Orders, Decorations and Medals

Seven: Petty Officer R. H. Miller, Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Burma Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oakleaf; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J.107444 A.B., H.M.S. Drake) contact marks

Victory Medal 1914-19 (2) (57657 Pte. V. G. Gibson, Worc. R.; 52828 Pte. J. H. Holmes, W. York. R.) last lacking suspension ring; Memorial Plaque (Sidney John White) nearly very fine and better (10) £90-110

M.I.D. London Gazette 13 October 1942. As a Petty Officer aboard the minelayer Abdiel, for service in the Mediterranean from April 1941.

M.I.D. London Gazette 14 December 1943. As a Petty Officer aboard the minelayer Abdiel, when the ship was mined and sunk off Taranto on 10 September 1943.

The Abdiel, commanded by Captain D. Orr-Ewing, D.S.O., was sunk by mines off Taranto on 10 September 1943, two days after the Italian capitulation. The vessel was being used as a fast transport employed in ferrying men of the British 1st Airborne Division (6th Royal Welsh Battalion) to the Italian mainland. The ground mines had just been laid a few hours earlier by two German torpedo boats as they vacated the harbour of their former ally. Shortly after midnight, two mines detonated beneath Abdiel and the minelayer sank in just three minutes with great loss of life amongst both soldiers and sailors. The Airborne Division lost 58 killed with some 150 injured; the Royal Navy lost six officers and 42 ratings killed. There was a suggestion that the ship’s degaussing equipment had been turned off to allow troops below decks to sleep better with less noise.