Second World War veteran lastly receives medals – practically 80 years later
A war vet who never received his service medals despite putting his life on the line for his country has finally received them – a whopping nearly 80 years later.
George Lewis, now 98, served between 1944 and 1947 as part of the Royal Tank Regiment during World War Two. Oddly, he never received his service medals.
But that was soon fixed when a horrified neighbour found out and set to putting things right. The Somerset veteran has now finally got hold of his very deserved accolades.
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Kind-hearted neighbour Valerie Norman got in touch with her brother who served in the same regiment and in turn got in touch with the Regimental Association who provided the medals.
(Image: PA)
Mr Lewis, who faced a whipping 80-year wait for them was then finally presented to him in a special ceremony at the Royal British Legion Club in his hometown of Watchet, suggesting they may have been lost in the post all those years ago.
Presented with the medals on Saturday (July 20) afternoon, he said: “After all this time, to get those two medals, that was wonderful.”
Mr Lewis added: “It was a shock as much as anything. You imagine after all this time that they wouldn’t be able to find anything about you but they had a complete record.
(Image: SomersetLive/BPM)
“It seems like an awful lot of fuss to go to when what I did doesn’t seem like much, but it is nice to know that they respect what we did for people.”
Mr Lewis was signed up to serve in February 1944, one month after his 18th birthday and was a commander of a tank, seeing action in Belgium, Holland and Germany.
His daughter Liz Lewis, who lives with her father, said the recognition “means a lot” and that he is “really very honoured” by the lengths people have gone to. She said: “We’ve talked about it before, that he hasn’t got his medals.
“We could never understand why he didn’t have any medals, but we didn’t do anything because he didn’t know the answer himself. He’d just say, ‘oh, they got lost in the post.'”
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