GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
1336
A fine Second World War battle of El Alamein and North Africa operations M.M. group of six awarded to Sergeant R.
Anderson, Royal Engineers - a member of 3rd (Cheshire) Field Squadron who lit the way forward for his troop on the
opening night of the battle
MILITARY MEDAL, G.VI.R. (1909714 L. Sjt. R. Anderson, R.E.); 1939-45 STAR; AFRICA STAR; ITALY STAR; DEFENCE AND WAR MEDALS
1939-45, M.I.D. oakleaf, the first with officially corrected number, generally extremely fine (6) £1000-1200
M.M. London Gazette 14 October 1943. The original recommendation - approved by Montgomery - states:
‘Lance-Sergeant Anderson was in charge of the party whose duty it was to light the gap made by his troop on 23-24 October 1942 at
Alamein, when the machine-gunning was at its highest. Lance-Sergeant Anderson went down the gap placing lamps on the pickets
although he lit himself up in doing so. The gap was marked perfectly and the tanks did not lose a moment in passing through.
Subsequently, he has done consistently good work clearing mines with forward troops over a long period.’
Mention in despatches London Gazette 29 November 1945.
Robert Anderson, who was from Brighton, Sussex, joined the Royal Engineers in February 1940. Advanced to Corporal in February
1942 and to Lance-Sergeant that November, he was awarded his M.M. in respect of the above cited deeds in 3rd (Cheshire) Field
Squadron, R.E. - a full account of the Squadron’s gallant part in the opening phase of the battle appears in C. E. Lucas Phillips’ Alamein,
from which the following extracts have been taken:
‘Third Field Squadron was commanded by Major Peter Moore, the fighting sapper who had run the Eighth Army School of Mine
Clearance ... The Squadron already had a fine record, having fought in the brief, turbulent campaign in Greece as well as up and down
the Western Desert. They had a rough time in the July fighting, having been pitchforked into mine clearance tasks in ill-planned
battles ...
There was a No Man’s Land of about a mile before the first enemy minefield, the location of which was well enough known. The
gapping parties of the 3rd Field Squadron walked forward to within 500 yards of it, with their sandbagged pilot vehicle driven by
Sapper Shaw, their mine detectors, their large reels of white tape, their tin-markers, their pickets and lamps.
They waited expectantly for the blue light from the reconnaissance officer, while the guns trumpeted behind them and the barrage
roared ahead ... The moonlight, not yet obscured by dust, wanly illuminated an other-wordly scene in which the few score sappers
seemed to be alone in a realm of noise. ‘We felt rather lonely and naked, recorded Moore, ‘without any escort of infantry or tanks’. But
this was his only concern. His men had been trained to a hair for what they had to do and each man, as he waited, went through his
own part in his mind.
The blue light showed ahead and they were off. The machine-guns began to crackle like electric drills and their tracers flicked along
the line. A few shells began to fall. The pilot vehicle, creeping towards the blue light, blew up and burst into flames. Enemy machine-
guns and mortars turned on it at once, like steel filings drawn to a magnet ...
Moore’s sappers got down to work at once in their echeloned teams, sweeping with their detectors, feeling with their fingers, marking
and pulling out the mines and taping the sides of the lane. This was the real thing at last after weeks of training. Knowing that time was
precious, they worked as fast as their delicate and dangerous task allowed, moving forward yard by yard, eyes to the ground, ears tuned
to the detector’s alarm, trying to ignore the distracting sounds of battle all around, trying to be cold-blooded in the heat of emotion of
conflict. Tellers, Italian mines, a few S-mines and mines of other sorts were lifted from the soil of the Devil’s Garden and made
harmless. It was not very difficult work at first, for, the wind having blown away the sand in many places, the mines there lay clearly
exposed ...
Third Squadron hurried forward to the next main enemy minefield. They were in the thick of the battle now. The din increased as the
enemy weapons replied to our own more vigorously. German and New Zealand dead lay in greater numbers, and many wounded
waited anxiously for help to come. The second minefield was found to be much more thickly sown than the first. Trip-wires and the
booby-trapped Italian Red Devils became more plentiful. The S-mines were encountered wherever there was dead ground and Moore,
crawling to a flank to find a deviation, was saved only by the eye of an alert subaltern beside him from putting his hand down upon the
deadly horns.
As his teams topped the Miteiriya Ridge, the enemy’s fire increased in intensity and the sappers’ casualties grew. All their expertness
and all their coolness were called for as they handled the infernal machines in the dark, following the precise drill that they had been
taught and trying to make themselves insensitive to the devil’s carnival around them. It needed guts to stand up and stay standing up
when everyone else was either lying down or running, for they were now right up with the leading infantry beyond the crest of the
ridge. In the left of the squadron’s two gaps, two of the detector operators were hit one after the other, but on both occasions the
stalwart Sergeant Stanton took his place.
It was in this second minefield that Moore most felt the need for protective troops to fight off the enemy posts interfering with his work.
Several enemy machine-guns were now firing at his team from both flanks and although most of the bullets were whistling overhead, a
German heavy machine-gun opened accurate fire from only seventy yards away on the right. It became difficult to make progress, for
any movement brought immediate fire. Moore was about to send back for his reserve Troop to attack the position, when a New
Zealand officer, seeing their difficulty, attacked the position with two of his men with tremendous dash and, amid an eruption of
bursting grenades, killed or captured every man in the post ...
The shelling was now considerable and many dead lay strewn over the rocky slope. He found that a bank ran along the crest of the
ridge and that Moore’s few vehicles were tucked under it. Moore himself arrived very soon and reported that both gaps, Boat and Ink,
were making good progress, not much behind time and that his teams were, in fact, in front of the infantry. It was 3.30 in the morning
and 8th Armoured Brigade was due to start through in half an hour ...
The sappers of Third Field Squadron had been ‘working like demons’ to complete Boat. Moore, like his C.R.E., was getting more and
more anxious about time. A hard driver in training, in action, like other good leaders, he encouraged and guided and was always on
the spot when he was most wanted. Before long, like Brinsmead on Bottle, he was ahead of the New Zealand infantry, but his men
were as steady as rocks under the continuous fire as they crept forward, sweeping, marking, lifting, taping.
It was getting towards six o’clock and the sky was beginning to change from black to grey and the stars to fade as he watched his men
work through to the very end and saw a sapper put up the last marker. Then he turned and raced back as fast as he could through the
gap that had been made. At the end of it, in the expanse between the two minefields, he saw the tanks of the Sherwood Rangers lined
up, nose to tail, waiting for the word to go forward ... ’
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