By Ethan Benedicto
After three self-storage facilities in the South East were burgled earlier this year, a daughter has been reunited with her father’s stolen war medals.
Kay Dawson smiled from ear to ear as the four medals, which decorated her father, Robert Allan Dawson for his service in the Second World War, were returned to her possession.
When the police returned the medals to Kay, laying her hands on the box was a feeling like no other, and when opening it she said “they were beautiful, they were shiny and they were lovely, it was so good to see them”.
“It’s fantastic to know that we’ve got them back,” she said.
Casey CIU units executed five search warrants at addresses in Hallam, Dandenong and Narre Warren, where officers located and seized over 200 allegedly stolen items including the medals.
After being notified by a friend just a few days prior, Kay was shocked that they were stolen to begin with, “considering that they’re replicas”.
“A friend of mine was just flicking through Facebook, she saw the surname and rang me, and said, are these your father’s medals?”
The original medals had been lost roughly years prior, and while there is no monetary benefit to them, it’s the sentimental value that Kay holds on to.
“They belong to my father you know? He’s long since passed away and it also represents something in history, of what a lot of young men went through, a lot of sacrifices,” she said.
The thought of medals being stolen in the first place was absurd, with, Kay adding that, “it was a shock, you can’t really think of many things to say, but what can you do?”
“I bet you they thought they were going to get a whole heap of money from it, but that’s only for originals.
“It’s a great thing that that’s all they’ve gotten,” she said.
Robert “Bob” Dawson served in the Pacific theatre and was a mechanic for the 22nd RAAF Squadron.
As a mechanic, he and many others were responsible for “keeping the planes in the air”, according to Kay.
When asked what her father would have thought of the debacle, she said that he would say something “along the lines of ‘Oh bugger, but the great thing is you got them back’,”.
