did have a touch. of Herman Guring and his Badge for Medals and Uniforms, but until he resigned from his Army Territorial Commission in 1924, the rank of Major Churchill had all earned his numerous medals for the British colonial campaigns and for his service in the First World War, but from 1939, Churchill managed to put on the uniform again without holding a commission in the army, to be an honorary colonel in an avalanche of regiments and units, an honorary colonel is what it says on the honor tin.

Beyond a nice uniform and attendance at various functions and parades, the honorary colonel is just a decorative figure. In recent years it has become fashionable that instead of appointing old, retired and gruff generals as honorary colonels, it is better to appoint personalities of television for these positions where the army, the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force, this is done to encourage recruitment, so for example, we will soon be unemployed as a Government Minister, the Honorable Captain Penny Morant, Royal Naval Reserve, Honorable Colonel, as Grills of the Royal Marines Reserve and Olympic Athlete, Honorable Colonel Dame Kelly Holmes in the Army, these people receive no compensation for such services. although they receive a uniform government allowance, they do not receive campaign medals when the units they represent serve on active duty, obviously because as honorary officers they do not have the necessary training and experience to accompany them, the exception seems to have been Winston.

Churchill Churchill was, of course, very famous before becoming Prime Minister in 1940, former First Lord of the Adaly in the First World War, journalist, author and a leading Conservative MP in the House of Commons in 1939, he was appointed Commodore air number honorary. 615 Air Force Auxiliary Squadron and requested a uniform assignment. One item missing from his RAF uniform was a pair of pilots. Wings Churchill had in fact trained as a pilot in the First World War, but he had never done so alone because he was an extremely bad pilot. The training reports of him note that he was too impatient and was unsure about takeoffs and landings if he had performed a solo.

His instructors feared that they might have been responsible for killing the first Lord of the Admiralty, so he never did so and therefore never qualified as a pilot. From March 1943, Churchill began wearing pilot wings on his honorary air commodore uniform. How did this happen? Apparently, King George V 6 told the Air Council to grant Churchill wings because he had accumulated 30,000 air miles flying around the world on war business. It is a bit extraordinary that Churchill accepted pilot's wings simply by having been an air passenger, although occasionally, of course, he took control of the plane under the supervision of the pilot - in fact, he spent most of his time flying around the world sitting in a comfortable chair drinking whiskey. and smoking cigars he wore the same wings worn by the young men who flew fighters and bombers all over the world, many of them dying in action.

I think this smacks a bit of stolen valor by today's standards, but the RAF wings were perhaps just the tip. of an iceberg lurking beneath the surface of Winston Churchill's life in the Second World War, he accepted a series of honorary officer positions in the armed forces while he was prime minister, which is entirely correct and appropriate, but it gave him the right to wear military clothing. The uniforms form and at the same time they are prime minister, something that had not been seen in Britain before or since, perhaps he wanted to appear more warrior like a leader or maybe even like a warlord, but if he did, he certainly had many suits to choose from in 1939.

Churchill was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Huzard and in the Royal Artillery in 1940 Honorary Colonel of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scottish Fushers and in 194 41 Colonel of the Queen's 4th Quarter huzar of his former regiment also from the 4th Battalion 5th Type of the RO Sussex Regiment and the 489th Sink Ports Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery This gave him a wide selection of different uniforms to wear on different occasions and Churchill often wore his uniforms in his capacity of prime minister, particularly on visits to troops abroad or at important wartime conferences with foreign leaders, but Churchill's already impressive array of post-war metallic ribbons suddenly became a little more colorful with the grant not of not one but six medals from the British Second World War campaign, these were the Africa Star 1939-45, the Italy Star, the French and German Stars Defense Medal and the War Medal in the Stars campaign Churchill did not receive all the stars of World War II, for example, he did not use the Pacific or Burma stars, nor the Atlantic stars, nor the European aircrew stars, but it seems that someone awarded him the stars based on his visits to military theaters.

