Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An Italian Somaliland campaign M.M. awarded to Private H. R. Stiger, Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Rifles

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (107514 Pte. H. R. Stiger, D.E.O.R.) edge bruising, otherwise very fine £1000-1200

M.M. London Gazette 21 October 1941.

Private Herbert Robert Stiger was born on 17 June 1920, and attested for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Rifles on 20 May 1940. He won the M.M. for gallantry during the taking of Gobwen and Kisamyu on the Juba River in Italian Somaliland on 14 February 1941, when the ‘Dukes’ formed part of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade,12th African Division. Private Stiger’s bravery in this action is described in South African Firces in World War II by Neil Orpen (Vol. 1, p. 187) and in Springbok Victory by Carel Birkby (p. 143) from which the following extract is taken:

‘Two companies of the “Dukes” had to storm across the open landing ground. The peaceful-looking field became an inferno. It was directly overlooked by a ridge on the other side of the river, where enemy machine-gun nests and mortar posts bristled. The enemy artillery had plotted every part of that area, too, and shells came over not in ones and twos but in dozens. The “Dukes” went on through bursting shells and mortar bombs with the whistle of bullets in their ears. Men began to fall. Individual “Dukes” showed great heroism in getting wounded comrades to safety. Often the rescuers themselves were wounded men. A dozen decorations were earned that day by men whose gallantry was not noticed in the heat of battle. But a typical performance which won the M.M. was that of a young private from Cape Town, Vivian Alroy Brand, brother of Gerry Brand, the famous Sprongbok rugby footballer.

Brand volunteered to drive an open truck up to the landing ground to bring in wounded who could not walk, and in three separate trips under shell fire and machine-guns he brought back 12 men who would not otherwise have reached cover. Another M.M. was awarded to Private H. R. Stiger, a platoon runner, who, though wounded in the face early in the action, refused to retire and insisted on delivering important orders to various sections. When he had done this, he helped other wounded men to temporary cover, refused transport for himself to the regimental aid post and, when he finally got there, refused to have his own wound dressed until the wounded men he had helped had been treated.’

Stiger had his shrapnel wounds treated in hospital, where he remained for six days. He returned to Durban in November 1941 and was discharged as medically unfit on 4 September 1944.