Medal is returned to widow
AN Australian Service Medal from World War II that went missing in a burglary 22 years ago has been returned to its rightful owner.
It was back in 1996 that Flying Officer Clarence Reginald Douglas Wenck was terminally ill in hospital.
His wife had been visiting him daily. She returned home one night to find their house had been burgled and Mr Wenck’s service medals from World War II stolen.
What happened next is anyone’s guess.
Then, just before Anzac Day this year, a driver for the Royal Hotel was making a delivery of alcohol to the Toowoomba United RSL Sub Branch and handed in an Australian Service Medal 1939-45 belonging to Mr Wenck.
“He thought it had been found about 15 years earlier, somewhere on disused land around Chalk Drive and Neil St,” sub branch secretary Wendy Holt said.
“The rest of Mr Wenck’s medals have never been retrieved.”
After having the medal polished, and getting it re-mounted with a new ribbon, sub branch president Lindsay Morrison returned the medal to Mr Wenck’s widow yesterday.
It was an emotional moment.
“I could just about start to cry. It just means the world to me,” Mr Wenck’s widow said.
Mrs Holt said anyone who might know of Mr Wenck’s other medals could hand them in at the Toowoomba Soldiers Memorial Hall, no questions asked.
Mr Wenck was originally a dentist from Kingaroy, who went on to become Toowoomba’s first orthodontist.
He joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1943 and travelled to Canada to train as an air gunner on Lancaster Bombers, before becoming a flying officer.