Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War Sidi Rezegh operations M.M. group of six awarded to Rifleman R. Bridger, Rifle Brigade: the ferocious battle for Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 resulted in the award of four V.Cs

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (6912537 Rfmn. R. Bridger, Rif. Brig.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals good very fine or better (6) £1000-1200

M.M. London Gazette 9 September 1942. The recommendation states:

‘For consistent courage and good work throughout the period and in particular on 22 November 1941 when the Carrier Platoon of his Company attacked an enemy position south of Sidi Rezegh aerodrome. When a carrier was disabled by Breda fire from close range, this Rifleman went forward in a 15 cwt. truck and despite heavy small arms fire at 500 yards range succeeded in towing the carrier to safety. Later on 22 November 1941 on Sidi Rezegh aerodrome they again went forward in a 15 cwt. truck under fire from a force of 75 enemy tanks and rescued the crew of a crusader tank, which had been disabled by enemy fire.’

Many accounts have been written of the protracted and vicious engagements that were fought out on Sidi Rezegh in November 1941, not least from a regimental viewpoint. Indeed the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade runs to many pages for the crucial dates of 21-22 November, when its Riflemen had to face countless enemy assaults, determined assaults that on occasion had the backing of 100 or more tanks (relevant photocopies accompany the Lot). Inevitably, such bloody encounters left behind unforgettable scenes of destruction, a battle-scarred desert landscape best described by C. E. Lucas Phillips in his Victoria Cross Battles of the Second World War:

‘In the November gloom that last scene, as the rear-guard guns slipped out of the action, was one to inspire awe in all beholders, as indeed its relics were to do for years to come. The hundreds of dead bodies, the flames of burning vehicles and ammunition, the twisted wreckage of guns, the still smouldering ambulances bombed by the German aircraft, the bullet-riddled trucks, the crushed German aircraft, the blackened hulks of British and enemy tanks, with their turrets, tracks and guns ripped off in scrap-heaps of mangled steel, and the roasted corpses hanging out of their turrets gave to that harsh desert the air of desolation, yet, to those who had eyes to see, it told also of innumerable acts of unrecorded heroism. Significantly, it told also of the destruction already of some 85 German tanks.’