6 GR Journal 100

JOURNAL

The

FAMILY AND EVENTS

No 100.  2020

Slim in 6 GR

FAMILY AND EVENTS

CONTENTS REGIMENTAL

FAMILY

3 6 8 10 12 26 31 35 37

– Members’ Newsletters (Redacted) 64 6 GRRA 2020 Diary of Events 65 Obituaries

40 44 45 48 49 52 54 55 56 57 58 60 62

The President The Chairman The Editor Regimental Memorial Project RGR Newsletter The Gurkha Welfare Trust Gurkha Museum GBA Lunch Allmand VC 75th Commemoration Cuttack Boating Club Golf Regimental Reunion GBA Dinner Field of Remembrance The National Memorial Arboretum Cenotaph Parade Remembrance Day Pokhara Remembrance Day HK Poem – Kohima Book of Remembrance Ceremony AGM and Reunion Shooting

ARTICLES 68 Slim Sahib 76 Student’s Interlude 86 On Getting Our Royal Title and Other Memories 90 The Making of the Regiment 95 Who was Thukte Sherpa?

99 Ex Mountain Dragon 108 Born Lucky 111 An Interview with the CIGS 114 The Chief of Army Staff’s Cows END PIECE 116 Book Reviews 121 Minutes of the AGM 124 6 GRRA Income and Expenditure Account Front Cover: Captain Slim, Adjutant 1/6th GR. Inside Cover: The Royal Gurkha Rifles formally presenting The Queen’s Truncheon to Her Majesty The Queen. © Parbate.

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OFFICERS OF THE REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION President:

Brigadier John Anderson OBE

Vice-President:

Colonel Paul Pettigrew

Chairman:

Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Briggs

Secretary: Major Manikumar Rai MBE

Finance Officer:

duncanria.briggs@gmail.com 101 Kings Ride, Camberley, Surrey GU15 4LJ Email: honsecretary@6thgurkhas.org

Major David Bredin

Editors Editor: Major Rick Beven

27 Blenheim Road, Deal, Kent, CT14 7DB Email: rickbeven@hotmail.com

Family News Editor and Social Secretary:

griffharu@hotmail.com

Captain Anne Griffith

Communications Officer: Captain James Herbert Committee:

jamesherbet1@btinternet.com

Lieutenant Colonel Gavin O’Keeffe, Major David Bredin, Major Khusiman Gurung, Captain Nick Gordon-Creed, Captain Anne Griffith, Captain Gary Ghale

1st BATTALION GURKHA OFFICERS, BRITISH OFFICERS AND WIVES, ABBOTTABAD 1934 Back Row L/R: 1-7 All 2nd Bn, The Bahun Second Row: Sub Mansing Gurung, Sub Dhanraj Gurung IDSM, NK, Sub Gore Gurung, NK, NK, Sub Maniraj Gurung, NK, Sub Bakhatbahadur Gurung, NK, NK. Third Row: Jem Lalbahadur Chhetri (HC), NK, Sub Bahadur Thapa, Sub Dewansing, NK, Sub Manu Gurung, Sub Maj Pirthibahadur Gurung, NK, Sub Janaksing Pun. (Two names missing) Seated: Col Brown’s Stepdaughter, Mrs Phillips, Mrs GR Ward, Maj WJ Slim, Mrs Hackett, Lt Col HMM Hackett, Sub Maj Dhanbahadur Gurung, Col and Mrs EC Brown, Mrs Macleod, Mrs Pulling.

On Ground: Lt TGB Power, Capt GR Ward, Lt NFB Shaw, Maj GH Pulling, Capt WK Phillips, Capt IN Macleod, Capt KW Ross-Hurst.

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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

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hankfully, Brexit was not the only story of 2019: in November at our Reunion we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the Regiment being awarded the royal title “Queen Elizabeth’s Own”; the Trust was able to purchase Colonel Cecil Allanson’s medals, which have now been added to the Sari Bair memorabilia in our Gurkha Museum; the family of Hugh Wallace kindly presented his well-known portrait to the Museum where it will join Hugh’s Elizabeth Cross; our successors, the Royal Gurkha Rifles (RGR), marked their 25th Anniversary in July with a parade in the UK attended by their Colonel-in-Chief, HRH The Prince of Wales, and where we were represented by our new Chairman, Duncan Briggs. In June Duncan organised a wonderful Memorial Service on the 75th Anniversary of the death of Captain Michael Allmand VC at his parish church of St Edward the Confessor in Golders Green, where we were joined by both family members and RGR representatives. In October all of us rejoiced when Nirmal Purja, ex-Queens Gurkha Engineers, set a record when he conquered the 14 highest mountains in the world in a mere seven months.

as we took on 233 new posts, ranging from the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) Support Battalion to training establishments across the army. Gradually more posts have been acquired and early last year the latest package was announced, which sees the conversion of the ARRC Support Battalion to GURTAM (Gurkha Trained Adult Males), two additional squadrons for both Queen’s Gurkha Signals and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, and an additional squadron for Queen’s Gurkha Engineers.

