For more than 90 years his family cherished the four medals awarded posthumously to him in recognition of his service to King and Country.

Now a mean-minded raider who stripped the household possessions from the home of his now elderly relatives in Pudsey Road, Armley, have also taken his cherished gongs.

The loss of the medals, including star-shaped and round general service medals bearing Gunner Dennison's name, has badly hit his granddaughter, Annie Smith, and her husband, Jack, both now aged in their 70s.

The burglars got into their house through a front door while the couple were out sometime between 9.30pm and 11.50pm on St George's Day – Wednesday, April 23.

Mrs Smith, named after her mother and grandmother, said she believed that her grandfather was killed near Passchendale, in Belgium, on June 2, 1917, shortly before the third Battle of Ypres.

"I believe my grandfather was blown to bits. There is no grave we can go to visit, we have no photographs of him and the medals were our only mementos," she said.

"He is remembered on a large battlefield war memorial which has two large lions. The medals had great sentimental value to us and, unlike the other things stolen, are irreplaceable.

"There were two star medals, a gold-coloured medal and a silver-coloured medal," she added.

Her grandfather came from the Kirkstall area of Leeds where he lived with his wife Annie and worked in munitions production at Kirkstall Forge in the early part of the war.

After being in his "reserved occupation" for some time, he joined up and was placed in the Royal Artillery as a gunner on the Western Front.

He was aged about 26 when he was killed while serving in the 57th Division Ammunition Column.

He is named on the Ploegsteert Memorial in Belgium.

PC Rob Willis of Pudsey CID said they would like to speak to anyone who had information about the crime or who had been offered the items for sale, as the medals in particular would be distinctive.

He said: "The medals are engraved with the name 'Ernest Dennison', the star-shaped medal on the rear and the round medal on the side."
Other items taken in the burglary include: a 42in Sony TV, bank cards, a Caterpillar watch, power tools, a vehicle key, a mobile phone and a DVD player.

* Call PC Rob Willis on (0113) 2414847 or email: rw762@westyorkshire.pnn.police.uk