A leading LGBTQ+ armed forces charity has backed proposals made last week by the Defence Secretary to erect a statue of the second world war codebreaker Alan Turing on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
Speaking during after the Government apologised to LGBT veterans, Wallace said that Turing was “probably the greatest war hero” of the Second World War and said it would be the “greatest tribute” to the success of someone from the LGBT community.
“Dr Turing was probably the greatest war hero, in my book, of the Second World War. His achievements shortened the war, saved thousands of lives, helped defeat the Nazis. And his story is a sad story of a society and how it treated him.”
The executive chairperson of the charity Fighting With Pride, Craig Jones, has backed those proposals. He told the PA news agency: “Alan Turing is a man who today the United Kingdom is immensely proud of, but in his life he suffered greatly because of his sexual orientation.
“His achievements changed the world, and therefore it would be incredible to see him recognised in this way in a position just yards away from Admiral Lord Nelson whose immortal memory we celebrate. I think [Turing’s] treatment in his time is a stark contrast to the debt we recognise we owe him today.”
Turing sometimes called the progenitor of modern computing died as a criminal, having been convicted as a homosexual and forced to endure chemical castration and took his life in June 1954
It was only in 2013 that Queen Elizabeth II grant Turing a royal pardon, 59 years after a housekeeper found his body at his home at Wilmslow
A coroner determined that he had died of cyanide poisoning and that he had taken his own life “while the balance of his mind was disturbed.”