Furthermore, five new rank-rich specialized Infantry Battalions, with the role of training other armies in high-threat environments, are being formed and these will include the Third Battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles – 3 RGR. Other enhancements to establishments will mean that the Brigade will grow from some 2,560 to over 4,700.

All this is vital in the light of the Versatile Engagement, which only offers soldiers an initial 12 years service, with pensionable service to 24 years by selection only. Our poor conversion rate, necessary to avoid promotion blockages and retain high And in 2020 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bill deployability, caused many high-grade men to transfer Slim joining our Regiment – as Field Marshall William out of the Brigade at the five-year point to units where there was less competition and hence better Joseph Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, KG, GCB, GCMG, conversion prospects. But the new establishments GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC, KStJ, one of the greatest now provide more senior posts and lower demands wartime warriors of the British Army. This edition of on deployability, while the point at which our men the Journal is dedicated to him. can transfer to UKTAM units has been raised to seven years. These changes will have a major impact on For many of us, service with the Brigade of Gurkhas has been overshadowed by seemingly endless rounds conversion rates (one unit now has an unheard of 100% conversion rate) and lead to better retention of redundancies and manpower cuts since 1967. and more contented soldiers.

Indeed, there have been some who have constantly preached doom and gloom, but I am delighted to say That our Brigade has survived protracted assaults over such prognoses have proved wrong: over the next the last 50 years and is now growing is due to the five years our Brigade will grow by nearly 75%, with recruiting being increased from 270 in 2018, to 400 in hard work put in over many years by HQ The Brigade of Gurkhas and our ability to recruit exceptional 2019 to 432 from 2020 onwards. individuals from Nepal. Even more importantly, our Growth started slowly (and rather discreetly) in 2016, Gurkha soldiers have earned the right to continue to two years after the last round of major redundancies, serve: our Brigade demonstrates excellence in all we

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do and have shown that, even in adversity, the Gurkha soldier continuously sets the highest standards.

Both battalions of RGR continue to excel. 1 RGR is now back from Afghanistan (Op TORAL) and have had elements on exercise in Croatia and Jordan and will be moving to Brunei in mid 2020. 2 RGR have also been kept busy with deployments to Australia, Thailand and Zambia, as well as continuing to work closely with the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, and Corporal Subash Rai won the Queen’s Medal at Bisley.

As many will know, all the RGR Companies bear a battle honour from one of the Antecedent Regiments; with the formation of 3 RGR new allocations have been made and one company will bear the title “Krithia”, won by 1/6 GR in Gallipoli. Our preferred

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allocation was “Gurkha Bluff”, but when RGR was formed this battle honour was excluded as there was a limit on battle honours that could be carried forward. However, 3 RGR will in practice celebrate Gurkha Bluff – a brave and memorable action – as an intrinsic part of Krithia.

Our Colonel Commandant and Chairman of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, Lieutenant General Sir Nick Pope, was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List but will be handing over in 2020, while Colonel James Robinson has finished a mammoth seven-year stint as Colonel Brigade of Gurkhas, and has rightly been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. A group of us were able to ‘lunch-out’ James and, on behalf of all of us, I thank both Nick and James for all they have done for our

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THE FUNERAL OF FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT SLIM John Anderson writes:

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ield Marshal Viscount Slim, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC, KStJ died at the age of 79 on 14 December 1970, 50 years after he had joined 6 GR. I was told to get to the Army School of Languages at Beaconsfield, to organise our Language Students into a parade contingent and to lead them on the funeral parade on 22 December at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. On arrival at Beaconsfield we were given bales of ancient and very rigid greatcoats, without buttons. Two days of frantic sewing: of buttons and, because the coats were so stiff, of all the creases and folds.

Brigade – simply see the foregoing!

