Stolen war medals reunited with owner in nick of time

Sam Healy held no hope that her grandfather’s stolen war medals would ever make it back into her hands.

But on Anzac Day, a year on from the burglary of her Hamilton home, she was able to hold the memory of navy gunner Leo Deighton’s efforts as she stood before the Memorial Drive cenotaph.

By chance, the annual commemorations had reminded an elderly man of his discovery down a Hamilton alleyway months earlier. He had found a box of World War II medals abandoned and handed police.

In hopes of a speedy resolution, Waikato police Constable Peter van’t Wout posted an image of the medals’ original postal box on Facebook asking if anyone could identify them. Healy knew the box well. ’’I happened to have a look on them to Hamilton Facebook, and it was the first post that came up – I was just scrolling down and saw the photographs of my grandfather’s box. I put a post up saying ‘they’re mine, they’re mine’.’’

Within an hour of seeing the post on Monday, Healy was at the police station collecting the treasures from Katy-Jo Martin, who stayed late to reunite treasures with their owner.

’’I was just very pleased to see them again – it amounts to disbelief. I opened them up straight away and they were all there. They obviously hadn’t been touched, and had just been dumped.’’

Nestled in their original postal box were the medals awarded to the the late navy vet for services in World War II. Among them a 1939-45 Star for the Battle of Britain, the Atlantic Star, the Burma Star for the Pacific campaign, the Italy Star and the 1939-45 War Medal.

Healy inherited the war medals when her grandfather died five years ago.