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Auction: 13002 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 61

British Empire Medal, Military Division, E.II.R. (T/23184602 Dvr. Malcolm T. Bignall, R.A.S.C.), nearly extremely fine

B.E.M. London Gazette 22.10.1957 T/23184602 Driver Malcolm Trevor Bignall, 19 Company, Royal Army Service Corps
'Driver Bignall was driving a fifty ton transporter carrying a Centurion tank down a steep hill into the village of Hurstbourne Tarrant, when the brakes failed completely. He endeavoured to steer the vehicle into the left hand bank in order to slow its momentum, but owing to the combined weight of the tank and trailer this manoeuvre was unsuccessful. Realising that an accident was now inevitable he ordered his co-driver to jump from the vehicle, whilst he remained at the wheel in an effort to control the vehicle's passage, but as it gathered speed and momentum the flywheel disintegrated and the flying pieces injured him. Even so he managed to slew the vehicle across the road into a field and avoid the village of Hurstbourne Tarrant. In the resultant crash he received serious injuries.
Driver Bignall acted with great courage and with complete disregard for his own safety by remaining at the wheel of his vehicle. His action in bringing the transporter to rest in the way he did undoubtedly saved extensive damage to property and probably saved injuries and loss of life to the population of the village.'

The Hurstbourne Hill Incident
'A massive tank transporter weighing about 20 tons, carrying a 50-ton Centurion tank from Tidworth to Chilwell, hurtled down Hurstbourne Hill (gradient 1 in 5) on Tuesday, 18th June, at 12:15pm. The brakes failed and the 70-ton mass careered crazily down the hill with the driver, 22-year-old Driver Malcolm Bignall, of the 19th R.A.S.C. Depot, Retford, Nottinghamshire, straining to save it from smashing to pulp the houses at the bottom of the hill. Miraculously he steered the transporter into the left bank, braking it a little, but the vehicle with its massive load continued down the hill, swerving as it did so. At the bottom of the hill it swung hard to the right, parting company with the tank it was carrying, which shot to the left. The lorry and carrier ploughed into the garden of the first house at the bottom of the hill, where a tank trap stopped them from going any further. Driver Bignall, whose right leg was broken and right hip badly damaged, was thrown clear before his lorry came to a halt, facing the way it had come. Bignall told the nurse who attended him: "I did all I could to stop the thing from hitting the houses."
The tank, which had broken free of its lashings, careered down the left side of the road, tearing up the road surface, flattening fences and poles, tearing up a huge yew tree and piling it against the nearest house, and completely flattening a newly-built garage in the garden of that house. The co-driver, Driver M. Elliott, was pushed clear by Bignall half-way down the hill. He escaped without injury.
For almost the full length of the hill, which is half-a-mile long, pieces of brake drum and wreckage were scattered. The road at the beginning of the line of houses was ripped up and fences and bushes each side flattened as if a bomb had been dropped nearby. When the ambulance and police arrived the scene was utter chaos. Traffic was held up in both directions, parts of the crashed vehicle lay all over the road, telephone wires were strewn about; everyone there appeared dazed.

The one person who saw the final frightening scene, when the army lorry, transporter, and its Centurion tank load broke apart, was Mr. John Powell, the landlord of the George and Dragon, Hurstbourne Tarrant.
"I heard that tanks were coming through Andover. I half expected an accident, knowing that the hot day would melt the brake fluid and make it pretty difficult for anything of that size to come down that hill. I was outside when it happened. As soon as I saw it out of control I dashed back to telephone the police. I did not wait to see what would eventually happen."
When Mr. Powell got back to his house he told his wife and she bundled her nanny, 22-year-old nurse Miss Eileen Downing, into a car and they drove to the crash. "I went to tend the driver who was beside his lorry," said Eileen Downing. "I washed his face, cleaned the facial and shoulder lacerations, and put a disinfected compress on his broken leg. It was only after I had done this that I recognised him. I told him that I knew his mother, father, and wife- they live in London near where I used to work- but he did not recognise me. The last time I saw him was last Christmas."
A doctor was called from a nearby surgery and arrived with the ambulance. He treated Driver Bignall, then Bignall was driven to Tidworth Military Hospital with his co-driver, Elliott.'
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, who are the owners of the house on the right-hand side of the road where the tank came to rest, were away for the day. They moved into this house, The Limes, a few months ago. Now a 50-ton tank lies on top of their new garage, built two months ago.' (Andover Advertiser, 21.6.1957 refers).

Gift from the Village
After the accident the Rev. K.M.C. Melrose, vicar of Hurstbourne Tarrant, visited Bignall in hospital. Thinking that the villagers owed the driver a debt of gratitude, he appealed to his flock for a gift: 'They eagerly responded, and before the end of Bignall's first week in hospital he was presented with an inscribed table lamp and a gift voucher.' (Andover Advertiser, 25.10.1957 refers).

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Sold for
£580