A hunt was underway today for a conman who outraged veterans by turning up to march in a Remembrance Day parade with an “impossible” array of medals.
The unnamed man walked alongside 600 genuine war heroes wearing a beige SAS beret and a selection of 21 military medals and badges, including the Military Cross.
Organisers became suspicious when they noticed that he had medals from the Second World War, Korea, the Falklands, awards for both officers and privates and a foreign — possibly Polish — medal.
Military experts have confirmed that it would be impossible for one man to have been awarded all the decorations.
He was confronted by Jim Nicholson, who helped organise the march in Bedworth, Warwickshire, on November 11. He admitted being a fake and promptly disappeared.
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Members of the Bedworth Armistice Day Parade committee and angry servicemen have launched an appeal to identify the man.
Mr Nicholson, 67, the committee secretary, who served as a private in the Parachute Regiment between 1961 and 1967, condemned him as ”shameful”. Mr Nicholson has service medals for Cyprus and Saudi Arabia.
He said: ”We have had idiots like this try to join in a few times and we tell them to get lost.
”It takes the mick and we get very annoyed that he will turn up wearing medals that genuine servicemen have earned.
”One of my ex-SAS pals challenged him about his decorations, and he admitted he was a Walter Mitty fake.”
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The Bedworth Parade is the biggest in the country outside London. This year the families of four Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers killed in Afghanistan attended to lay wreaths.
The parade marshal, Jesse Owen, 82, who served in the Royal Marines between 1945 and 1957, said that he was ”disgusted” on behalf of all the armed forces.
Mr Owen, who has a UN medal and Korean Veterans medal, said: ”There are men and women on that parade that went through hell.
”This year we had four families who came to remember their husbands and sons and the largest contingent of those wonderful ladies the war widows.
”A man like this brings disrespect and disgrace on the whole act of remembrance.”
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The man wore the winged dagger of the SAS on his beret, poppy and tie-pin, as well as a veteran’s badge on his lapel. On his left breast he wore 17 medals, starting with the Military Cross (MC), and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).
On the MC he had a bar signifying the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service, while on the DSO there is a bar for Mentioned In Dispatches. Neither bar is ever worn with those medals.
Next was a foreign cross, thought to be Polish, which should only be worn after all the British medals.
Then the Queen’s Commendation Medal, the Military Medal, the rank version of the Military Cross for privates, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Meritous Service Medal and the Campaign Service Medal.
On the row underneath he wore a South Atlantic Medal for the Falklands, a Gulf Medal for the first Gulf War, and an Accumulated Service Medal — worn back to front.
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Fourth in line was the Saudi Arabian Medal for the liberation of Kuwait, the Kuwaiti Liberation Medal and four more unknown foreign medals.
Martin Harrison, a squadron leader for the Airforce Volunteer Reserve and an expert on medals, said that the display was clearly fake. He said: ”To start with you never wear two rows of medals, you wear one long row overlapping.
”The real outrage is over the gallantry awards — if anyone was awarded this many they would have got the Victoria Cross.
”The Queen never gave permission for the Gulf war medals to be worn on uniform and the entire order is wrong.
“What he is doing is appalling. Swanning around with things he is not entitled to, especially under the present circumstances, is offensive.”