ABOVE: The medals of Charles McNaughton will be returned to his family. Photos: Contributed
Susanna Freymark
For years, Sue Woolaston has been looking for the family of Charles McNaughton to give them his war medals.
For years, she posted on Facebook pages connected to Lismore, Kyogle and Casino, hoping someone would know something.
No one replied.
Charles McNaughton was born in Lismore in 1912.
Sue’s mother and grandmother grew up in Kyogle.
“My grandmother ran a boarding house,” Sue said.
She thinks Charles used the boarding house address when he went off to war.
When he was issued the medals, they were sent to the boarding house.
Last night, Sue was going through the papers she had of Charles’s service record.
“There was a letter from his sister saying the medals never arrived,” Sue said.
The letter was dated 1985.
That prompted Sue to try again on Facebook, hoping this time, someone from the King family would contact her.
Sue lives near Maitland and she wrote a post on the page Good old days in and around Casino.
“I am looking for Mrs F M King or relative – 5 Clarence Street, Casino? She requested her brother’s medals years ago however was told they had already been issued. I believe I have some of them.”
Luckily Janelle Gilbert from Casino saw the post and replied: “I am Mrs F King’s daughter, Janelle. I have sent you a PM.”
Sue was thrilled.
“I’m so excited to track down the family,” she said.
“I’m thrilled and will post them or come up and deliver them.”
Sue continues to seek more information about her own family.
Her uncle was a Rat of Tobruk.
“I’ve got his medals,” she said but she wants information about his military history.
Sue’s daughter, Megan James, used 5000 bullets to create a portrait of her great uncle Robert John Lincoln NX28882 – a Rat of Tobruk – for an artwork at school.
The Rats of Tobruk were soldiers of the Australian-led garrison that held the Libyan port of Tobruk against Erwin Rommel’s feared Afrika Korps during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II.
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