The Victory Medal to an MM winner

Bill's story of the return of a Victory Medal to an MM winner.

The return of Robert Eames' Victory Medal owes much to Susan Lumsdaine, or should I say LTCOL Susan Lumsdaine (retd), Honorary Secretary of Bellinger River RSL Sub-Branch. I will leave the story of the ‘discovery’ to Susan.

One of our members has handed in a medal that a relative of hers found on the ground in Camberwell in 1980. Our sub-Branch president has done some research on the medal.
The Victory Medal was issued to 3143 PTE Robert Leslie Eames who enlisted in Melbourne on 14 July 1915 and was KIA in France on 17 March 1918. He was a member of 6Bn AIF, posted to 2LTMB in France. His next of kin on his enlistment record was his mother Mrs Mary M Woodyard.

PTE Eames was also awarded the Military Medal on 31 October 1917 for bravery in the field. His elder brother Percy Alexander Eames served with the 29th Bn in France and was invalided back to Australia in late 1918.

As I write Roberts Victory Medal is back where it belongs in the safe hands of a great nephew. Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the medal, nor an answer to the question that came of what happened to his other medals. Below is the recommendation for Private Eames’s Military Medal one of the missing medals.

 This link is Robert’s National Archive file and this is to his brother Percy’s.

 The returned medal tally is now 2564.