Deceased air force hero’s awards stolen

Two sisters have been left devastated after their dead father’s air force memorabilia was stolen from their ransacked home.

Hannah Cocker had been at a funeral on June 14 when her sister called and told her their house in New Windsor had been burgled.

The sister’s dad, Michael Cocker, was a Royal New Zealand Air Force warrant officer. He died on December 19, 2014 unexpectedly of heart failure.

The stolen memorabilia, which included uniform ribbons, dog tags, a watch and two pairs of military issued aviators, were the only mementos the sisters had of their dad left.

‘‘He was my hero, I wanted to grow up to be just like him,’’ Hannah said.

‘‘They were all we really had of his, he was a pretty simple man.’’

‘‘His watch didn’t even work anymore, it was just the fact they they were his.’’

Hannah remembers as a child watching her dad put the ribbons on his uniform everyday.

‘‘He gave the dog tags to me before he went on a deployment to East Timor when I was nine or 10.

‘‘I remember he gave them to me and I wouldn’t take them off,’’ she said.

Cocker served for 37 years in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a medic.

He was deployed in several missions including Bougainville, East Timor, Krygystan and to Indonesia in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

During his deployment to Indonesia to help tsunami survivors he was the medic on board a C-130 Hercules that airlifted and treated stranded people from Banda Aceh.

He also assisted the United States in Afghanistan and the Pacific Islands.

Cocker was awarded for his service to the air force just before he died with the inaugural Gor- don Watt Memorial Award for the RNZAF Top Medic.

He was still working for the Defence Force when he died in 2014 at the age of 56.

Electronics and jewellery were also taken from the home between the hours of 7am and 12pm on June 14.

Hannah and her sister just want their father’s belongings returned.

‘‘If you just want to chuck them in the letter box, we won’t act,’’ she said.

Information can be given anonymously to Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.