I would end by expressing my gratitude to all those who, unsung, keep our Association going: our Chairman and Members of his Committee; the Trustees of the Regimental Trust, especially Michael Channing, who is leading the Committee to establish a Regimental Memorial in Nepal; James Herbert, who runs our website; Rick Beven, our redoubtable Editor; but above all our members, who continue to support the Association and without whom we would cease to exist.

Jai Sixth!

John Anderson

Then to Windsor Barracks, where fearsome Guards WOs taught us the rather odd Funeral pace – a cross between slow and quick march, but with no arm swinging and 30" paces – not easy for our men. I was fortunate that a good friend, Sgt Dhanparsad Gurung 2 GR (later Captain (QGO)), was part of the contingent so I made him Right Marker, and he quickly got a grip of the odd useless soldier. After several shambolic rehearsals, fighting for space on the square with the Australian and Guards contingents, we discovered that we would be leading the parade through Windsor to the chapel, since seniority worked from the cortège; this made command much easier as I had to be behind our contingent and we simply had to follow a Guards officer to the chapel.

On the return to barracks, and after the order “At the correct Gurkha pace, quick march” we got back with only one slight hiccup – the Australian Contingent, now in front of us, were halted in the middle of the road and ordered “Right Turn and fall-out into that Pub”. Sadly, we did not follow. There were three 6 GR soldiers in the contingent but alas I can only identify one; LCpl Sardaparsad Gurung, later to be Pipe Major and now sadly deceased, at the back. What an honour!

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LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

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t is with the greatest pleasure that I look back on my first year as your Chairman. For Ria and I it has been a really special time, meeting up with old friends and comrades, being in contact with so many whose names we had heard but had never met and once again being a real part of our Regimental Family.

So much to remember; the service to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Michael Allmand’s VC and the huge support from his extended family, the Association, RGR and the local community; rowing on the Thames with Nick and Eva Gordon-Creed in Didi; our excellent All Ranks Reunion, despite being

ambushed to make a speech, plus our Winchester Remembrance Service and Reunion in our 60th year since being honoured with our royal title, all made particularly special by the attendance of Antony Wakeham, who had been at the original ceremony.

Also at the Reunion we were delighted to receive the lovely painting of Hugh Wallace from his family, the original of which will be on display in the Gurkha Museum and a high quality copy will be held by 1 RGR, where the Wallace Memorial Trophy is keenly competed for each year just as many readers will remember. I was privileged to represent your Association at the 25th birthday party of RGR at Shorncliffe along with Captain Dembahadur Gurung

At the All Ranks Reunion: Duncan Briggs and Rasbahadur Gurung, who had been the Mail Runner on the 1976 Annapurna South Peak Expedition, reunited after many years

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and his wife. It was very special to see them chatting with HRH The Prince of Wales, the guest of honour.

I have met with a number of our former Gurkha soldiers and officers over the year and found that the majority were doing very well and had a full and active social life. One gem for me on one of those occasions was meeting Tekbahadur Sahi who had been my orderly on my language course. I had not seen him for over 40 years and, for those who have been through the experience of the language course, you will know what a special person he was in my life as mentor and friend as we struggled to improve my Gurkhali.

On a less positive note; as an Association, we do have a problem with subscriptions. I have written or emailed many of you personally over the last year.

Although I have had a really positive response from many; with some much-appreciated donations, there are still some 40% of Full and Associate members who have not payed their subscription for the last financial year, 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019.

A small Association such as ours depends almost completely on subscriptions to support our initiatives such as this excellent Journal. We need to pay our way and stop being supported each year by the Regimental Trust. Please check your bank statements and ensure that you are paying (Full Members £20 and Associate Members £15) to the correct bank account; 6 GR Regimental Trust, No 2 Account at Holts Farnborough Branch of the RBS; Sort Code 16-19-26, Account Number 17054295. For those who fail to pay I am afraid that this will be their last Regimental Journal as it was agreed at the last AGM in November 2019 to create a Lapsed Members Roll for those who no longer pay. These members will not be eligible to vote in General Meetings nor will they receive the Journal until they are re-instated after payment. For anyone with queries on this issue please contact me, preferably by email (on page 2).

digital form. So, I would encourage everyone to check it out and if you haven’t got one, then contact James Herbert or our Honorary Secretary for a password.

