April 25, 2022
Whānau get chance to claim missing medals
A lawyer on a mission to ensure whanau have the medals of fathers and uncles who served in 28 Māori Battalion says no one understood the size of the problem when he started
David Stone has identified 2012 medals which weren’t picked up at the end of World War 2 by more than 500 soldiers.
“When they came back the world had just been at war for six years, and I suppose getting their medals was not the first thing on their minds. Everyone just wanted to get back to some semblance of normality,” he says.
Mr Stone started his search after a conversation with his father about why the whanau did not have the medals of an uncle who was killed at Faenza in Italy in 1944.
He asked the medals division of the Defence Minisry for records of those soldiers from Muriwai and Manutuke near Gisborne, and then repeated the exercise for the rest of C Company.
He says in every village about 15 percent of veterans had not received their service medals.
Mr Stone says it has been a real privilege to see the responses of the whānau at the ceremonies that have been held so far to present medals.
He’s now completed the lists for the other three companies of the Māori Battalion and is advising whanau on what they need to do to claim the tohu.
“I’m trying to get this list of over 500 who are yet to be claimed out there to as many people and places as possible.
“I’m sending emails to iwi leaders and different runanga and taiwhenua and trust boards saying please pānui this out to your beneficiaries because we want as many people as possible coming forward,” Mr Stone says.
“It’s a huge task, but where there is a will, we can make this happen.”