Medal Rescue™recovers Australian War Service medals from the open marketplace and seeks to reunite them with the family of the veteran.
These medals may have been lost over the years from the custody of the veteran or family for a variety of reasons.
As Medal Rescueacquires War Service medals from the marketplace, research is undertaken to locate the descendant family of the veteran today with the aim of reuniting the rescued medals with families.
Background
Medal Rescueevolved from the experience of its operator when searching the Internet for clues about our ancestors and family history. By chance an auction in England was located listing the sale of two of our ancestors' World War I Service medals. Our ancestors had served in the AIF with one receiving the Military Cross for gallantry at Polygon Wood,
Belgium, and the other, his brother, receiving the Military Medal for gallantry at Broodseinde, Belgium.
A collector had bought them at the auction which had occurred only a few months before our search began. We were tantalised by just how close we had come to finding - and then losing - this tangible part of our family's history.
By quirk of fate, months later we searched the Internet again and found the same medals again up for auction, this time in Sydney. Although the medals had now travelled half way around the world to
Australia, they had been split up for separate sale and were no longer their completed sets.
We quickly purchased what was left of them.
After some 90 years since our ancestors had gallantly earned them on the fields of Belgium and France in the Great War, these medals have now been reunited with their descendant family where they are treasured, safe and preserved.
The experience of rescuing these medals led to the establishment of
Medal Rescue.
Today
We believe other families would like the opportunity to be reunited with their ancestors' medals and treasure this significant part of their ancestors' lives.
Our own experience underscores just how easy it is for family history items like these to disappear from families, perhaps to be lost from the veterans' families forever.
As War Service medals represent the sacrifices, effort and commitment made by servicemen and women for our country, we would like to see these items of national heritage preserved for their personal value and the significant link they hold with the history of Australia.
In the words of the Returned and Services League of Australia (rsl.org.au),
"Medals for campaign service are supposed to be treasured possessions, reflecting service to one's country and awarded by The Sovereign on behalf of a grateful nation."
We hope this work re-connects families with these tangible respresentations of the sacrifices our ancestors made for our country, and helps to keep this important part of
Australia's history preserved for today's families and future generations.
For information about the medals Medal Rescue currently has on hand, please see our Servicespage.
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