Jack Pyers

The medals left to return from the Grafton box a getting fewer and fewer.
This time the medal is the Korea Medal awarded to 213649 John 'Jack' Henry Pyers. Jack was a member of 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment and served in Korea from 28 September 1950 to 27 September 1951. He was probably part of the original battalion deployment and may have seen fighting at Chongju in October 1950.
After the Korean War, Jack lived with his mother in Grafton and died in 1979. Jack had two brothers, one being Patrick. I have tracked down one of Patrick's sons and will be sending Jack's medal to him shortly.
The returned medal tally is now 2279.

William Kearns

We receive requests for assistance from many directions. This particular search request came from the Yeppoon RSL. Kay, the Sub-Branch secretary, had received a set of medals which had been stolen then recovered with some other medals.
The solider in question was SX3447 William Archibald Kearns who was born in 1916 and died in 1952. His NOK was listed as Rachel Kellaway which threw me for a bit but after a lot of head scratching I worked out that William was the son of Richard Kearns and Rachel Anne Bell. After Richard died, Rachel remarried John Kellaway. What I also found was that 28087 Richard Hugh Bell Kearns also listed his NOK as Rachel Kellaway.
The electoral rolls gave me the name of Richard Hugh Bell Kearns' wife which led me to her death notice. From this I had the names of two daughters, a son and daughter in law. Then I had to start taking a few educated guesses. The son/daughter in law name combination had one entry in the electoral roll. To my surprise the address, from 1980, was here in Canberra. I had no confirmation that I was correct but I found the daughter in law's name on the list of volunteer guides at the Australian War Memorial. What I couldn't find was a current listing of this couple in the White Pages. However, the secretary of my former RSL Sub-Branch manages the volunteers at the AWM so I put in a call to him and he kindly connected me with who I was looking for.
I still had no proof that I was right but when I rang and laid out what I knew it turned out to be the correct family.
The last piece of this puzzle has been to connect William's nephew with Kay in Yeppoon so that the medals can be returned in the near future.    


The returned medal tally is now 2278.

William Castle - Royal Navy

It is sometimes just a single piece of evidence that we find that links one generation to the next and that finally leads us to a successful conclusion. That is definitely the case in the search for the family of J3200 AB William Arthur Castle, Royal Navy.
Finding the records of British service men is quite difficult. What wasn't destroyed during the Blitz is usually only available on a pay per view basis. I rely on an Ancestry.com membership to provide any information that might be available. Given the size of the British Army and Navy at the turn of the 19th century there isn't that many records available so I was very surprised when my search for William turned up his one page entry in the UK Register of Seaman's Service 1848-1939. The information this scrap of paper provided included William's date of enlistment, 1910, and the ships he served on until discharge in 1919. Thankfully, it also gave his date of birth and the location which was Forrest Gate in London's East End. What I couldn't find was a family named Castle in Forest Gate in the UK census records.
From there I had nothing. I had started this search in 2013 and revisited it on several occasions. Each time a new piece of information had been published on line which gave me that next clue. I found that William emigrated to Australia in 1923 with his wife Emily. That at least explained how the medal came to be here. Then nothing.
These last few days I've dug back in to this research and now have a result.
I found William's death and funeral notices published in a Melbourne paper in 1927. A copy of this clipping is included below. The clue I found from this brief entry was the address of William's brother. A search of the electoral rolls gave me the name of the brother. Using the Victorian death records I was able to locate where William is buried in the Box Hill Cemetery.
Armed with that brother's name I went back to the UK records and found that the brother was also born in Forrest Gate. This led me to an Ancestry family tree which didn't include William but gave me the name of other siblings and an even more revealing clue. From the Victorian state BDM records, I knew that William's mother's name was Sarah. The family tree gave the mother's name as Sarah Castle but the father's was John Kowalski. John was an Austrian emigrant. Using this new information I could follow the Kowalski's to other parts of the UK and helped me understand that the family didn't remain in the East End in the late Victorian period like so many other families did.
Back to the Australian records and I could quickly sketch out the families of both of William's brothers who emigrated to Australia. The first was Ernest Lawrence Castle and the second John Edward Castle.
It is through John Edward's line that I contacted William's great niece. The way I found her was through using her first and second name combinations, which is slightly unusual, this lead to me being able to make an conclusion about her married name. I found only one recent entry on the internet with this name combination. Through a third party I managed to get a message to the great niece and spoke to her this afternoon.
This was one of the more difficult searches of recent time but successful in the log run.
Thanks go to Josephine T who sent me the medal in 2013.
The returned medal tally is now 2272.