This year we also launched a 6 GRRA Facebook Page. Although I suspect that many readers will have concerns about Facebook, the main driver for this initiative was to create a closed group within the Facebook Page so that we could share information quickly and easily, but that was only visible to the members of the closed group. To join, please contact the Honorary Secretary, James Herbert or myself.

Can I say a particular welcome to our new members; it is wonderful to have you aboard. Could I also make a particular plea to our Gurkha members to encourage your former comrades now living in the UK to join us; this is your Association and all are most welcome.

We look forward to another interesting and stimulating year in 2020, including a group visit to Medicina to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the battle along with our friends from 14/20th Hussars in April and a lecture on Bill Slim, the Regimental Officer, in May. I would also like to thank our committee, particularly the hard-working Honorary Secretary, Mani Rai, who holds things together; Rick Beven, our Journal Editor, Anne Griffith for managing the family news and James Herbert for supporting and improving our website.

Finally, may I say a most sincere thank you to you our Members for your support and good fellowship, making the Association the wonderful organisation that it is.

Jai Sixth!

Duncan Briggs

During the year we have tried hard to make our 6 GRRA website more current, including news of events as soon as they have happened plus the last two copies of the Journal (less Family Information) in

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A QUICK NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

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elcome to our 100th Edition.

It unashamedly celebrates the Regimental service of our greatest soldier, Field Marshal The Viscount Slim. It also celebrates the legacy of all of us: the 25th anniversary of the founding of The Royal Gurkha Rifles. I was lucky enough to be at the 25th anniversary celebrations at Sir John Moore Barracks on 9 July 2019. One of the awards presented by HRH The Prince of Wales was the Slim award, which is presented annually to the LE Gurkha Captain who is considered to have provided the most inspirational leadership throughout the course of the year – in 2019 to Captain Vijayprakash Subba Limbu.

Whilst at Sandhurst I had a copy of Defeat into Victory on the shelf in my room in Victory College. I even read it because I can still remember it has one of the most wonderful opening paragraphs of any military history I have read: ‘It was good fun commanding a division in the Iraq desert. It is good fun commanding a division anywhere. It is one of the four best commands in the Service – a platoon, a battalion, a division, and an army. A platoon because it is your first command, because you are young, and because, if you are any good, you know the men in it better than their mothers do and love them as much.

A battalion, because it is a unit with a life of its own; whether it is good or bad depends on you alone; you have at last a real command. A division, because it is the smallest formation that is a complete orchestra of war and the largest in which every man can know you. An army, because the creation of its spirit and its leadership in battle give you the greatest unity of emotional and intellectual experience that can befall a man.’

Heady stuff for a Sandhurst cadet, although the details of the Burma campaign were lost on me at the time. It was not until I read it again whilst leading a small group of 6th Gurkhas on a visit to Kohima and Imphal in 1992 to celebrate our 175th anniversary that

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I really began to understand the book’s greatness.

Indeed, many of Slim’s aphorisms contained in Defeat into Victory have guided me through much of my military service.

We are lucky, as always, to have an article by our Regimental historian, John Mackinlay, this time on Slim’s Regimental service. Many of the other articles in this edition contain their author’s memories of Field Marshal Slim, whether on a selection board, Sandhurst study or pass out parade. They are a tapestry of unreported history that illustrate the veneration he was and is held in by his Regiment.

I have also included a short story set on the North West Frontier written by Slim himself; space precluded me from including the full article, but I hope it will encourage readers to get hold of a copy of Unofficial Histories which is reviewed elsewhere in this Journal. Student’s Interlude is a real boy’s own adventure story, but it is also a meticulously accurate account of a 6th Gurkha Rifles rear-guard withdrawing in contact on the North West Frontier.

There is also a historical account by Gordon Corrigan of the formation of the Royal Gurkha Rifles 25 years ago. It is an important article as the RGR are both the legacy of our 200-year history and our Regimental future. As the Slim award shows our Regimental history continues to guide the present generation of lahures in an unpredictable world.

It is one of the greatest privileges of my life to belong to the same Regiment that Captain, later Field Marshal, Slim served in.

Jai Sixth!

Captain Vijayprakash Subba Limbu receives the Slim award from HRH The Prince of Wales at the 25th anniversary celebrations at Sir John Moore Barracks, 1 July 2019

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6TH QEO GURKHA RIFLES

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REGIMENTAL MEMORIAL PROJECT

ast year I introduced to you the project for the creation of a Memorial to the Regiment, which had been proposed by John Mackinlay in the Spring of 2018, and approved for further consideration by the Association.

