Special ceremony to celebrate recovery of Konowal's missing Victoria Cross (08/01/04)

Special ceremony to celebrate recovery of Konowal's missing Victoria Cross

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - This year's anniversary of Ukrainian independence will hold special significance for Ottawa's Ukrainian Canadian community. On August 23, a ceremony will be held to welcome home a rare military honor awarded to one of its most celebrated sons three decades after the medal went missing from the capital city's Canadian War Museum.

The museum announced in late June that it once again had possession of the Victoria Cross presented to the late Filip Konowal for extraordinary heroism displayed during World War I.

After conducting a more than two-month-long investigation to determine the medal's authenticity, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police returned Konowal's Victoria Cross to the museum, which purchased it in 1969. It is believed to be the first of 26 VCs the museum acquired for its collection, but it went missing about four years later.

The medal was not found until this past spring when it showed up at an auction house in the southwest Ontario city of London. Acting on information presented by both the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) and the museum, the RCMP seized the VC before its scheduled May 30 sale.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, the UCCLA's research director, who has spent the past decade publicizing the story of the greatest war hero in Ukrainian Canadian history, never thought he'd have the chance to see Konowal's medal. "It's like wow - I'm still kind of goose-bumpy about it. This is very good news. It's something just short of a miracle," he said.

But while one chapter in the medal's saga is closed, the story is far from over, said Dr. Luciuk, who teaches political geography at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. "Who took it? Was it theft or an honest mistake? All we know is that it wasn't misplaced inside the museum's collection," he noted.

Joe Geurts, director and chief executive officer of the Canadian War Museum, told The Weekly the VC was likely either removed from its case to be cleaned or to be photographed for an exhibit, but was never returned. He said that while the RCMP investigation has not led to any charges being filed, it also did not bring any more "clarity" as to how the medal disappeared.

"Basically, the museum kept waiting for it to appear because sometimes items slip into other collections or are placed on the wrong shelves," said Mr. Geurts, who also serves as chief operating officer of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corp, which runs the Canadian War Museum. "There was a hope, as we packed for the new museum and went through every box and every little case and behind every shelf, that potentially it might show up. We have almost half a million items in our collection," he explained.

However, Dr. Luciuk said he's been told that a limited number of employees had access to the Victoria Cross. It's believed the RCMP contacted some of these people during its investigation.

Dr. Luciuk said it wouldn't be difficult to contact each person, or next of kin in the event the employees have since died, and find out what happened to the medal. "I think it was stolen," said Dr. Luciuk. "Yet it's not a question of wanting to punish somebody or lay charges. I have no right to the medal, it's not like I'm family."

However, he said the UCCLA has asked the RCMP for a written copy of the findings from its investigation. Dr. Luciuk said that if the person who removed Konowal's VC from the museum's collection "would come clean, it would clarify an awful lot" and there would be no reason to take any further action. "It'd be nice to know what happened just because this is a unique medal."

So rare, in fact, that only 94 Canadians (70 of whom served during the first world war with Konowal being the sole Ukrainian Canadian) received the British Empire's highest medal for bravery that was instituted on February 5, 1856, and first awarded to heroes of the Crimean War.

Had it been successfully sold earlier this year, Konowal's Victoria Cross could have fetched as much as $240,000 (about $180,000 U.S.) at the sale run by Jeffrey Hoare Auctions Inc. in London, Ontario, which, according to Dr. Luciuk, acquired the medal from a coin dealer in that city who in turn paid next to nothing for it.

"A woman in her early 30s walked into the coin shop with the Konowal medal and other things in a box," explained Dr. Luciuk. "The dealer thought it was all fake and gave her a modest amount of money."

That's a different version of the story, according to an RCMP constable who told The London Free Press that the person who had put the medal up for auction had purchased it for "about $20 at a flea market."

Regardless of the circumstances that resulted in the medal ending up at an auction house, Konowal's VC is the real thing, said Mr. Geurts. A museum employee, along with two experts selected by the RCMP and another one brought in by the "party who had possession" of the medal, unanimously agreed on the VC's authenticity. He said that, while no "destructive testing" was carried out in which pieces of the medal would have been removed, it was compared with other VCs from the museum's collection.

"All Victoria Crosses are cast of bronze acquired from Russian cannons captured during the Crimean War," explained Mr. Geurts. Each medal also features the recipient's serial number, rank, name and unit engraved on the back of the suspension bar in which the ribbon fits, and the date of action appears on the back of the cross.

"It's the actual medal - I guarantee you that," said Mr. Geurts, who added that the VC is currently stored in a vault that requires three people to open it.

The forthcoming "recovery ceremony" for the medal, which is being organized by the museum, the UCCLA, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 360 (Konowal Branch) and others, will also coincide with the 87th anniversary of Konowal's wartime exploits.

Between August 22 and 24, 1917, the Ukrainian-born soldier single-handedly took out three German positions and killed at least 16 German soldiers during the battle for Hill 70 near Lens, France.

A member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force's 47th Infantry Battalion and holding the rank of corporal at the time, Konowal received the VC personally from King George V who called the Canadian's actions "one of the most daring and heroic in the history of my army."

Konowal also received the British War Medal, the Victory Medal, and as a surviving recipient of the VC, both the King George VI Coronation Medal in 1937 and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal in 1953.

Seriously wounded during the war, he spent his final years in Ottawa working as a special custodian to former Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Konowal died in 1959 at the age of 72.

Mr. Geurts said he was "ecstatic" that Canadians will be able to view the VC when the museum's new home opens during the second weekend of May 2005 as it celebrates its own 125th anniversary and marks the 60th anniversary of the conclusion of World War II in Europe.

Konowal's medal will be featured in the museum's First World War gallery in a section that will also look at the internment of thousands of Ukrainian Canadians the federal government considered "enemy aliens."

The fact that Konowal's prestigious military medal was recovered gives the story of its journey a happy ending, said Dr. Luciuk. "This prodigal medal has come back to its rightful owners - the people of Canada."

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