The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

A rare Second World War Somaliland operations M.C. group of six awarded to Major A. G. Molison, Royal Artillery, late Honourable Artillery Company, attached East African Artillery, who was decorated for his gallantry in the “V.C. action” fought in the Tug Argan Pass in August 1940

Military Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1940’ and privately inscribed, ‘Major A. G. Molison, 1st E.A. Light Bty.’; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 2nd issue, Territorial, with 2 Bars on H.A.C. riband (Lt. A. G. Milison, R.A.), good very fine and better (6) £1600-1800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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M.C. London Gazette 29 November 1940. The original recommendation states:

‘For continuous gallantry in controlling and directing the fire of his section during the Tug Argan engagement on 11-12 August 1940. By his example when under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire, he kept his native gun detachments perfectly steady. He organised rifle sections from his spare gun numbers to help the infantry in the defence of the position and when the position was abandoned he destroyed his guns and withdrew his men in complete control covering the withdrawal by Lewis gun and rifle fire. During the whole engagement the fire of this officer’s section was conspicuous for its accuracy due to the example and courage he inspired in his native detachments.’

Arthur Grahame Molison, who was born in March 1910, served in the Honourable Artillery Company in May 1928 until January 1938, when he would appear to have moved to East Africa and enlisted as a Private in the Kenya Defence Force. Mobilised on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, he was commissioned in the East African Artillery and posted to the 1st E.A. Light Battery, in which unit he won his M.C.

When the Italians, with 350,000 troops in Abyssinia and Eritrea, invaded British Somaliland in August 1940, the local defence force comprised just 1500 men. Due to the flat nature of much of the colony’s terrain, it was decided to make a stand in the Golis Hills and, more precisely, in the 8000 ft. Tug Argan Pass, and it was here that two battalions of Blackshirts, with three brigades of colonial troops and artillery, appeared on all sides on the morning of 11 August. Thus ensued what the Daily Sketch hailed as ‘Another Rorke’s Drift’ - a bitter, costly and hotly contested action in the face of overwhelming odds, and one that witnessed many acts of gallantry, among them those of Captain Eric Wilson of the Somaliland Camel Corps, who was awarded the V.C. for his defence of “Observation Hill”, and Molison for his work in the vicinity of “Knobbly Hill”, where his battery fired over 1000 rounds in 18 hours. Malcolm Page’s A History of the King’s African Rifles takes up the story:

‘The East African gunners were in action for the first time; they sent an Italian pack battery into hiding with their first shots. Thereafter they were busy for five days and nights, often firing at short range over open sights. The guns were in pits so they could fire all round the compass. During the attack on Knobbly Hill by 2,000 enemy, they broke up the force of the attack and, spotting an Italian general on a white charger trying to reform his men some two miles away, disposed of him and about fifty of the enemy with a single shell. Staff Sergant Thom from Nivasha crouched for hours behind a three-foot-high parapet, dismantling, repairing and reassembling a jammed gun. An Italian attack led by eight tanks was dealt with by the gunners in the same afternoon ... ’

Molison, who rose to the acting rank of Major before the War’s end and was demobilised in March 1946, applied for his Efficiency Medal from Kenya in October 1948 - an award duly approved with 2 Bars (London Gazette 13 June 1950 refers); sold with hand written service details.