Correction: missing paragraphs (05/23/04)

Correction: missing paragraphs

Due to a technical error involving layout of last week's issue (May 16), the story headlined "Historic medal awarded to Filip Konowal is found" was missing its last section.

Below is the missing section, beginning with the paragraph that was truncated in last week's issue (and which should have jumped to page 11).

The day after he returned to Canada leading a peace parade through Ottawa's streets on July 20, 1919, Konowal got caught up in a dispute involving two Ukrainian Canadians in Hull, a city in Quebec now known as Gatineau that is located across the river from Ottawa.

According to Dr. Luciuk, Konowal came to the aid of a friend who was being attacked by a man allegedly involved in bootlegging. "The attacker barricaded himself inside a house. Konowal grabbed a knife from the restaurant next door and went up to the door of the house and tried to get in. He shoved the knife through the door and killed the guy," related Dr. Luciuk. "Konowal dropped the knife on the ground and stood there until the police came."

Konowal spent six years in a Montreal asylum on grounds of insanity attributed to a head wound he sustained during the war. Following his release, he worked as a janitor on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. His heroism remained largely anonymous, though the prime minister at the time, Mackenzie King, was aware of the VC winner in his midst and had him transferred to work for him as a special custodian.

Konowal - who by then had remarried a widow, Juliette Leduc-Auger - died in Ottawa in 1959 at the age of 72.

Dr. Luciuk hopes that once authenticated, the Victoria Cross that went AWOL will be on permanent public display at the new War Museum, which is scheduled to open in May 2005 so that "all Canadians can learn about the sacrifices of people like Konowal."

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