John Burrell

I'm slowly getting through the medals recently sent to me by the Grafton RSL. This latest return is of a British War Medal awarded to 15156 MT-DVR John Franklin Burrell. MT-DVR stands for Motor Transport Driver and is a rank equivalent to private. His unit was the 5th Motor Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps.
Following John through the electoral rolls was easy and other public records provided me with the names of his children and grandchildren. These records are mostly 40+ years old so I had to turn to a more contemporary resource and found John's granddaughter using Face Book. We have exchanged messages and I'll be posting John's BWM off in the near future.
The returned medal tally is now 2271.

Dodd family medals

This return has some really interesting aspects, not the least being the condition the medals are in. My research commenced with an message from Nancy L from Sydney. Nancy's son works at a tip and had found two sets of medals. When they arrived in the post I was really surprised at the condition. The meals had been well cared for, however, it was obvious that they had suffered recent damage, probably from machinery at the tip. Nancy's son really needs to be congratulated for recovering these two medal groups and wanting to see them returned to the family.
The first group was awarded to Henry Albert Dodd. The group consists of the China War Medal (1900) but it has been separated from it's suspender, 1914-15 Star and Victory Medal. The group also has the ribbon and suspender of the British War Medal but the disk is missing. The group was awarded to Henry Albert Dodd who served in the Royal Navy for 6 1/2 years before emigrating to Australia. He was awarded the China War Medal while serving aboard HMS Goliath. Albert purhased his discharge from the Royal Navy then enlisted, age 33, in the AIF as was initially allocated to 20th Battalion, then Field Engineers and finally the Australian Flying Corps.
At the end of WWI, Albert (also known as Henry) stayed in England and married Letitca. Their first son, Henry, was born in the UK in 1919 before Albert returned with his family to Australia. Albert and Letitca had four more children; Vivian, Kenneth, Winifred and Geoffrey. Four of the Dodd children served in WWII. Here are the links to their nominal roll entries; Henry, Vivian, Kenneth and Winifred. Vivian died on 19 October 1943.
While researching this family I found that Henry died in 2005 in Dubbo, a picture of his memorial plaque is below. Kenneth died only recently and his daughter lived in the same area that the tip where the medals were found is located.
I found Kenneth on an Ancestry family tree. The tree owner is a lady named Roslyn who responded to my message with details of her own research efforts and work with veterans. However, the tree was not for her family but she had prepared it for a young man she met and was inspired to help.  This young man, Tom, is Albert's great grandson (Kenneth's grandson). Roslyn has connected me with Tom and I'll send him the medals in the near future.
The returned medal tally is now 2270.

 Henry's medals with broken China War Medal and missing British War Medal

 The pin that affixes the medal disk to the suspender.

 The recent damage to the China War Medal disk can be seen at the 9 o'clock position

 This picture shows damage to the medal bars.

Noel Gibson

The numbers of medals left in the Grafton box is getting less by the day. The next to be returned were awarded to QX48096 Lance Sergeant Noel David Gibson. I suspect that Noel was awarded 5 or 6 medals for his WWII service, however, only two came to me.
Noel was pretty easy to follow through the electoral rolls. I got lucky as one of the entries included his daughter. More luck came my way as her first and second names only appeared once again but this time with a different surname. I made the assumption this was her married name and that the other name at that address was her husband who had a very specific occupation. The name/occupation combination got me a successful hit and a business phone number. My hunch paid off and I had the correct family. More luck ran my was as I rang the same week as retirement after 53 years in this profession occurred and the business was closing.
Noel's two medals will be posted back to his daughter in the near future.
The returned medal tally is now 2263.

John Hayes

Another pair of WWI medals that came to me from the Grafton RSL is the BWM and Victory Medal awarded to 4174 PTE John Desmond Hayes.
Hayes was a 24 year old blacksmith when he enlisted in September 1915. Following his training he transited through Egypt and allocated to 47th Battalion AIF. Less than 12 months after enlisting, he was wounded in action on 9 Aug 16. Hayes died of his wound two days later.
My search put me in touch with Kay who is Hayes' great niece. Kay had posted a tribute to Hayes on a notice board which I came across and sent her off a message. As part of her research, Kay has found some photos of Hayes and I have been given permission to publish them here.
I'm a bit intrigued with the condition of Hayes medals. The Victory Medal is in very good condition. By comparison the BWM has had a rough life with the suspender rather damaged and the rim suffering several bruises.
The returned medal tally is now 2261.