After seven long decades, medal finally arrives in the post for Artic veteran

But it has taken until now for him to receive a medal for the service he and thousands others gave during the Second World War. More than 3,000 seamen died over four years from 1941 on missions to keep open supply lines to Soviet ports, missions dubbed the “worst journey in the world” by Winston Churchill.

Proudly holding the Arctic Star medal, the 88-year-old, from east Hull said: “I do feel a little bit emotional because we never thought we would get it and thought after all this time it would be swept under the carpet and forgotten about.

“It is not the actual medal, it is the recognition and we have got that now.”

Mr Barker received his medal through the post after a long-running campaign for a specific Arctic medal, spearheaded by Commander Eddie Grenfell, from Portsmouth, who served on four convoys to Russia, finally ended in success.

The medal’s creation was announced by David Cameron in December.

Mr Barker, who lied to join the Navy aged 17, said his only regret was that the Government had denied them the chance of receiving the Ushakov Medal from the Russians. Nearly a quarter of the aid to Russia in the War went via the Arctic – the shortest but most dangerous route.

He said: “It is a hangover from the Cold War, an obscure reason I can’t understand, it would just have been the icing on the cake.”

Mr Barker hopes to wear his new medal when he goes to Liverpool next month to a memorial service for the Atlantic Convoys.

When he filled in his application form for the medal, he again had to fill in a false date of birth. He explained: “I had to put the same one in as my Naval record, which is December 1 1923, rather than my real birth date of November 25 1924, otherwise they would have sent it back to me – and that would have been a tragedy.”