A New Zealand military chaplain recently recovered a fallen airman’s war medals and reunited them with the man’s next of kin.
It cost the chaplain a few hundred dollars to perform this good deed, one which has seen them restored and presented to the aviator’s grand-niece.
Dying during an RAF bomber raid over Hamburg in 1942 during Winston Churchill’s terror bombing campaign on Germany, New Zealand Sergeant William O’Shea’s medals were given to his Widow Ann, before the family lost track of them in 1990.
Royal Australian Air Force Chaplain Hayden Lea saw the collection of four authentic medals at an auction, and noticed that one was missing a ribbon clasp for bomber command units that were presented to airmen after the war. It’s absence meant that the man to whom the medals were issued had died.
Lea decided to buy the lot, replace the “tattered” ribbons, and see if he could get the bomber command clasp added to them.
“Once I’d purchased the medals and was able to look up a little bit more information about Billy, I was able to confirm that he didn’t have his other awards, so I contacted New Zealand honors and awards to be able to apply for that for him,” Chaplain Lea told ABC News Australia.
According to the Chaplain, part of his duty is to advocate for soldiers like O’Shea, and their families, which he considers his responsibility despite the man being dead for 80 years.
After obtaining the bomber clasp, he started to try and track down the family.
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As it happened, O’Shea never met his grand-niece, Karen Curtis, who was born after his death. She had tried after the disappearance of the medals to get them re-issued, which the New Zealand authorities told her was not possible. During the process however, she made herself officially known as Billy’s next of kin, which meant that Lea was able to contact her.
Curtis said she and her family were still coming to terms about the amazing way in which the medals were returned.
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“He died in 1942, but he was my father’s uncle and my father really looked up to him,” said Curtis. “And now I’ve got grandchildren who I’m teaching about the family history. They look so alike and looking at photos of Billy I could swear it was my dad.”
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