In wartime, the question is how he achieved such awards as a civilian politician, remembering that, although he may have worn military uniform, these were honorary ranks and that he was a civilian with no war role in those theaters, he was not employed as a correspondent for war or as a member of a civilian organization doing war work and had ceased to be an army officer in 1924 when he resigned his Army territorial commission, so let's examine how he was awarded so many World War II medals that the star of 1939 to 45 it was awarded to the Armed Forces.

General armed forces personnel for 180 days of service between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945 as civilians Churchill did not qualify and I must remind everyone watching this that honorary colonels are civilians and not They receive campaign medals neither at that time nor at the time they move. Next we have the Africa Star award, which was awarded to all British and Commonwealth personnel who served at least one day in a North African operational area between 10 June 1944 and 12 May 1944. 1943, including not only North Africa. African deserts but also Malta, Gibralta, Ethiopia and Kenya Churchill visited North Africa in his capacity as Prime Minister on several occasions in 1942 and '43, for example from 4 to 9 August and from 17 to 23 August 1942 in the deserts of North Africa and He was also in Cairo, Egypt, August 8-10, 1942.

If he were a soldier, he would have more than qualified for the Africa Star, but he did not meet the actual criteria. He would be the equivalent of Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting Iraq. several times during the recent war, and later receiving the Iraq War Medal, which was awarded to British troops carrying out full tours of duty in the country. You can imagine the media outcry if that had happened, but it's the equivalent of the Churchill Prize. the star of Africa his award of the Italian star is very similar Churchill visited British troops in Italy in August 1944 on 25 August he inspected the men of the fourth queen's own huzard of whom he was an honorary colonel in addition to the usual visits to generals and meetings at headquarters and so on it cannot be denied that these visits were popular the troops raised morale the qualification period for the Italian Star Award was between June 11, 1943 and May 8 of 1945 having one day of operational service in the army in theater and of course I emphasize the word operational Churchill was not operational, he did not qualify and, for the star of France and Germany, Churchill visited British forces in north-west Europe in Several times after D-Day, he spent a day in Normandy on June 12. and a few days at the end of July 1944 he was in Paris on November 44 and on the liberated line Z on March 19, 1945 he attempted to cross the Rhine River on March 25, but was dissuaded by German artillery fire that crossed the same day. next Churchill.

He was certainly a brave and some would say reckless man and I encourage you to watch my video on how the Prime Minister was attacked by German artillery in March 45, but according again to the French and German star eligibility criteria, I shouldn't have received the medal. He was awarded for his operational services in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany between June 6, 1944 and May 8, 1945 and was definitely not awarded to civilians for tourist trips and meetings; surely the presentation of such awards was inappropriate in this case and an insult to men like my own grandfathers who earned their campaign stars the hard way as soldiers, not tourists, surely such awards are examples of stolen valor, however, when It's about Winston Church, the rule that applies to everyone else seems to be broken. from the window, as the general image of Churchill as a war leader, some might say warlord.

I'm sure a lot of the comments on this video will be along the lines of he deserved everything he could get, the country should have given them solid gold versions of these awards, blah blah blah etc., but I don't think Be it entirely correct, contrary to popular myth, Churchill was a politician, he was not a general and although he was actively involved in the role and some would say interfered in many of the campaigns. and he too made many mistakes, including the Greek and C campaigns and also the refusal to supply adequate equipment to the British and Commonwealth troops fighting, of course, against the Japanese in Malaya and Singapore.

We should also note that he was ousted from office at the end of the war in a general election just as he was attending the poam conference abandoned by the majority of British voters who preferred change. That change was Clement Atley prime minister for the last phase of the war with Japan and he did not. receiving campaign stars or medals for his service Churchill, of course, under regulations, was even less entitled to the defense medal and the war medal the defense medal, a very common service award in World War II, was granted for 1,080 days or 3E service in the United States.

Attached or 360 days in a non-operational area outside the individual's country of residence or 180 days in an operational area abroad, had to be in the military or one of the civil defense services or the home guard to qualify in the civil organization list. It's too long to list here, but I can say with immense authority that the Prime Minister's Office was not one of them; However, those who qualified for at least one campaign star received the defense medal automatically as long as they were military personnel. Churchill's request for these districts, the 1939-45 war medal, is also incredibly common.

