Sir Ed certainly deserves a State funeral, but let’s hope that it is a simple affair, free from bluff, bluster and meaningless rhetoric. He, thankfully, was immune to all that puff and nonsense.

Woe betide any powerful part-time mountain climber or greasy political pole artist who attempts to curry public favour through the funeral rites. We had a gutsful of that with the late Sir Peter Blake and the “unknown soldier” rituals.

Some of those who will heap fulsome praise on Sir Ed are blatant bandwagon riders whose talents do not include his positive “can do, so let’s get on with it” outlook, which many of us believe neatly encapsulated the national spirit. (One of the most ludicrous examples of name-dropping was when President Bill Clinton claimed that his wife was named after Sir Ed. Hillary Clinton was born on 26 October 1947 and Ed Hillary became famous for climbing Everest on 29 May 1953. This meant that either Hillary Clinton had no name from 1947 to 1953, or her parents named her in 1947 after some obscure New Zealand beekeeper.)

Edmund Hillary would have had no truck with hypocrites. He was a plain but quietly great man who avoided false folks and instead put a huge amount of his time into helping the simple poor. It’s right that the nation honours him with a State funeral, but that might not have been his personal choice…

Nevertheless, we’ll all fondly remember the amazing Sir Ed, whose era we were privileged to experience – he was a true and original Kiwi hero.

It’s just a shame that we don’t seem to be breeding people like him any more, even though we face new and entirely different mountains to climb.

But oh, how are the mighty fallen in 2007. Penetrating the hitherto-thought-impregnable fortress of Waiouru’s military museum, thieves have liberated more than 100 medals from under the noses of State-trained professional killers. The gongs include Upham’s Victoria Cross and Bar.

He must be stirring in his grave, wondering: Is this the same country I fought for, and almost died for?

Acknowledged widely as the outstanding soldier of the Second World War, Upham remains the only combatant soldier to have received the VC and Bar (awarded to members of the armed forces of the Commonwealth for exceptional bravery). That’s two VCs.

In Crete in May 1941, and the Western Desert in July 1942, he distinguished himself with displays of ‘nerveless competence’.

Upham’s first citation was for nine days of skill, leadership and heroism. In March 1941, he was a Second Lieutenant in the 20th NZ Battalion in Crete. His display of courage included destroying many enemy posts; rescuing a wounded man under fire; penetrating deep behind enemy lines and killing 22 German soldiers on the way to leading out an isolated platoon. This was after being blown over by a mortar shell, and with a shrapnel wound in his shoulder and a bullet in his foot.

Upham’s second citation was for his part in the July 1942 attack on Ruweisat Ridge, Egypt, where the New Zealand Division was stranded after promised armoured support failed to arrive. As Allied forces struggled to hold the line, Upham led his company on what was described as a savage attack on German and Italian strongpoints. He destroyed a German tank and several guns and vehicles with hand grenades and, though he was shot through the elbow with a machine gun bullet and had his arm shattered, he went on to a forward position and brought back a number of comrades who had become isolated.

Immediately after his wounds had been dressed, he returned to the action. He consolidated and held his position and despite exhaustion, loss of blood and further injuries, stayed with the only six remaining members until, unable to move, he was overrun by the enemy and captured.

Fast forward to December 2 2007, when thieves snatch Upham’s priceless medals from a glass case at Waiouru’s army museum, along with other VCs, George Crosses, an Albert Medal and various pieces of valuable metalwork.

Police are poring over CCTV recordings – but it could turn out that some squaddy forgot to leave the museum lights on, so the cops might be working in the dark.

Apparently, security personnel got to the museum within three or four minutes of the alarm sounding in the early hours of Sunday morning.

But what happened then? Not much, it seems. There is only one road into the base, the museum is virtually on State Highway 1 and there are only three lonely highway routes out of the area, all of them easily blockable. They weren’t blocked. And this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill house burglary, covered by that smiling insurance company.

It might have been an inside job, for ransom. On the other hand, the raiders might at this very moment be silently un-mothballing a Skyhawk at Ohakea air museum, to mount a dramatic airborne escape, just like James Garner and Donald Pleasance did in that great movie. Or perhaps they fled on ancient, camouflaged BMW motorbikes across the Rangipo desert, unpursued by the Wehrmacht or SS, in the stirring style of Steve McQueen.

No doubt, there’ll be a few Nazis grinning in their coffins… with security like this, a Hitler victory would have been a walk in the park, and today we’d all be talking German. Now, officials are talking about a “gradual, progressive improvement” in security at Waiouru. Back in the 1940s, any guard who let the likes of Upham slip out of Colditz would have been taken out and shot.

Immediately.

Not gradually or progressively.

The Minister of Defence deserves a month in solitary, polishing dustbins and trimming lawns with a nail-clipper, for gross dereliction of duty and absent-mindedness.

The people responsible for the daring theft of what amounts to New Zealand’s equivalent of the Crown Jewels deserve a medal for highlighting an appalling lack of protection for artefacts that are beyond any valuation.

Plus lots of Bars.