AN ARMY veteran who spent more than ten months battling bureaucracy in a bid to receive financial compensation for his military service has finally had his war record recognised - days after surrendering to a terminal illness.

This week Government finally agreed to hand out $17,000 in benefits to the family of Kenneth Llewellyn Raynor, a Second World War campaigner who applied for an army pension last October.

But the official acknowledgment has come too late for the former army Sergeant, who died penniless four weeks ago before authorities could process his claim.

And yesterday the Royal British Legion - the international organisation that oversees the welfare of ex-military personnel - said that many more of the island's khaki-clad heroes may never receive much deserved and desperately needed financial aid because the system is bogged down in a quagmire of administrative bungling and red tape.

Dozens of Bermudians who answered their country's call to arms more than 50 years ago only became eligible for financial compensation after Government drafted new legislation last summer. Previously, only those who had served overseas during times of conflict were classified as 'veterans' and were thus eligible for pensions, healthcare and other financial benefits. The law was changed in a bid to recognise the bravery of black Bermudians who, despite being willing to serve in military hotspots abroad, were ordered to remain at home in the Bermuda Militia Artillery. "We are trying to right a wrong," Public Safety Minister David Burch said in justifying the new law last year.

Mr. Raynor's daughter, Brenda Hayden, applied for benefits on behalf of her father once the law was amended last summer.

But the couple found that their requests for help were continually stonewalled by civil servants. Ms Hayden only achieved a breakthrough after writing to senior officials last week - three weeks after her father had died.

In her letter, which was addressed to top civil servant Kenneth Dill and copied to Sen. Burch and Finance Minister Paula Cox amongst others, Ms Hayden wrote: "I write to you concerning the matter of my father, Kenneth Llewellyn Raynor, formerly of the Bermuda Militia Artillery, and the grave injustice that has been done to him.

"My father enlisted in the BMA in 1942, and served in the local forces throughout WW2 until 1946. He re-enlisted in 1956, serving until 1962 with the rank of Sergeant, after which he was transferred to the Reserves. His service is well documented in the Bermuda Archives.

"Following the statement by Ministers Paula Cox and David Burch in 2007 confirming the right of local veterans to obtain benefits under amendments to the War Pensions and Services Act, my father urged me to apply on his behalf. At the time he was suffering from emphysema and arthritis and I had been caring for him for a number of years. I made an initial application for him with supporting documents on October 9, 2007.

"I was served by a Ms Simons at the Department of Social Security who took my father's documents and said she would 'call if qualified'."

Ms Hayden said that, a month later, she was told that, in order for the claim to be processed, she would need a Power of Attorney and bank details for her father.

"I responded that Power of Attorney was not necessary in my father's case and that his pension was going to Continuing Care at the hospital," she wrote.

"In spite of further inquiries, nothing happened and my father received no benefits or war pension."

In April of this year, an administrator contacted Ms Hayden once more demanding that she obtain a Power of Attorney. Although she complied with the request, two months later she had still not received any payments.

"Nine months after the initial application, my father had received no war pension, no back payment, no assistance with his medical and hospital bills - only unhelpfulness and the insistence on getting Power of Attorney that, in my father's case, was not necessary," she wrote.

"During this whole time, we received nothing in writing from Social Insurance or Ms Simons concerning my father's war pension.

"My beloved father died on July 12, still without the comfort of the benefit he deserved from serving his country.

"This callous treatment and lack of accountability has added to my family's grief. My father would have benefitted considerably from the pension and assistance to which he was entitled during the last year-and-a-half of his life and it would have given him the greatest pleasure to know that his military service was recognised after all these years of waiting.

"I am well aware that my father is not the only one who has been subjected to this lack of accountability and I hope that this letter will serve to make you aware of the unacceptable response and lack of courtesy that some veterans and their families are receiving."

Yesterday Ms Hayden described her ordeal as "torture", saying that administration staff showed a complete lack of knowledge of the new law and a total lack of sympathy.

And she said that, when she called into the Social Security office after her father had died, she was told: "Your father doesn't have a wife and he is now passed and so it is no longer our problem."

But she was full of praise for the senior officials who rushed to her aid once they became aware of the problem.

"My father was very proud about the fact that he was finally being recognised," she said.

"But he would also become angry when the financial support that he deserved failed to arrive and I would leave the hospital crying. I just hope my father's case opens some eyes because people seem to forget the sacrifices that my father's generation made - whole families were torn apart."

Carol Everson, the Royal British Legion's welfare case worker on the island, also praised Government for resolving the matter "quickly and compassionately".

But she said the case highlighted a concern that, because of administrative errors, benefits were not getting paid out to those in need.

"Clearly there are issues that need to be addressed in the way the new Act is being put into practise," she said.

Anyone with any concerns regarding war veteran benefits is asked to contact the Royal British Legion on 533-4567.