On September 1,1941, my father was on the aircraft carrier HMS Argus delivering 24 Hurricane Aircraft to Russia through the port of Murmansk. He had just turned 21.

The aircraft took part in the defence of Russia which had been invaded by Nazi Germany on 22nd June 1941. The German invasion involved 3.8million troops and 148 divisions – 80% of Germany’s military. It was stopped at the battle of Stalingrad in 1942 and driven back in January 1943.

The German military was torn to pieces at Stalingrad. German generals knew then that the war was lost. In this battle alone 750,000 Soviet Soldiers and 40,000 civilians were killed. German losses were 500,000 with over 90,000 taken prisoner.

It was this defeat that allowed for the allied invasion on D-Day.

D-Day was launched on June 6th1944 involving British, American, French and other troops. The Germans fielded some 40 divisions and were outnumbered two to one because of the mauling they had received on the Eastern front.

The losses speak for themselves. Total German losses on the Eastern front numbered about 4 million. Total Soviet military losses numbered some 9 million. A further 18 million Soviet citizens starved to death or were murdered by Nazi invaders.

Total British casualties on the western front on D-Day numbered 1,449 killed on the landings and 11,000 subsequently killed in Normandy. Total British fatalities throughout the whole of the second world war amounted to 383,700 military dead and 67,000 civilian dead.

The USSR lost almost twice the total number of British servicemen killed in the whole of the second war in just one battle – the battle of Stalingrad.

In a speech to the House of Commons in August 1944, Winston Churchill said, "It is the Russian Armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army".

Joseph Stalin summed it up when he said —"The British brought the time, the Americans brought the money, and the Russians brought the blood".

My father had direct experience in this theatre of war. It took his youth. The D-Day invasion was successful. British casualties were thankfully light.

As a war veteran and Councillor, he wore his decorations with modest pride. As his generation has died out the whole history of the second war has been propagandised by Hollywood as a weapon against those it considers ‘the enemy’. Armistice Day has been turned away from Remembrance and into a celebration of Militarism. This is a terrible injustice to those who died.

He will be turning in his grave following the banning of Russia from war commemoration ceremonies. The erasure of the Russian role in defeating Nazism is a dishonest and unforgiveable lie.

For me nothing demonstrates better than this the delusion that has taken over our country. We imagine a past that never was. We don’t like Russia and so we re-write history and relegate its huge sacrifice to a footnote.

And we have the hypocritical nerve to trumpet ‘Lest we forget’.....