Millions are awarded to British and Commonwealth service. The personnel qualification period for this medal was 28 days of military service between September 3, 1939 and September 2, 1945 in any theater. of the War, how did Prime Minister Churchill meet those criteria? So the question is whether Churchill actually did not meet the criteria for the six World War II stars and medals that he received and were awarded. Well, it seems like they were probably given to him by the king or at least byrecommendation of the king, who also instantly awarded himself the same series of medals just after the war which coincided with his own visits to the troops during World War II, some historians try to defend this by claiming that as king he was a commander. head of the Armed Forces and this is technically and I emphasize the word, if technically true, the Monarch is the titular head, the ceremonial head of the Armed Forces and has no real effective control over the daily functioning of the armed forces.

King at the time, George VII also held the ranks of Field Marshal in the Army, Fleet Admiral in the Navy, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force, but of course he did not actually command anything or anyone of the Second World War II as George V 6. His active military career had ended just after the First World War, it is interesting to note that George was only awarded campaign stars that coincided with his visits abroad on inspection tours, exactly the same as awards of Winston Churchill, this is because in the case of the Monarch his military ranks are real and perhaps because as head of the Armed Forces he deserves to receive these medals, at least his ranks are more real than those of Churchills with their honorific core .

It is an interesting point and one that seems very difficult to unravel both legally and constitutionally, after all, the next monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, was not awarded any of the campaign medals from the wars that took place during her long reign, in particularly Korea, the two Faulkland wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. It raises an interesting question if Queen Elizabeth II had paid a visit to Korea in the final year of the Korean War, during the first year of her reign as Queen, should she have received the Korean War Medal. George II's behavior was strange because it is not normal practice for monarchs to wear medals with their own images as George did. with the defense and war medals, the queen did not wear her own coronation medal and neither did King Charles III, the eagle died.

You may notice that the Queen in this 1980s photograph is wearing both the Defense and War Medals, this is because She served as an officer in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Third World War and was fully qualified for them according to the regulations. It seems that George V 6 was involved in some way in ensuring that Churchill received exactly the same medals and awards and Churchill happily accepted them as the King. George VII's intervention in 1943 to award medals to Churchill RAF Pilots Wings did not conform to clearly written rules according to royal biographers. King George V 6 was obsessed with medals and went so far as to pressure the Americans to give him one of their World War II campaign medals, just as in her biography of the king, historian Sarah Bradford noted an extraordinary exchange about this American medal.

She cites that she adored medals and was an avid collector of them. In February 1944, he went so far as to inform Eisenhower that he would be happy to wear the American Service Ribbon for the end of the North African campaign, so that the request could be passed on to General Marshall when almost 2 years later he still had not had received the royal medal that caused Lassel. This refers to Tommy Lassel. The king's private secretary will write to Eisenhower again. He quotes: His Majesty, who always wears the ribbon, has asked me to let you know that he hopes you will not forget to send him the royal medal when it is struck.

End of quote. The design was not ready until July. 1947, when Eisenhower Julie presented the king with one of the first medals obtained. End of quote. One point is that I believe Churchill had no reason to accept such awards; He had already received many awards from his own country and from the former Allied nations right after the war. These are all honors and awards that are not subject to military service criteria. Great Britain, for example, awarded him the Order of Merit in 1946, one of the highest awards available in this country. Belgium, the Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold with palm, becoming also the Nocturnal Grand Cross to the order of the Dutch Lion Grand Cross of the order of the Oak Crown of Luxembourg and also the following military decorations the Belgian quadar with bronze palm the Luxembourg military medal the French military medal and the bronze palmed quadar with all that illustrious iron wear you'd have I thought it would have been unnecessary to hanker after a few extremely common World War II service awards, but apparently in the case of Not Winston Churchill, maybe all of this tells us something about Churchill's personality and of course since the wars ended we have started to learn a lot more about his personality and also his mental struggles and problems with depression.

My final point is whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Harry S. Truman were also awarded World War II American Campaign Medals in their positions as civilian presidents. know in the comments section below thank you so much for watching, please subscribe and share and also check out my audiobook Channel War Stories with Mark Felton. You can also help support both of my channels on PayPal and Patreon details in the description box below.