Watch: Heartwarming reunion of family war honours

• Stolen World War honours recovered by RCMP
• People across Canada offered help
• War historian recommends framing war heirlooms

Among the items stolen from Michael Wintemute’s home were his father’s World War 2 medals and a certificate of discharge given to his grandfather from the previous World War.

He didn’t think he would ever see them again. That is until he was called late one night by the Kelowna RCMP informing him of some good news.

“I’m just happy to have them back. Very happy, very pleased and I don’t think I could have been told by a more caring officer,” Wintemute said at a media event Tuesday. “I was surprised at the amount of work and effort that had been put into it.”

Corporal Amadeo Vecchio with the Kelowna RCMP was the officer to inform Wintemute of their recovery.

Vecchio is also a Lieutenant Colonel with the Canadian Armed Forces, so he was asked to help track the rightful owner.

Like most medals awarded during World War 2, they didn’t have names or serial numbers marked on them so their identification would be a challenge.

After putting out the news last month, it garnered a big response.

“It was a community and a ‘Canadiana’ effort,” Vecchio said. “From New Brunswick, westwards, a ton of people called. A lot of caring people who know about medals, former service members, or just people that are into genealogy and family tracing,” Vecchio said.

Earlier this year, Kelowna RCMP seized medals from a man Vecchio said they obviously didn’t belong to and then the search was on to find the rightful owner.

The discharge papers were for John Millman, a sapper or trained soldier in the engineers in World War 1.

The medals belonged to his son John David and Wintemute’s father. David was a flight sergeant with the Royal Canadian Airforce. David’s bomber was shot down on July 29, 1944 and he was interned in a P.O.W. camp until being liberated at the end of the war.

Wintemute said his father never talked about his time as a P.O.W. and he stopped wearing his uniform to Remembrance Day ceremonies because the attention became overwhelming. John David passed away in 2008 in Vancouver.

Now that his father’s medals have been returned, Wintemute said he’s now trying to figure out who to pass them down to.

Among the people to help identify the rightful owners of the paper and medals was Keith Boehmer, military history interpreter at the Okanagan Military Museum.

Boehmer told Kelowna10 the medal set includes the France/Germany star, Defense Medal, the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal with a bar for at least 60 days overseas, and the 1939-1945 War Medal.

He recommends any family who inherit a relative’s war medallions should make a framed shadow box containing them and a short biography detailing the soldier’s service in order to preserve the legacy.