A chance garage sale purchase has brought together two of the four awards made posthumously to Victoria Cross recipient and Battle of Lone Pine hero Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton at the Australian War Memorial.
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John Baker, who stumbled across Cpl Burton's Victory Medal while browsing at a garage sale, joined the VC winner's descendants in Canberra on Friday to present the bronze and copper disc to AWM director Brendan Nelson.
Cpl Burton's VC has been a part of the collection for many years.
The whereabouts of his two other medals, a 1914-1915 Star and British War Medal are still unknown.
Often referred to as ''Pip, Squeak and Wilfred'', Cpl Burton's three lesser medals were essentially attendance awards acknowledging a soldier's service during ''The Great War for Civilisation''.
An estimated 6.4 million Victory Medals were awarded to British Empire troops after WWI. What sets this one apart is its association with Cpl Burton, a storekeeper's son from Euroa in Victoria, who died aged 22 under a hail of Turkish grenades while trying to protect his mates.
Cpl Burton was one of three Diggers awarded the VC for their actions in defence of Goldenstedt's Post at Lone Pine on August 9, 1915 - just over 98 years ago.
The other Lone Pine VCs were awarded to Corporal William Dunstan, of Ballarat, who survived to become a senior manager at the Herald and Weekly Times, and Lieutenant Frederick Tubb, also from Euroa. Lt Tubb, who survived Lone Pine and was promoted to major, was killed in Belgium in 1916.
Euroa has produced more VC winners than any other town in Australia. Lieutenant Leslie Maygar was awarded his for rescuing a mate under heavy fire during the Boer War in 1901. He, like Cpl Burton and Lt Tubb, was killed in WWI.
Andrew Burton, Cpl Burton's great great nephew, said he hoped publicity surrounding the Victory Medal donation would focus fresh attention on Euroa's ambitious attempt to honour its three most gallant sons. Plans are afoot to erect three life-sized bronze statues at a cost of between $350,000 and $400,000. Funding is proving hard to find however.
Andrew Burton and other members of the family still operate the former Euroa general store, now a supermarket, where Cpl Burton worked before enlisting on August 18, 1914.
Cpl Burton's elder brother, Claude, had taken the business over after the war and rarely spoke of his lost sibling.
Andrew Burton's mother, Marjorie, was Claude's daughter-in-law. She said the discovery of the Victory Medal had come as a ''great surprise'' and thanked Mr Baker for his generosity in tracking down the family and allowing the award to be donated to the AWM.
She believes her father-in-law never fully got over the death of his brother and that the Victoria Cross did not make up for the family's loss.
''Claude was the oldest of the brothers. The two had always been close and I believe he was always thinking of him [Alexander]. The death would have left a big gap in the family.''
