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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   The return of missing British medals    List Roy Bassett Next   Finding and returning lost and stolen mendals   By Roy Bassett When you consider the millions of medals awarded and issued since the early 1800s, it is easy to accept that many were lost, damaged beyond repair or stolen.   This article relates only to British Commonwealth medals bearing the name etc of the recipient that have gone astray for various reasons.   It is common knowledge that after WW1 most people wanted to forget the war and anything related to it. Thousands of medals were pawned and as many went into drawers to be forgotten until the recipients died and relatives discovered them. In most cases, they were sold as part of the estate.   In writing articles about medals for the Wayback Times, people from many countries have e-mailed me saying they had just located a medal from WW1 and would it be possible to locate relatives of the recipients.   This task is almost impossible, much like looking for a needle in the haystack.   You have to start with records at the time the recipient enlisted and then learn where he lived after the war. Thousands of records were lost and destroyed in the bombing of London during WW2, which makes that task more difficult.   In regards to stolen medals, all medal collecting clubs publish details of medals stolen and members are asked to contact police to report seeing any medals on the stolen list.   Medals lost could have gone down with the ship, or destroyed by fire or other disaster. It used to be possible to have them replaced and were usually engraved as replaced medals. However, medals are no longer easily replaced by the government.   Medals like the Victoria Cross (the Commonwealth's highest bravery award) are very rarely lost and even more rarely replaced. Should duplication be approved by a special committee, replacement medals must become the property of a recognized museum. One such replaced Victoria Cross deserves a full explanation, which follows:   Lieutenant Hugh McDonald McKenzie, born in 1885, came to Canada in 1911 and joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in 1914. He went to France and Belgium soon after.   In 1916, he was transferred to the Canadian Machine Gun Corps and in 1917 was involved in heavy fighting at Ypres and Passchendaele. On October 30, he was working with his old unit, the PPCLI at Passchendaele. His Victoria Cross citation reads:   "Seeing that all the officers and most of the non-commissioned officers of the infantry company had become casualties, and that the men were hesitating before a nest of enemy machine guns, which were on commanding high ground and causing them severe casualties, he handed over command of his guns to an N.C.O., rallied the infantry, organized an attack and captured the strong-point."   "Finding that the position was swept by machine-gun fire from a 'pill-box' which dominated all the ground over which the troops were advancing, Lt .McKenzie made a reconnaissance and detailed flanking and frontal attacking parties which captured the 'pill-box', he himself being killed while leading the frontal attack."   Lt. McKenzie's medals, the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1914-15 Star, War Medal, Victory Medal and the Croix de Guerre, were presented to his widow, which she kept until she lost her life in a house fire in 1959. At the time, the DCM and the Croix de Guerre were on loan to a relative, all the other medals were destroyed in the fire.   The duplication of the Victoria Cross was approved by the special committee and was accepted by Lt. McKenzie's daughter, who then presented it to Lt. Col. David C. Currie, V.C., who accepted it on behalf of the Canadian War Museum. His other five medals, the Star, War and Victory medals, were also replaced.   This fine group of medals can now be seen at the Museum of the Regiments, in Calgary, Alberta.   Cpl. Filip Konowal, born in the Ukraine in 1886, conscripted into the Imperial Russian army at age 21, served five years and emigrated to Canada in 1913. He enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1915 and won his Victoria Cross at the battle of Hill 70 in France in 1917. His Victoria Cross citation reads:   "For most conspicuous bravery and leadership in charge of a section in attack. His section had the difficult task of mopping up cellars, craters and machine gun emplacements. Under his able direction all resistance was overcome successfully and heavy casualties inflicted on the enemy. In one cellar he himself bayonetted three enemy and attacked single handed seven others in a crater, killing them all.   "On reaching the objective, a machine gun was holding up the right flank causing many casualties. Corporal Konowal rushed forward and entered the emplacement, killed the crew and brought back the gun to our lines.   "The next day, he again attacked single-handed another machine gun emplacement, killed three of the crew and destroyed the gun and emplacement with explosives.   "This non-commissioned officer alone killed at least 16 of the enemy and during the two days actual fighting carried on continuously his good work until severely wounded."   Konowal was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace on December 5, 1917.   His medal entitlement was the Victoria Cross, WW1 War Medal, WW1 Victory Medal, King George V1 Coronation Medal and Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal. Upon his death in 1959 at age 72, his medals were passed on to his widow who then sold them to an Ottawa medal collector. In 1969, the Canadian War Museum purchased the medals for $3,750 and displayed them in the museum until 1972 after which they were put in storage.   After being put in storage, the medals seemed to disappear. Historian Lubomyr Luciuk had been searching for the medals since the 1980s and was told by the Canadian War Museum they were misplaced, not stolen.   Canadian Broadcasting Commission Geoff Ellwand revealed that in the early 1990s a well-dressed woman in her thirties brought the V.C. and a Hawaiian silver dollar into a local coin dealers shop. She was told, wrongly, that both were fakes. She sold then for $20 and seemed content with the transaction.   For 30 years, location of the medals was a mystery although it seemed to be quite certain they were not in the possession of the Canadian War Museum for most of that time. It could be properly assumed that they had been stolen.   It was advertised in 2004 that the Konowal Victoria Cross was to be sold at Jeffrey Hoare Auctions in London, Ontario, on May 30, 2004.   Ian Stewart alerted Professor Luciuk about the auction and through his efforts, two RCMP officers took possession of the V.C. group on Monday, April 5.   Following an investigation, the V.C. was authenticated and on August 23, 2004, it was returned to the Canadian War Museum.   Other wayward medals have been reunited with their original recipients or their relatives over the years, occasionally following appeals in the media.   Medal collectors are asked to be vigilant in locating stolen medals so they can be returned to their rightful owners.   Roy Bassett is a veteran of the British Army (1950s) and a retired Toronto policeman. He can be reached at ninelancer@gmail.com     Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2009 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster