‘Weary Dunlop’s’ family posts $12,000 reward for stolen medals

The granddaughter of Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop has offered a cash reward for the safe return of the military heroes stolen items.

Medals stolen from a Dunlop family home in Melbourne.

The family of Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop has posted a $12,000 reward for the safe return of the medals and love letters which were stolen from his granddaughter’s Melbourne home last week.

Dunlop, an Australian surgeon, is one of the country’s most famous World War II veterans, renowned for saving the lives of hundreds of fellow inmates kept captive in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.

Thieves made off with a 250kg safe containing Dunlop’s war medals and a briefcase containing his correspondence when they broke into the Toorak home of his granddaughter, Diana Dunlop.

Ms Dunlop has since announced the generous reward, which would be paid from her personal savings, in the hope that the items will be returned to her family.

“Members of the public can confidentially email [e-mail] in relation to the medals’ whereabouts,” she told the Herald Sun.

The medals were awarded to Dunlop, who died in 1993, for service in a number of countries during World War II, while the briefcase contained hundreds of love letters exchanged with his wife, Helen Ferguson, before they were married.

“It’s obviously devastating to have your home completely ransacked and have all these sorts of material things taken,” Ms Dunlop told the ABC last week.

“But for me, I only care about my grandfather’s medals, and my granny’s love letters to him when he was in the war.

“I could not care less about the monetary value of the things I have lost, but I am solely focused on recovering the medals.”

Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop.

She said the thieves would be “sorely disappointed” with the contents of the safe, urging them to anonymously return the items.

“I just want to stress the fact that these medals to the thieves aren’t worth any financial value,” Ms Dunlop said.

The home in Melbourne’s inner southeast is understood to have been broken into between 7.30pm on Sunday, December 18 and 11pm on Monday, December 19.

Senior Constable Matthew Kirby said the items in the safe were “quite priceless and sentimental” to Dunlop’s distraught family.

Sir Edward’s grandson, also named Edward Dunlop, said the family was shocked by the theft of the treasured items.

“They were pretty valuable, a lot of history has been lost,” he said.

Sir Edward’s daughter-in-law, Aurelia Dunlop, said Sir Edward wrote the love letters to his future wife while a Japanese prisoner of war.

“It’s devastating, it’s been a nightmare,” she said.

“I just can’t believe that people would do this.”

Dunlop was born in Wangaratta, Victoria, and went on to study medicine at the University of Melbourne. He enlisted in 1939 when World War II broke out and was eventually transferred to ­Indonesia in 1942 before the ­island fell to the Japanese.

He was then sent to Thailand in 1943 when he became one of the 60,000 prisoners forced to work on the construction of the Burma Railway in abominable conditions.

However, Dunlop laboured tirelessly to save wounded, sick and malnourished men by treating their illnesses and injuries however he could.

He was named Australian of the Year in 1977.