That introduction can be found on pages 10 and 11 of the 2019 Journal.

In November 2019, I set out for those who attended the Annual General Meeting of the Association the progress that the Project Committees had made over the year since then. I emphasised that it was important to bear in mind, in appreciating that progress, the key points of the Committees’ terms of reference – namely that the Memorial was not to be a “War Memorial”; it should be designed to survive, be aesthetically pleasing and safe from threats of vandalism or earthquake; and ideally located in a safe, accessible location in Nepal.

The Committees’ attention this year has turned to address two aspects of the project: where to locate the Memorial, and what kind of Memorial? The Committees considered and evaluated a number of locations, but ran against the problems of security or maintenance, and also the not insignificant cost of purchasing the necessary land, in the large majority of the potential sites. In the course of our researches

we established a very good relationship with the Gurkha Museum in Pokhara, and I cannot overstate the Committees’ gratitude to the Major Yam and his team at the Museum for their constructive and helpful cooperation with the Committees both here and in Nepal. As a consequence we have agreed with the Museum that our Memorial could be sited in the centre of the fence, bounding the Museum site in Pokhara, to the left of the Museum entrance. To the extent that anything can be permanent or secure these days, the Committee feels that this site is the best we could ever have hoped for.

Contemporaneously with evaluating possible locations, the Concept Officer (John Mackinlay) progressed the possible design of the Memorial; his first task was to identify a possible sculptor who might have the expertise as well as the required sympathetic approach to the concept of the Memorial; he consulted widely with experts in the field, drawing on his contacts in the Memorial Artists Association, and was introduced to Mr Martin Cook, a nationally and internationally recognised sculptor of some of the most important Memorials both in the UK and abroad.

The Committee agreed that Martin be given the brief to design a Memorial along lines conceived by John and agreed by the Committee.

The proposed location of the memorial outside the entrance to the Gurkha Museum in Pokhara

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We believe the resultant design, shown below, satisfies all the criteria set out in the terms of reference to which I referred earlier; we were encouraged by the positive reaction to the proposed design of those who were at the AGM in November, albeit that a few eyebrows were seen to rise at the estimated cost!

The choice of sculptor has implications for the cost, but the Committee’s conclusion is that, whilst the estimated cost is at the upper end of the likely cost for a sculpture by other artists, the estimate is not significantly in excess of what might be expected – indeed, when viewed against other statue projects currently planned by others, using less well known sculptors at twice the price, the estimate reflects good value for a quality product. The differences in cost are attributable to the levels of artistic as well as technical sculpting skills that are deployed in creating the ultimate product. It is not surprising, therefore, that the initial estimate of the cost for

creating a Memorial as depicted amounts to £75,000; that sum excludes VAT and the cost of shipment to Nepal; we are advised by HMRC that VAT is unlikely to be payable, as the Memorial will be exported.

The cost of shipment is currently being examined by the Committee. In view of the cost estimate, the Committees are now exploring means whereby there may be cost savings (including the potential for, at least, partial sculpting in Nepal), and addressing the whole question of the viability of the fundraising task.

In conclusion, the Project Committees are satisfied that the Memorial is desirable, and the project is physically feasible. There is an acceptable design and an ideal location. It now remains to address the not insignificant issue of raising the money to pay for it – the financial feasibility of the project is now under the microscope.

Mike Channing

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ROYAL GURKHA RIFLES NEWSLETTER

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FIRST BATTALION

his year began as the last year ended, with the bulk of 1 RGR deployed in Kabul on Op TORAL 7 from October 2018 to May 2019. Op TORAL is the UK contribution to the NATO RESOLUTE SUPPORT mission which focuses on the institutional development of key Afghan Government Ministries and is delivered primarily through its Train, Advise, Assist (TAA) line of operation.

The responsibility for enabling and protecting those who delivered the TAA in Kabul rests exclusively with the Kabul Security Force (KSF) and their single Battle Group, the Kabul Protection Unit (KPU). For six months elements of 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment and 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment came together under a single 1 RGR Battle Group Headquarters to be the KPU for Op TORAL 7.

in early May 2019. Throughout B (Sari Bair) Company and Battalion HQ were based in the very centre of the Kabul, from where they protected NATO advisors as they conducted missions at locations all across the city.

