21 January 2011

Korean War Pair

The return of Kenneth Lindsay O'BRIEN's Korean War medals to his wife brings to close a mystery that is over 60 years old.
Samuel SCALES and Ken O'BRIEN both served in Korea, both were awarded the Korea Medal and the United Nations Medal for Korea. During the late 50's or there about, while Ken and Sam were serving together, Sam was called upon to do a ceremonial guard. Not being able to find his medals, his mate Ken loaned him his, to be returned after the parade.
Now we move forward, a long way forward to 2009, by which time both Ken and Sam are deceased. It was at this time that Sam's brother Alf (Lt.Col Alfred SCALES, ED, RFD), now aware that the medals which he and the family believed were Sam's, were not in fact so, started to look for Ken O'BRIEN. Firstly to return to Ken or his family, Ken's service medals, and hopefully along the way find the 'missing' medals of his brother Sam. It was during 2010 that Bill, researching for Veteran's Affairs came across, Alf, and his quest, intrigued as he admits by the story, he offered his assistance, which was graciously accepted.
Last week Bill was able to pass to Alf the name and address of Ken's wife, and so part one of the search has been completed, the second part, where are Sam's original medals, has yet to be answered. Unfortunately Ken's family did not have Sam's medals, and so the second part of the mystery is yet to be solved.
The returned medal tally is now 845.

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