A MILITARY medal has been reunited with its owner thanks to help from Echo readers.

Many readers got in touch after reading about the missing medal and its rightful owner had been identified.

The owner has now been identified as Weymouth man George Willis.

This was after resident Phil Young had set about trying to reunite the medal with is owner after his friend Jackie Marshall found it following Veterans and Armed Forces Day celebrations in Weymouth.

Mr Young met up with Mr Willis, to hand over the medal and also so he could thank him for helping him to get it back.

Mr Young, a former chef in the Navy, understands how precious these medals are and was delighted with how quickly medal and owner were brought back together.

He said: “Of course we are very happy. I was just working it out and it took less than four days since he lost it.

“Since it was in the paper, they’ve seen it and within hours it’s been sorted and that’s really good.”

Mr Young wanted to extend his thanks to everyone who helped reunite Mr Willis with his medal.

“I just want to thank everyone who helped us reunite him with the medal.”

A friend of Phil Young’s found the medal in the Swannery Car Park and he then set about trying to find its owner.

Mr Willis' daughter then got in touch with the Echo after a friend rang her to ask if her dad was missing any of his medals.

It was only then that Mr Willis realised that the medal was missing from the pocket where he had put it after the parade.

He said that without the call he may not have noticed until the next time he wore his medal, probably a funeral or Remembrance Day in November.

Mr Willis was very grateful to the help of Mr Young but also everyone who came forward to try and help him get his medal back.

He said: “I’m pleased and happy somebody got it.

“I want to thank everyone who tried to help me get it back. All the associations, they all tried to help me get it back.

“It’s very valuable. I’m very grateful I found it, I really am. I wear it all the time when I go to the parades.”

The medal is a General Service Medal that was awarded to Mr Willis for his time serving in the Malay Peninsula campaign in the 1960s.