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Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:44 pm
by nreese
To carry on from the previous story, I was walking around with our guide when I noticed he had a WW2 dog tag around his neck. When we'd finished our tour I asked him about the dog tag. He said that lots of guys have them - they find them when digging their gardens. I said that I would be interested in buying one, so my guide ended up selling me the one from around his neck - obviously no emotional attachment to it. I had a bit of a talk with him about telling people to mark the spot where they have found the dog tag, and that it would be worth a lot more to them (they understood the tourism implication) if they could show somewhere where they exactly found the dog tag (our guide said that they even found bones sometimes).

To cut a long story short, I got home to Australia and jumped on the Internet. I found a genealogy society in the county of the next of kin address on the dog tag. I contacted Mark who ran the site and he got back to me within an hour that the owner of the dog tag had since moved to a town in Florida. I looked up one of the Florida online phone books and found reference to the dog tag owner, and a relative - with address. I then found a county building application with the dog tag owners name on it, with his corresponding address. By this time Mark had rung up the dog tag owner and talked to his daughter, with whom he lived. The dog tag owner is 93, and still very much alive in Florida, and was very excited to here about his dog tag. I'll be sending it this week. The power of the Internet - find a dog tag in Munda and track down it's owner within 24 hours.

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 5:42 pm
by nreese
Sorry about the spelling mistakes - how do I edit a post??

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:02 pm
by whitesharkseeker
Incredible story! Can you follow-up with the veteran's story, unit, experiences, etc?

Thanks for the good post, Eric

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:37 pm
by nreese
I sent the dog tag and asked the owner to send me the story behind it. Nothing back yet, but I'm glad the guy got his dogtag back. I have another one but have been unable to track the owner.

I am moving over permanently to Munda in the next two months, so hope to track down a lot more dogtags and other gear. If anyone is heading to Munda and is interested in the war history, don't hesitate to contact me: nicholas.reese2 at gmail.com , or just turn up in Munda and ask around for Nick, the tall Aussie guy (everyone will know who I am and where I live after about two weeks of living there). I have been reading as much of the Munda war history as possible and hope to be able to piece together the places, events and dates. Now, if I can just find where those planes are buried under the Munda airstrip... :-)

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 12:45 am
by PBR Streetgang
Great effort on your part. Fantastic photos from Munda. I hope we will be treated with more pictures in the neat future.

All the best
Dan

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 3:57 am
by connect iphone
Great effort on your part. Fantastic photos from Munda. I hope we will be treated with more pictures in the neat future.

All the best
Dan

Re: Munda - The Dog Tag

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:19 am
by Andy in West Oz
Very well done, Nick.

I hope you can do something about the bones being dug up on occasion (assuming they are human of course). Hotline to JPAC? :-)