Heroes’ medals donated to museum ‘swapped for fakes’
A WOMAN whose father and grandfather donated their gallantry medals to an Army museum is furious that they have disappeared and been substituted with duplicates.
Susan Bond discovered the two collections at the The Royal Green Jackets Museum are not those bequeathed to them after one set appeared on the open market.
Susan, 70, confronted the trustees but said she is dismayed at the “indifferent” response at the loss.
Although the police were called in she could not make a complaint of theft because legally she is not the owner.
The owner, the museum in Winchester, Hampshire, said it was satisfied no crime had taken place and a police investigation came to nothing.
One of the missing medal groups included the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order awarded to Susan’s grandfather, Major General Henry Osborne Curtis, a veteran of both world wars.
His son, Brigadier Peter Curtis, served in the Army for 30 years and was awarded the MC for taking a German-held ridge in Tunisia in 1943. Susan had to pay £2,500 to buy back
Mail ORdeR her father’s medals from a dealer. Even then the MC sold with them was a duplicate awarded to someone else. The substitute medals were withdrawn by the museum. She was sent an email from trustees stating that other medals on display had also been withdrawn owing to concerns over their authenticity. Susan, of Corfe Castle, Dorset, said: “There has been no evidence of any break-in so it would suggest that someone within the museum is responsible.
“But they seem satisfied that there was no theft and implied my father had given them fake medals in the first place. How dare they say that? He was proud to be a Green Jacket.”
Major General Curtis was mentioned in dispatches three times and wounded three times. He was awarded his MC in 1917 and the DSO in 1919.
During the Second World War he commanded the 46th Infantry Division. The family donated his medals to the museum after his death in 1964. Brigadier Curtis, who died in 1999, bequeathed his eight medals in 1985.
Vere Hayes, chairman of the trustees, said: “It is unlikely we will know if the substitutions took place before or after presentation to the collection. We are continuing to do everything we can to find answers.”
Police said several medals from the museum have been placed on the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest database of stolen art.