B (Sari Bair) Company also provided a quick-reaction force for incident response. C (Mogaung) Company was based at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in the North of the city and protected NATO advisors at the Afghan New Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Headquarters of the Afghan Air Force and the RAF’s aviation detachment.

The more significant High-Profile Attacks (HPAs) that the insurgents conducted on Op TORAL 7 happened in 2018, including the action at the G4S base known as Camp ANJUMAN. However, the KPU QRF were still stood to on over a dozen other occasions during the second half of the tour in 2019. During Op TORAL 7 1

The 1 RGR contribution saw just under 300 soldiers deploy from October 2018 until the last man recovered

HRH The Prince of Wales presenting 1 RGR soldiers with their Op TORAL medals at the RGR 25 celebrations in Sir John Moore Barracks, Shorncliffe, 9 July 2019

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RGR operated at over 100 sites across the city, giving ample opportunity for the soldiers to get out and about all over Kabul. By Spring 2019, as the tour came to a close, over 10,000 patrols had been conducted.

Exercise SWIFT RESPONSE, June 2019 Unlike the other companies, A (Delhi) Company did not deploy on Op TORAL and were instead attached to 3 PARA on readiness. This included a large number of exercises, culminating in Exercise SWIFT RESPONSE as part of 3 PARA BG in Croatia, US EUCOM’s largest training event of the year.

On arrival in Croatia the Company conducted build-up training whilst they acclimatized to the notable heat of the Croatian summer. This included night training, building clearances and company-level advance to contacts. On conclusion of this, the Exercise began, during which A (Delhi) Company helped the 3 PARA BG secure Ubdina airfield. This was followed by securing a notional train station that represented an important logistical hub. The final mission was a BG clearance across a mountainous region near the border with Bosnia. The exercise concluded with a couple of days R&R at the stunning Plitvice Lakes National Parks before the Company travelled back to the UK.

Becoming the Air Manoeuvre Battle Group and RGR 25, June – August 2019 As the bulk of the Battalion extracted back to the UK from Kabul, Battalion HQ’s eyes were already focusing on the next challenge. While the Battalion had been deployed, the Battalion 2IC and OC Support had been preparing for 1 RGR to take over the role of Air Manoeuvre Battle Group (AMBG) from 3 PARA. The AMBG is the lead Unit in 16 Air Assault Brigade and is held at very high readiness. It is a task that the RGR Battalion in 16 Air Assault Brigade had never been given the opportunity to do previously.

On return from post tour leave the Battalion took over the new role, re-zeroing weapons, conducting Air Manoeuvre briefing days (including visits to Brize Norton) and a lot of Public Order training. The final hurdle for the Battalion was to have their readiness

A Section Commander gives arcs while establishing all-round defence on the position

SOPs tested by Brigade on Exercise TOTEMIC. All of this was done concurrently to the preparations for the Op TORAL 7 medals parade, which was combined with the Battalion’s RGR 25 Birthday celebrations, and was delivered in the same week as HQ Brigade of Gurkha’s Brigade Week!

Despite the hectic schedule, the RGR 25 Parade on 9 July was a day to remember for those who were there. Attended by HRH The Prince of Wales, alongside many other VIPs and dignitaries, it saw medals awarded to a large swath of the Battalion. 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment, our partnered French Airborne unit, also sent representatives. The Assault Pioneers unveiled the newly constructed Battalion chautara outside the Corporals’ Mess, built with the assistance of the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers. The Prince of Wales’ Kukri, Tuker Award and Slim Award

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Soldiers from A (Delhi) Company celebrate winning the Champion Company competition

were also presented, and everyone had a fantastic day celebrating 25 superb years of dedicated service to the crown.

Champion Company Competition Due to limited time, this year’s Champion Company competition was composed of just The Afghan Trophy (fitness), The Bullock Trophy (military skills) and The Wallace Memorial Trophy (sports).

B (Sari Bair) Company took an early lead in the competition by winning the Afghan Trophy. The first element of the competition involved completing a number of repetitions of different gruelling exercises on the MT square in combats and body armour. This was following by competitors running up and down hills around the back area of camp, before a number of other ‘battle-PT’ style exercises were completed on the sports pitches, including casualty drags, crawling and fire and manoeuvre.

The Bullock Trophy focused on testing a broad range of military skills in the form of a patrols competition.

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The competition is named after Brigadier Christopher Bullock MC, who led numerous ‘Claret Operations’ during the Borneo Confrontation during the 1960s.

