Gordon Passmore was one of 40 veterans presented with an Arctic Star at a ceremony in Downing Street.
A former Wandsworth councillor and mayor who served in World War Two has been presented with a newly-created award by the Prime Minister.
Gordon Passmore was one of 40 veterans presented with an Arctic Star at a ceremony in Downing Street.
The Arctic convoys, branded the ‘worst journey in the world’ by Winston Churchill, took vital war supplies to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945. More than 3,000 Royal Navy sailors and merchant seamen died during the perilous voyage to the northern ports of Murmansk and Archangel.
Mr Passmore was a gunner in the Fleet Air Arm that provided air cover against the threat from German U-boats, aircraft and surface raiders.
Having signed up at at the age of 18 in 1941, he also took part in operations in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and Pacific, before he was demobbed in 1945.
After moving to Wandsworth, where he became a surveyor, he began his service as a councillor in 1960, remaining in public office for the next 46 years before retiring at the 2006 local elections.
His commitment to public life was recognised a decade earlier when he was awarded an MBE for services to local government, and in 1997 he was made a Freeman of the Borough of Wandsworth.
Council leader Ravi Govindia said it was difficult to overstate Mr Passmore’s remarkable contribution to public life.
“I am absolutely thrilled and delighted that Gordon has received this worthy medal for his exceptional courage and bravery.
“Although it is many, many years later, it is right and fitting that the nation has finally paid tribute to the enormous contribution played by the men who served in the arctic convoys in the defeat of Hitler and the Nazis.”
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