TTC worker looks to solve mystery of lost war medals
Military decorations have been in transit lost-and-found for years
They’ve languished in the lost-and-found at the TTC for more than 15 years, lost perhaps by a veteran on their way to a ceremony or a relative hoping to enshrine a family member’s honour at a museum in perpetuity. Perhaps we’ll never know, but solving the mystery of the medals has become the mission of one TTC employee.
“We’ve never come across something like this before,” said Sue Motahedin, the head of the TTC’s customer service team. “I just pictured in my head a person on their way back from a Remembrance Day ceremony taking the TTC and losing the medals in the hustle and bustle of the day, it makes me think what they may have felt when they realized they lost this.”
A name inscribed on the rim of the two First World War medals reveals that they were awarded to Private G. Thompson, Royal Highlanders. His service number was 43140.
The medals include five from the Second World War and two from the First World War; it is unknown yet whether the medals from the two wars belonged to the same person.
“They are mounted together so it would imply the veteran who wore them would have served in both world wars,” said Lt.-Col. Carl Gauthier, director of honours and recognition with the Canadian Armed Forces.
“There are thousands of Canadians that served in both world wars, so it’s not rare, people enrolled very young in the First World War.”
The ribbons from which the medals hang are faded — the white is now beige and the greens have yellowed. Many are out of sequence, some backwards and with wrong ribbons. The ribbons are clumsily hand stitched together by tightly woven black thread, a testament to the effort the owner, or someone they may have known, put to prevent them from falling apart.
Motahedin said that along with the seven medals from the world wars, she also found another more recent civilian set. Both were located in a small box inside the TTC’s lost and founds’ safe, which houses precious items that have never been claimed. Staff told her that the medals have been sitting in the safe for over 15 years.
“We often come across items and just think, what do we do with these items?” said Motahedin, adding that the TTC gets 50,000 lost objects a year.
“I’m so glad that the medals did not get lost in the shuffle of taking care of all of these items.”
Two of the medals are the British War Medal and the British Victory Medal — both awarded for service in the First World War. To qualify for the medals, officers had to have been mobilized for service in the British Empire between Aug. 5, 1914, and Nov. 11, 1918.
The other five, mounted together with the pair from the First World War, are from the Second World War. Two were awarded for campaigns the recipient had completed in Germany and France, Gauthier said. One of the medals, from the Second World War, he said, was awarded for those who served six months in an area subjected to aerial bombardment.
The last two, he added, includes a Canadian volunteer service medal and a war medal.
“Whoever got these five medals would have gone overseas to Europe,” said Bob Ion, a director at the Canadian Military Heritage Museum in Brantford.
Gauthier said that if the family cannot be found, he thinks they should be donated to a military museum.
“It’s becoming rarer for medals to get lost, because people are finding more importance in their family’s heritage,” said Ion, adding that many medals got lost in ’70s and ’80s when the price of silver was very high and people would sell them to melt them down.
The second set that Motahedin found is more recent and includes three commemorative medals, likely to belong to a civilian recipient, and one unofficial medal.
“All these medals looked like important historical objects to me,” Motahedin said. “They look very special — just looking into the care put into all of them. I hope we can give them the special treatment they deserve.”