Each company put forward a patrol to navigate a route around Cinque Port Training Area where they completed a variety of tasks at different stands. These tasks included military knowledge tests, air assault vehicle recognition and more practical command tasks. A (Delhi) Company were announced as the winner of the event.

The Wallace Memorial Trophy included a broad set of sporting events and culminated with the majority of Battalion personnel completing a seven-mile crosscountry race across challenging terrain on St Martin’s Plain. The Wallace Memorial Trophy was also won

by A (Delhi) Company, who retained their place as Champion Company for a second year.

Exercise OLIVE GROVE, August – September 2019 As the rest of Battalion began to disappear on summer leave, C (Mogaung) Coy and the newly

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The training opportunities in Jordan were phenomenal

formed Machine Gun Platoon from Support (Medicina) Company began their deployment on Exercise OLIVE GROVE in Jordan. Throughout the exercise, they were partnered with 2nd Company of the 61st Battalion of the Jordanian Quick Reaction Force (QRF) Brigade.

This was in line with the strategic partnership that 16 Air Assault Brigade has with QRF, which sees each of the three Battalions in the Brigade assigned a partner Battalion in the QRF.

The exercise was for six weeks and included an acclimatisation week, a three-week Live Fire Tactical Training (LFTT) phase, a week-long blank Final Training Exercise (FTX) and finally a short R&R, Adventure Training and cultural package.

Support (Medicina) Company and Assault Pioneer Platoon Cadres, September 2019 Over the summer, Support (Medicina) Company welcomed 34 new soldiers into the Company. The

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large uptake in personnel in each specialised Platoon meant that an all-encompassing cadre was essential to keep the Company battle ready. The Company therefore set out to train all new joiners in their role as mortarmen, machine gunners, snipers, Javelin operators, Recce patrolmen and Assault Pioneers, as well as refresh those already in the specialist Platoons. Much of the training was conducted on the Salisbury Plain training area. An unexpected highlight of the Cadre was the opportunity to take part in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Salisbury Plain Training Area. Members from the Anti-Tank Platoon gave a brief about RWIMIK vehicle capabilities to the Prime Minister, who seemed very impressed, although he was less effusive about the 24hr rations he was given!

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), on Op ELGIN. A (Delhi) Company’s key activity was to take part in Ex QUICK RESPONSE as part of the Multinational Battalion (MNBN), simulating the EU Forces’ (EUFOR) reaction to hostilities erupting in BiH. The MNBN was made up of British, Austrian, Turkish and Hungarian companies and was commanded by an Austrian and Hungarian headquarters. A (Delhi) Company came to understand that the occasional Nepali-English confusion was nothing compared to the difficulties in communicating between four different nationalities.

Op ELGIN, September – October 2019

Each company was dispatched to a separate corner of BiH to operate independently from the MNBN headquarters. A (Delhi) Company occupied a camp near Capljina, 100 miles south of Sarajevo near the border with Croatia. The company made the road move south through beautiful countryside in their antique Snatch Land Rovers, minus 1 Platoon who enjoyed the luxury of a much faster journey in Austrian Army helicopters in order to secure the Company’s HQ. The company was tasked with public order, evacuation and securing of vulnerable points.

This involved extensive road moves, operating among and alongside civilians, and platoons working independently from Company HQ.

At the same time as Support (Medicina) Company were in the final stages of their cadres on Salisbury plain, A (Delhi) Company deployed to Camp Butmir in

The exercise gave junior commanders complete autonomy when working at reach from CHQ and

The Machine Gun Platoon found themselves in the envious position of being able to conduct their cadre in the deserts of Jordan, attached to C (Mogaung) Company on Ex OLIVE GROVE. The cadre focused training on the General-Purpose Machine Gun Sustained Fire (GPMG SF) role.

‘Clear, loud, as an order and with pauses’: A section commander brings his gunner onto the target

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enabled them to develop their skills in peace support and civilian liaison.

JLC Intake 2016, November – December 2019

Company. The exercise marked a culmination of many months of preparatory training focused on fighting in complex built up areas.

