KERRY STOKES: AUSTRALIAN BUYER OF VICTORIA CROSS MEDALS

"Dasher" Wheatley was a tough working class lad who played football bravely — hence his nickname — and liked a laugh and a drink. "A crazy bastard — you could hit him with a hammer and not hurt him," one of his old army mates says.

Wheatley was fearless. The face that stares out of photographs oozes the nonchalant confidence of a bull terrier. His wife Edna was widowed at 26 by an act of suicidal bravery.

It happened in the Tra Bong Valley in Vietnam on 13 November 1965. Called on to retreat to safety, "Dasher" refused, staying with his wounded mate, Ron "Butch" Swanton.

A medic bandaged the dying Swanton and begged Wheatley to escape. Wheatley carried his mate to some trees and refused to abandon him.

The last thing the medic saw Wheatley do was to prime two grenades and wait, one in each hand, for certain death.

Wheatley was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. For years, the medal went to school with the kids on Anzac Days. But Edna had a dilemma. Would the piece of precious metal eventually be left to George, as the eldest, or should it be sold to benefit them all?

Edna had been left worse than poor. Anti-war protesters had persecuted her as the wife of a "baby killer". They heckled her and daubed hate slogans in red paint on the fence of her house, west of Sydney. She moved down the coast to raise her kids in anonymity.

By 1993, money mattered more than having a medal in a drawer.

She put the medal up for auction. It was the first Australian VC for sale in years. She faced ugly accusations she was "selling out" her husband’s bravery.

The RSL led the chorus. Alarmed that a foreign collector might buy it, the league asked every Australian serviceman and woman to donate, a drive that raised some $60,000. It was then that Stokes offered to "top up" the price to keep the medal in Australia.

The medal went for $160,000. It was reported "a businessman" had donated the $100,000 to meet the price but his identity soon leaked.

It was the start of Stokes’s interest in buying VCs. He would later buy another six over several years, some for massive sums. He gave them all to the Australian War Memorial.

He doesn’t talk about the cost of individual medals. He says that each, having been earned by blood and bravery, is worth as much as another. The truth is he has spent millions on the medals – and on the memorial.

Stokes shrugs it off. "I’m lucky enough to be able to do what most Australians would do if they could," he says.

To read the complete article, see:
Kerry Stokes is the tycoon with a heart who collects Diggers’ medals — only to give them away (www.heraldsun.com.au/news/kerry-stokes-is-the-tycoon-with-a-heart-who-collects-diggers-medals-only-to-give-them-away/story-fni0fiyv-1227094253814)

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