One day this medal arrived in a small envelope addressed to the ‘War Memorial Department’ at Auckland Museum. Inside was a small tissue-wrapped package folded inside a square of note paper. Written on the paper was, ‘Found on Takapuna Beach’. The package contained a New Zealand Memorial Cross.

The New Zealand Memorial Cross is awarded to the next of kin of all New Zealand service personnel who died while on active service. This particular medal has the George VI monogram which means it was awarded for World War II. Impressed on the reverse is ‘60917 BDR. R.E. FOOTHEAD’. Intriguingly, there are multiple scratches over and around the name.

Why would someone try to cross out the name of the person awarded the medal?

We got sleuthing. A check with the police confirmed there was no record of the medal being reported stolen. Online Cenotaph identified the soldier as Bombardier Robert (Bob) Edward Foothead, married of Wellington, who was killed in Libya on 1 December 1941. Bob’s wife was named May and at the time of his death they had a son, Terry.

We managed to get in touch with Bob’s grandson. The family had a second memorial cross – the one that had been presented to May. This cross is still suspended from its ribbon and still in its presentation box. That means the medal found on the beach is the one awarded to Bob’s birth family, most probably his mother. Bob Foothead’s New Zealand Memorial Cross was finally reunited with his family in February 2015. AWMM