Selling Personal Collections

[Ed Storey]

I just read in the Spring Edition No. 260 of the MCCofC Journal that Canadian VC receipt Filip Konowal (47th Battalion CEF) was stripped of his VC in the late 1920s following a conviction and being admitted to a mental institution for murder. According to the Journal article, after his release in 1938, he became a drifter and it was only when this was reported in Liberty Magazine that PM Mackenzie King had his VC reinstated. He was hired to work at the House of Commons were he remained until his death in 1959.

I guess King George V's written statement in a letter to Lord Stamfordham in July 1920 that "No matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC recipient to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his medal on the scaffold,” had not been heard in Canada.