War heroes’ medals in museum were fakes
Descendants of decorated soldiers shocked to find that donated honours had been replaced
WHEN members of a renowned military family bequeathed gallantry medals to an Army museum, they might have imagined visitors pausing to reflect on their relatives’ brave deeds.
The collection included two of the highest awards for valour in action to be presented to British servicemen.
One was a Distinguished Service Order, awarded to Major General Henry Osborne Curtis, a veteran of both world wars. Another was the Military Cross, awarded to his son, Brigadier Peter Curtis, for taking a German-held ridge in Tunisia in 1943.
However, Susan Bond, Major Curtis’s granddaughter, was shocked to find the medals on show in the Royal Green Jackets Museum in Winchester, appeared to be duplicates, rather than the originals.
Mrs Bond, 70, made the discovery when she came across some of the original medals for sale on the open market. She was forced to pay £2,500 to buy back her father Brigadier Curtis’s medals from a London dealer to stop them being lost forever.
She confronted the trustees at the museum but claims she was left dismayed at an “indifferent” response. The museum said it was satisfied no criminal activity had taken place.
The substitute medals have since been withdrawn from display at the Hampshire museum.
Mrs Bond, from Corfe Castle, Dorset, said: “I thought once we brought this to the attention of the museum they would want to get to the bottom of it.
“But they seem satisfied there was no evidence of any theft and implied my father had given them fake medals in the first place.
“How dare they say that? He was so proud to be a Green Jacket so to think he would have done that is horrible.
“There has been no evidence of any break-in at all so it would suggest that someone within the museum during that period is responsible.
“What I want to know is how much the museum knows about this and how long they have known about the fakes.”
Mrs Bond’s husband Richard, a retired High Court judge, added: “It all sounds rather suspicious in my opinion and they don’t seem to want to accept a theft has taken place. I suspect we may never find the entire truth, which is very distressing.”
The family donated Maj Gen Curtis’s medals to the King’s Royal Rifles Museum (now the Royal Green Jackets Museum) after his death in 1964.
Brig Curtis, who died in 1999, donated eight medals, including the MC, Defence medal, Palestine General Service Medal, 1939/45 Star, Africa Star and Italy Star, in 1985.
Vere Hayes, the chairman of the museum trustees, said it was impossible to establish when the original medals had been replaced with the duplicates.
Mr Hayes said: “It was a great shock to the museum staff to discover that the Curtis family medal sets were compromised and that some of the original medals had been substituted.
“Our Our internal inspection, assisted by an independent medal expert, concluded the Curtis medal substitutions probably occurred some time ago, before 1989; the medal groups … were accepted without specialist inspection, as was the practice at that time.
“It is most unlikely, therefore, that we will ever know if the medal substitutions took place before or after presentation to the collection.”
Christine Pullen, the curator of the museum, denied any criminal activity or negligence had taken place.
Although Hampshire Police have been unable to prove any theft, they have confirmed several medals from the museum have been placed on the Art Loss Register – the world’s largest database of stolen art.
Maj Gen Curtis was Mentioned in Dispatches three times and wounded three times. He was awarded the MC in 1917 and the DSO in 1919.
During the Second World War he commanded the 46th Infantry Division at the Battle of France and suffered heavy casualties before they were evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940.
Three of his sons served in the Second World War, with two killed in action. To his anger, Brig Peter Curtis was posted to Scotland at the time of D-Day, in order not to risk a third son from the same family being killed, though he later went on to serve in Africa.