Gloom easing on 'very dark cloud'

Raymond Seymour has struggled with distress and ill health since the medal thefts. Photo / Alan Gibson

"It's been a difficult year," retired Colonel Raymond Seymour says. "But there have been some high points in it."

A little over a year ago, the Waiouru Army Museum director got a call in the early hours to say thieves had smashed their way into the building he refers to as "the home of the nation's taonga [treasures]".

Those responsible for the night-time raid had gone to the heart of that sacred space, stealing 96 medals belonging to the country's greatest war heroes from the museum's Valour Alcove.

For the next 2 months, Colonel Seymour was distraught, unable to sleep as long as the medals were missing.

Even now, he is still able to recite the moment they were snatched: "1.10am on December 2, 2007".

Relief came on February 15 when police told Colonel Seymour they had recovered the collection, which included nine Victoria Crosses belonging to the likes of Charles Upham, Keith Elliott and Clive Hulme.

But he was still angry the thieves had not been caught and was anxious for the medals to be returned to "their rightful home".

Then, driving back from work one evening, he felt an excruciating pain in his belly, and collapsed.

He was rushed to hospital, where doctors found a tumour in his pancreas and ordered the 61-year-old to go home and, in his words, "get my affairs in order".

The tumour has since shrunk and Colonel Seymour is feeling "95 per cent", determined he will not be beaten by cancer - the same disease that killed his first wife and left his son fighting for his life.

He was also relieved in October to learn of the arrest of two men for allegedly stealing the war medals, and then, a few days later, to see the irreplaceable collection restored to the museum.

Families of the medal recipients were among those who attended a "marvellous" ceremony on October 21, and Colonel Seymour said the emotion of the occasion, which involved young Army recruits forming a guard of honour, was overwhelming.

He has also watched with joy as thousands of visitors have flocked through the doors of the newly secure museum to view the medals since.

"There has been a silver lining of this very, very dark cloud," he said.

Colonel Seymour expects the crowds to swell during the summer holidays, and hopes visitors will take the time to look at other exhibitions, particularly a new one focused on New Zealand soldiers in World War I.

The Last 100 Days: Victory and Home exhibition takes visitors through a wood-lined trench while a smell mimicking mustard gas fills the air.

Colonel Seymour said the courageous deeds of World War I soldiers had been overlooked and the exhibition was designed to raise awareness of how those New Zealanders helped to bring about the war's end.

Dressed in his uniform with his own set of eight medals, the Vietnam and Malaya veteran said he was still angry at the "despicable act" of those who plundered the Valour Alcove, but had always been confident of arrests because the country's four million people were also horrified.

"I'll be angry for the rest of my life but it will dissipate as new milestones are met," he said.

The two suspects, whose identities are suppressed, are due back in court on January 12.