Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War North Africa operations M.M. group of five awarded to Private W. Wilson, West Yorkshire Regiment, who was decorated for gallant deeds on Ruweisat Ridge in July 1942 – and killed in action in the following month

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (4532717 Pte. W. Wilson, W. York. R.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals, extremely fine (5) £1200-1500

M.M. London Gazette 24 September 1942. The original recommendation states:

‘For devotion to duty in operations on the Ruweisat Ridge on 18-19 July 1942. Private Wilson, in the latter stages of the attack, was the last stretcher bearer left with the forward companies, and made no attempt to seek cover with the rest of the men when the advance was completed, but continued to carry out his duties with great thoroughness. One particular act of the highest order was to evacuate a wounded man whilst under particularly accurate fire from several enemy snipers. His courage and resource throughout the action was exceptional.’

William Wilson was serving in the 2nd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment at the time of the above cited deeds, operations relative to the closing stages of the battle of Gazala.

Ruweisat Ridge, a rocky and austere outcrop 200 feet above sea-level, cut across the extensive minefields that lay due south of El Alamein, and was the scene of much bitter fighting during July 1942:

‘Most important were the savage battles to secure possession of Ruweisat Ridge, on whose rocky crest the shells burst with vicious detonations and in which the infantrymen could find no relief from their persecution. The New Zealanders, the Indians and their British Battalions stormed and won but could not hold, stormed again and won but little. The ridge and its flanks became littered with the corpses of both sides and the feeding ground from myriads of flies … By the end of the month both sides were exhausted, having fought each other to a standstill and leaving the sandy wastes and the rocky elevations littered with smashed vehicles, black tangles of unrecognizable wreckage, broken weapons, scraps of clothing and equipment and scarred with the shapes of shattered tanks, their inner walls coated with a plaster of human flesh or their open turrets exhibiting, half-extruded, the roasted bodies of their crews … ’ (El Alamein, by C. E. Lucas Phillips, refers).

Wilson, the husband of Dorothy Wilson of Hull, was killed in action on 7 August 1942, aged 42 years, and is buried in a collective grave in the El Alamein War Cemetery.