Arthur Hadler

I have recently received a parcel from a retirement home in Victoria which contained six medals and other memorabilia from service during WWII. The medals were awarded to VX143861 Arthur Richard Hadler. Mr Hadler died in 2010 and from information I received from the retirement home and what I could piece together from newspaper entries, Hadler had no immediate family still living. I cast the net a bit wider and found a member of the Hadler family to return the medals to.
What makes this group interesting is that the medals are an official duplicate set. They are marked with a (D) and are lazer engraved rather than impressed as the originals would have been. As well as the standard WWII group, there is an Australian Service Medal 45-75 which I know was issued to Hadler in 2007. I suspect that at some point Hadler has lost his original medals and applied for a duplicate set and as a result the ASM 45-75 was also issued.
The pictures show the naming style and the duplicate D marking.
The returned medal tally is now 884.

Charlton

12186 Abraham Stanley Charlton served in the RAAF during WWII and was awarded the Australian Service Medal 1939-1945 and the War Medal. These medals were found in a pub near Woolongong in 2005. They were then handed into the NSW Police who forwarded them to the the Directorate of Honours and Awards and then finally to me. Well done to Debra from the Wollongong Station for taking this action.
The medals will now be returned to Charlton's grand son.
The returned medal tally is now 878.

 

Claude Keenan

The internet is one of the main research methods we use. There are large quantities of records available on line which we use to narrow down the search for a family. Every now and then we get a result by just typing in a name in the search engine. This also works both ways. Every so often a family doing some research of their own comes across one of our entries.

That is what happened in our search for 14732 Claude Hector Harold Keenan. Bill started this search in August 2010 with an entry on Yuku which ended up giving us the details of his children. Then in May 2011, Claude's grand daughter, Georgia, was demonstrating to her mother how to use the internet. She put Claude's name in the search engine and up came the Yuku entry.
Claude served in the 3rd Depot Unit of Supply and later the 3rd Field Butchery. The 3-D.U.S. impressed on his medal is not very common.
The medal returned tally is now 876.

Update - William Henry McKenzie

We have recently received some information from the family of William Henry McKenzie about how his medals were stolen. I've updated the post on this case with the details as well as a photo of William.

David Carmichael Wallace

I recently received an email from the niece of 3683 David Carmichael Wallace who came across his name on our website. I've had his British War Medal for almost 12 months after it was sent to me by the WA RSL.
Wallace was a member of 11th Bn AIF and I discuss this battalion in this link. He was reported missing in action in June 1916 but later confirmed to be a POW in July 1916. He was eventually released at the end of the war.
Knowing that Wallace served with 11th Bn I had a look at Ian Gill's book Fremantle to France and came across a picture of Wallace. The picture is reproduced below with the kind permission of Ian.
The returned medal tally is now 875.

Post updates

For the last six months I have been deployed to Sudan as part of the ADF commitment to the United Nations Mission in Sudan. While away many cases have been resolved. Most blog entries since November 2010 do not have photos or have only basic information. Now that I'm home and can access the medals and other information I've updated the individual entries.

NX172739 P.B. Lane
NX51062 E.W. Butt and 66682 E.J. Arnold
55442 C.D. Alcock
NX150120 H.J. MacDonald
NX8141 S.H. Peyton
QX13604 W.J.L. Baltzarsen
NX38990 D.O. Edwards
NFX138781 I.M. Woodgate
32069 F.P. McMahon
NX170869 A.G. McMurtrie
FW45971 M.A.G. Easton
VX74091 J.R. Allen
NX68272 B.A. Shaw
QX9765 B.C. Locke
2792760 R.B. Marks
2161652 R.A. Hopper
266462 P.F. Holmes
6145 A.C. Fraser
2784501 J.A. Fernandes
A11511 K.J.Dollman
2478 C.T. Richards
VX133941 J.J. Bowers
5088 J.J.I. Page
NX192799 J.R. McWhinnie
L.J. Mannix
N5287 W.J.M. Stein
NX120899 R.G. Peck
NX43240 W.R. Aitken
NX166917 A.A. Williscroft
NX78704 G. Gibson
VX137241 J. Tucker
NX139346 S.E. Crelley
NX167154 S. McCarrol
22121 T.W.H. Pearson
NX113496 W.A. Bisiker
I.R. Clark
WX38909 R.C. Pickersgill
1977 R.S. McLeay
8046 T.C. Simpson
NX119329 E.H. Wynter
NX9084 S.W.M. Prisk
VX138275 W.H. McKenzie
NX14378 J.H Aitken
NX152551 B.J. O'Rourke
2166 V.W.L Miller
195 J. Fothergill
NX135563 R.A. Garfield

This is not the end of the process, the next step is to post medals to the families which may take some time to finalise.
My deployment is also the reason that the medal list on the website has not been updated for over 12 months. I hope you will understand why this has been a little slow in occurring.

Two recent articles

I have been very fortunate recently to have had two stories written about Lost Medals Australia.
The first appears in the National Archives of Australia on line magazine - Your Memento. As I have mentioned on many occasions I use the research resources of the NAA extensively and I was very pleased when this story was suggested.
The second is in the latest Department of Defence Honours and Awards news letter and tells the story of a group of medals that  were sent to Honours and Awards by a member of the public, forwarded to me and then finally sent back to the family.
I have a great relationship with both of these organisations and I am very grateful for the exposure that these articles provide.