King Charles won’t strip disgraced Andrew Windsor of his Falklands War medal
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor might have lost his home and his title of prince but he needn’t worry about his medals, despite the Defence Secretary’s recent comments
King Charles won’t take away Andrew’s Falklands War medal for flying a Sea King helicopter in the deadly 1982 conflict, even if the former Prince has lost just about everything else.
Buckingham Palace announced last week that the ex-Duke of York, 65, is now just Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The Palace said the “censures [were] deemed necessary” as the fallout from Andrew’s links with late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein continues.
He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
The former royal has vanished from the Roll of the Peerage. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, then rubbed salt on his wounds on Sunday by hinting Andrew could also lose his military medals. “Just as with his vice-admiral rank and title, we would be guided by the decisions the King makes,” he said.
But the Palace has now said Andrew will keep his operational service medals, including the one he won in the Falklands. The disgraced royal served for 22 years in the navy. As co-pilot of a Sea King helicopter he carried out anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation, and search and rescue missions.
Veterans have said it would be “morally indefensible” to confiscate his active service medals.
Simon Weston, 64, who was severely burned when RFA Sir Galahad was attacked during the Falklands War, told the Telegraph: “The one thing you cannot strip away from the man, no matter how vindictive, vicious or virtue-signalling you want to be, is that moment in his life where he was dignified, honourable and courageous.”
Even murderers got to hang on to their medals, he added. A senior defence source said: “Instinctively if one does something brave it seems extraordinary to then go and say someone hasn’t done something brave.”
Andrew’s role as a pilot on dangerous missions alarmed Margaret Thatcher‘s government, which tried to have the him moved to a desk job. Andrew even flew over aircraft carriers as a decoy for Argentina’s Exocet missiles. But the late Queen insisted the Duke, then 22, stay on the ship for the duration of the conflict.
A year later it was revealed the Argentine forces had plotted to assassinate Andrew while he was holidaying on the Caribbean island of Mustique in July 1982. Luckily for him, the country’s military regime collapsed after its defeat in the Falklands.
Andrew won the South Atlantic Medal, also known as the Falklands Medal, as well as an additional rosette. Only around one in 10 of the 33,000 medals issued after the conflict had this rosette. But despite this heroism, a YouGov poll of about 6,000 adults found 26% strongly supported him losing his medals, 10% somewhat supported it, while 26% somewhat opposed it, 17% strongly opposed, and 22% were undecided.
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