Vera Formosa (nee Cosaitis) - who is aged 88 - was in for a pleasant and completely unexpected surprise when she turned up at her local post office in British Columbia to collect a package awaiting her.

It turned out that the mysterious package was an Arctic Star medal, a campaign medal awarded by the United Kingdom and bestowed upon those who had served above the Arctic Circle in World War II.

Mrs Formosa, a native of Malta who now lives in Powell River, British Columbia in Canada, told local newspaper The Powell River Peak that when she brought the curiously small package home: "I opened it and I saw this. I was in tears, I thought it was for my husband."

Joseph Formosa, her husband, was a veteran of World War II and so was her father. Her father had also served in World War I.

"I got home and I was still in a daze and I turned the box over and there was my father's name," she said. She discovered that she had been sent her father's Arctic Star medal, 74 years after he lost his life when the HMS Glorious was sunk by German warships in the frigid water off the Norwegian coast.

Mr Cosaitis was one of 40 Maltese sailors on board, and one of 1,200 men who perished in the disaster.

"He only had six more months and he was finished with the navy," said Mrs Formosa. Her father was 43 when he died, she said. She was only 13 when she heard the news that HMS Glorious had been sunk, but her father's fate was not made clear.

"We didn't get any letter that they had been all killed for a long time," she said. Years later, she found out that only two sailors had survived the attack.

Mrs Formosa's son, Tony, was visiting his family in Malta a few years ago when he heard about the award, so he applied for it for his grandfather, she said.

It is a retrospective award, coming almost 70 years after the war ended. It was announced in late-2012 and approved by Queen Elizabeth II.

Mrs Formosa was born in Valletta and after her marriage lived in Birkirkara. In 1960 her family of five had emigrated to Canada, and eventually settled in Powell River.

 

Cap: Vera Formosa was surprised to receive a small parcel from the United Kingdom containing a World War II medal honouring her father who died in the war. Photograph Chris Bolster/Powell River Peak