Prince Harry’s ‘Living Legends of Aviation’ award is ‘pathetic’ publicity stunt, says ex-royal navy chief

Prince Harry is set to receive some love after a tumultuous 2023 by being honored at the 21st Annual “Living Legends of Aviation” Awards on Jan. 19, a glitzy Beverly Hills ceremony that will be hosted by John Travolta and which purports to recognize “those who have made a significant contributions to aviation/aerospace.”

But two former senior officers in the British military have hit out at the awards event for honoring Harry, even though he served as an Apache helicopter pilot in the British army and flew missions in Afghanistan.

Admiral Lord Alan West, Britain’s former Chief of Naval Staff, told the Daily Mail that the Duke of Sussex  “is not a living legend of aviation.”

“To suggest he is, is pathetic,” continued West, who also served during Cold War and the Falklands War and who oversaw the Royal Navy and Royal Marines when U.K. forces assisted U.S. operations in the invasion of Iraq.

“It makes the whole thing seem a bit of a nonsense if they’re willing to pick someone like Prince Harry,” West also told the Daily Mail. “He didn’t carry off any great exciting feat of amazing flying skill while flying for the army. They’re just trying to get publicity. They know it will cause a stir. I find the whole thing really rather pathetic.”

Another retired British military officer also expressed skepticism of this honor for Harry, as well as the Living Legends of Aviation event itself. Retired Army Colonel Richard Kemp, who was Britain’s commander in Afghanistan in 2003, told The Sun that the event was “celebrities massaging each other’s egos.”

The annual Legends ceremony is produced by the non-profit, Colorado-based Kiddie Hawk Air Academy, whose mission is to inspire children’s interest in aviation, a press release from the organization said. Over the past 20 years, this academy has apparently raised money by making a show of handing out awards to people known for their work in the aviation and aerospace industries. Some of those people have been famous astronauts, such as Buzz Aldrin and James Lovell, or hero pilots, including Chelsea “Sully” Sullenberger.

The event also has handed out awards to billionaire moguls like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for their aerospace ventures and to celebrities who have taken up flying as a hobby and who sometimes make news for their piloting skills. They include Travolta, the organization’s  “Official Ambassador of Aviation,” as well as Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Kurt Russell and the late Treat Williams.

This year, the event takes place at the Beverly Hilton, where VIP tables can cost close to $40,000. William Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk in “Star Trek,” also is expected to attend. The event is expected to get some additional star wattage by honoring Lauren Sanchez, the fiancee of world’s third richest man Jeff Bezos. Sanchez, a former TV journalist who flies helicopters, is receiving the “Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Award” for founding Black Ops Aviation, “one of the first female owned aerial film and production companies with a focus across TV and film,” the event’s press release said.

With Harry, the press release said that his military service also included flying training missions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. In Afghanistan, Harry “saved the lives of allied forces and countless civilians,” the release said. After Harry left the service, he founded the Invictus Games for wounded service members and veterans.

But Kemp agreed with Admiral West that Harry’s military service was nothing remarkable, even as he commended him for volunteering to be deployed to a war zone.

“He was a gunner in an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan but so were many, many other people,” Kemp told The Sun. “I can think of many people who did pretty extraordinary things while serving in the British and American armed forces which would be much more deserving of an award like this.”

“It is obviously because of who he is — not what he did,” Kemp continued. “An Apache is crewed by two people – a pilot and a gunner. Harry was a gunner. He was number two in the aircraft.”

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that news of Harry receiving this award comes days after it was learned that he was being left out of the British army’s new book on distinguished people who trained at the Sandhurst military academy — which Harry did.

The book, “They Also Served: 200 People Who Trained At Sandhurst,” mentions the names of 200 “exceptional” graduates who “gained recognition beyond” the armed forces, The Telegraph and the New York Post reported. But Harry didn’t make the cut, alongside the likes of Winston Churchill, his estranged older brother, Prince William, and Tim Peake, a British astronaut who served on the International Space Station. William also wrote the forward to the book, which made Harry’s omission even more glaring.

Kemp also spoke out on Harry’s apparent snub from the Sandhurst book, telling The Telegraph that duke’s omission was likely due to a combination of factors, including his estrangement from his relatives in the British royal family. Then there are the controversial comments he made over his tours in Afghanistan in his memoir “Spare.”

Kemp told The Telegraph he personally would have included Harry in the book because he “is a notable graduate of Sandhurst due to his royal status.” In addition, Kemp commended Harry for insisting on deploying to Afghanistan, even though the military establishment was concerned about sending the grandson of the late Queen Elizabeth II into a combat zone. Kemp also said Harry “did a great deal to help wounded veterans, such as through the Invictus Games.”

However, Kemp told The Telegraph and the New York Post that he understands Harry’s omission from the book, given that he has tried to “undermine the royal family in recent years” with his criticism in “Spare,” in his 2022 Netflix documentary and in interviews. Probably more of a concern to the Sandhurst book’s authors: Harry revealed in “Spare” that he “was trained in the army to see the enemy as less than human and pieces on the chess board,” Kemp said. In “Spare,” Harry also wrote how  he had killed 25 members of the Taliban.

Sharing details about” kill counts” stoked condemnation from Kemp and other British military figures when “Spare” was published last year. Kemp warned that such disclosures could “provoke” the Taliban and their followers to “carry out attacks against the UK.”

But Harry’s controversial comments in “Spare” didn’t appear to be of concern to the Legends of Aviation organizers. Their website also highlighted his efforts as a “humanitarian, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist.”

For Harry and his fans, the Legends of Aviation announcement was lauded, given the recent spate of unflattering coverage for him and his American wife, Meghan Markle. Earlier this week, the California-based couple, who left royal duties in 2020, were the target of jokes at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards Sunday night. The jokes seemed to provide the latest evidence that Hollywood has cooled on the renegade royal couple who were once set to take the entertainment industry by storm with their media mogul aspirations.

In his monologue, host Jo Koy addressed the couple’s perceived struggles, sense of entitlement and lack of productivity, by saying that nominee Imelda Staunton had done such a good job playing Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s “The Crown” that Harry had called her to ask for money. He also said: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will still get paid millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing — and that’s just by Netflix.”

2023 started off pretty promising for Harry and Meghan, with “Spare” breaking publishing records and becoming an immediate best-seller. But it ended with The Hollywood Reporter, one of the industry’s leading trade publications, including them on list of the town’s “biggest winners and losers” in 2023, following a series of professional set backs and public relations blunders.