Stolen medals returned to family after 50 years
There were emotional scenes at Orange Ex-Services’ Club last Saturday as the war medals of Private Ronald John Flood were returned to his family; more than 50 years after they had been stolen.
In 1970, thieves broke into and ransacked the Flood family’s home in the Sydney suburb of Penshurst, stealing, among other items, the war medals given to Robert Flood for his service in New Guinea during the Second World War.
What happened to them in the 50 years since, is still a mystery but, in February this year, they were discovered in the collection of the Orange RSL sub-branch. Noticing the surname, the medals were mentioned to Orange Ex-Services’ Club Director, Terry Flood.
“Ros Davidson, who’s the secretary here, rang and said that she had some medals and thought that they may have been my Dad's,” Terry explained.
“I said, ‘well no they're not, I've got my Dad's’ but she said ‘could they possibly be a relation?’ I said ‘possibly, but I very much doubt it’.”
Though Ronald John Flood was no relation, Terry decided he had to see these medals returned where they belonged and so contacted the National Archives in Canberras to do a little more digging.
“To cut a long story short, I got his full record and decided to, maybe, just off my own back, make a couple of phone calls.”
Over the next three days, Terry made dozens of phone calls throughout the Sydney area, essentially cold-calling people with the initials ‘RJ Flood’. As unlikely as it seems, Terry soon found himself speaking to Robert John Flood, Ronald’s son.
But Robert took some convincing that this was all for real.
“I thought it was a bit of a hoax call, dead set!” said Robert. “I gave him a bit of, ‘Go away mate! You're pulling my chain!’.”
“Yeah, he thought on a number of occasions that the whole thing was a scam and was asking some, pretty pertinent questions,” recalled Terry, who wanted to ensure he had the right family before handing the medals over.
“Some people might want to just grab the medals and take them and that wasn't going to happen!” said Terry. “So as I walked him through the questions I had about the family and everything just started to click.”
It was at this point too, that Robert began to believe Terry’s story.
“We went through some details and it was my Dad! He told me what grandfather's name was — TA Flood — and he was correct! Then he wanted to know what his birthday was and
I said, ‘Well, you’ve got all the paperwork, you tell me!’,” said Robert.
“And anyway, eventually I told him the date and the phone went quiet… 14th of July, 1922. And I went, ‘well, It's serious.’
“I phoned [my brother] Graham and said there's a guy from Orange RSL, reckons he's got Dad’s medals up there and, here we are today, picking these up.”
“It is all amazing that they've turned up,” added Graham, quite overwhelmed.
“ [Terry] he started looking for ‘RJ Floods’ and the chances of finding Dad… you know, he would have turned a hundred in a couple of months.”
On Saturday afternoon, Terry and representatives of the Orange RSL sub-branch and the Orange Ex-Services’ club presented Robert and Graham with their father's medals, which they had mounted for them, along with copies of Terry’s research from the National Archives.
“It was pretty emotional,” said Robert. “Yeah, I showed you inside the club that… Yeah, I've got pretty emotional about the whole thing, about what has been done.
“Dad, as I said, he passed away in ‘91 of bowel cancer… and so here we are. It's amazing, isn't it! Terry was like a terrier dog with a bone.”
But one big mystery remains: just how did these medals, stolen over 50 years ago in a southern suburb of Sydney, end up in Orange? Orange RSL sub-branch vice-president, Brad Bliss, had one possible partial answer. Medals in their museum collection, he said, had previously been found in a cupboard bought at a yard sale in western Sydney, but it is unknown if these are those same medals.
The truth is, we will probably never know.
“You wonder how they got here? The journey they've taken!” said Robert, who’s simply pleased that the 50-year journey is now at an end.
“We're pretty stoked to be able to come up here and pick them up and take them back home and I'll put them on the wall in my house, next to my dad somewhere… we'll find a nice spot in the house for them and they'll stay there, no trouble, mate!”
Robert plans to proudly wear his father’s war service medal on Anzac Day next year.