| SPEICHER | Michael, the Gulf War pilot whose status has been changed from "killed in action" to "missing" |
| GIANTPANDA | Bear, native to China, whose status has changed from endangered to vulnerable in the last decade (5,5) |
| MERITOCRACY | System where status has been earned (11) |
| ENERGY | According to a basic scientific law, "- cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another" (6) |
| AMONGST | Man's got to be changed from within (7) |
| DOUGLAS | Battle of Britain fighter pilot whose heroic story inspired the biography, Reach For The Sky, Sir .. |
| THEORY | Proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation. (6) |
| EARHART | Pilot whose first book was "20 Hrs., 40 Min." |
| HOTDOG | Food item whose status as a sandwich (or not) has prompted perennial debate |
| MONALISA | The title of the painting has been changed to "La Maison" (4,4) |
| ATOI | Yours, in Montreal, or what has been changed in the starred entries |
| PURPLEHEART | Decoration for members of the US armed forces wounded or killed in action, established as the Badge of Military Merit in 1782 (6,5) |
| PITCAIRN | Major John, Scottish marine officer killed in action at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 (8) |
| NUDGE | First go in unclothed in action to jog one's memory (5) |
| ADAIR | Red, U.S. fire-fighter who attended the fires in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War (5) |
| ACCORDION | Rope in action to remove the end of blunt instrument (9) |
| CHRISRYAN | British author who was the only member of the ill-fated SAS mission Bravo Two Zero to both survive and escape capture during the Gulf War |
| ALLATONCE | Suddenly the whole of Act one has been changed (3,2,4) |
| OPERATIONDESERTSHIELD | Codename for operations by the US and allies before the combat stage of the Gulf War |
| COLINPOWELL | Who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War? (5,6) |
