An exceptional immediate award M.M. to Guerilla Platoon Havildar Sher Dil, 1st Punjabis, for the Tiddim Road in Burma

MILITARY MEDAL, G.VI.R. (13220 Hav., Punjab R.) contact marks and suspender slightly bent, otherwise nearly very fine

M.M., London Gazette, 22nd March, 1945: 'In recognition of gallant and distinguished services in Burma.' The following information was extracted from official sources: ‘On 1st October, 1944, during the operations in Sialum Vum in the Tiddim area, Havildar Sher Dil, Guerilla Platoon Havildar, was ordered to pin point, if possible, an enemy L.M.G. position. This he did by crawling to within a short distance of the post, near which he also saw a sentry, and returning without being seen. Selecting a suitable tree about 150 yards away, he took position in it and with his first shot accounted for the sentry. Almost immediately the enemy opened up with L.M.G. and grenade discharger fire, but, nothing daunted, this fearless N.C.O. sniped four other Japs before returning to his platoon.’

Havildar Sher Dil, a Tamali from the village of Kirkpilion in the district of Hazara, was serving in the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Punjab Regiment at the time of the M.M. incident. It had been dug in for nearly 4 weeks, 350 yards in front of the Japanese front line on Sialum Vum, a feature which needed to be captured prior to the storming of the main objective, Kennedy Peak. Due to poor weather conditions, however, air supply operations had to be postponed and for nearly a week the men of the 1st Punjabis survived on half rations. Finally, towards the end of the month the climate improved and an attack was launched on Sialum Vum. During the course of this assault, which Sher Dil and the Guerilla Platoon most certainly witnessed, a fellow 1st Punjabi, Subedar Ram Sarup Singh, won a superb posthumous V.C.It is also interesting to note that Subedar Mohammed Afsar, leader of the Guerilla Platoon, received the M.C. Among other activities, his decoration reflected 'fifteen long-distance patrols under the worst possible weather conditions and over most difficult country', facts, no doubt, not lost on Sher Dil, his courageous sniper.57 M.M.'s to the 1st Punjab Regiment, 1939-45.