One of the objectives of the exercise was to demonstrate interoperability between ourselves and our French counterparts. A key element involved familiarising Gurkhas with the FAMAS assault rifle and the AT-4 CS anti-tank weapon, which they used throughout the exercise. Included as part of the familiarisation week was a package to understand and practice French tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs). Whilst many of the TTPs were almost identical to those employed by the British Army, there were Exercise GAULISH, December 2019 The last Battalion event of the year saw Platoons from some slight variations on occasions and both parties each of 1 RGR’s Rifle Companies come together under benefited from understanding these differences. the command of A (Delhi) Company HQ and deploy The exercise phase saw the 1 RGR Company deploy on Exercise GAULISH. This was an urban operations to conduct a series of offensive and defensive exercise in the ‘Centre d’entrainement aux actions actions across several purpose-built urban facilities. en zone urbaine’ (CENZUB) training area in northern France. Along with attachments from the Royal Horse These included a train station, high-rise buildings, an underground car park, industrial zones and many Artillery, the Royal Engineers and the Royal Military Police, the Company were bolstered by elements from other urban features that offered a unique and challenging environment. both Support (Medicina) Company and HQ (Burma) With all Companies of 1 RGR finally back in camp for a short while it was the ideal time for intake 2016 to complete their Junior Leadership Cadre (JLC) to qualify for promotion to Lance Corporal under B (Sari Bair) Company’s watchful eye. This year’s JLC was conducted in three phases at Sennybridge, the Brecon Beacons and Caerwent training area.

Honing the skills and drills required for night-time room clearance

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CO 1 RGR, Lt Colonel Chris Conroy, is presented the Cambrian Patrol gold medal and a congratulatory letter from CGS

A combination of well-integrated attached personnel, comprehensive pre-deployment training and, in the words of the French directing staff, an “impressive aggressive fighting spirit”, resulted in a very strong performance. According to the staff, the Company achieved the second highest score by a British Army Company since the CENZUB training area was made available to British Forces in November 2010. It was a great way to finish the year.

2019 Achievements It has been a whirlwind year of individual and small team achievements for 1 RGR. The Battalion were delighted to watch HRH The Prince of Wales present Lieutenant James Hornby with the Tuker Prize and Colour Sergeant Mukunda Rajali with the Prince of Wales Kukri during the RGR 25 celebrations for their exceptional work in 2018/19. The year also saw trips to Buckingham Palace for Major Pete Houlton-Hart, Captain Scott Sears and Corporal Netra Rana to be awarded MBEs for Operations, Antarctic expeditions and Paralympic Volleyball respectively.

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The Shooting team and Cambrian Patrol team both had a hugely successful 2019. The Battalion shooting team took the top slot at Bisley and fielded a sniper pair that took first position at both the Army and Tri-Service Sniper competitions. The Battalion Cambrian Patrol team again supported the Nepalese Army team’s preparations before winning a gold medal for an astounding fourth year in a row. On the sporting field the Battalion also had a year of notable achievements. The Nepal Cup and Volleyball teams were both narrowly defeated in the finals, finishing second.

It has been a varied, challenging and thoroughly rewarding 25th anniversary year for the Battalion.

Jai 1 RGR! (This is a shortened version of the 1 RGR report, which was 18 pages long and which described an extremely busy year for the Battalion. Editor)

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OP CORDED team with HRH Prince Harry in Malawi

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SECOND BATTALION

ast year, 2019, had been another busy year for 2 RGR. We deployed C Company to Australia on Exercise PACIFIC KUKRI, run Battalion Headquarters Training with the CAST North team, run Junior Leadership Cadre (JLC) for Intake 16 and deployed the BFB Battlegroup to the jungle. Support Company soldiers have conducted counter poaching in Malawi for four months, and A Company has trained alongside the Royal Thai Army in Thailand. In addition to this we have continued to uphold the excellent reputation of the RGR in Brunei, supporting the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, and across the Army with success on career courses and events throughout the year.

huge success, qualifying all students to promote to Lance Corporal and improving the leadership skills and experience of all involved. Top student was awarded to Rifleman Jyotishwar of A Company, who was promoted to Lance Corporal on conclusion of the Cadre.

2 RGR CAST, February 2019

In February 2 RGR HQ continued its training cycle with the help of the Command and Staff Trainer (CAST) North team. The team flew from Catterick out to Brunei to deliver valuable training for BHQ and continue a training cycle begun at the end of 2018. In the spirit of creating “tactical frictions” BHQ eschewed the idea of an indoor Ops room and B (Gallipoli) Coy JLC, January – March 2019 deployed its tents to Medecina Lines, truly replicating 2 RGR had a rapid start to the year, launching straight the heat and stress of operating a mobile HQ in Brunei. Despite a recent churn of BHQ personnel the into the Junior Leadership Cadre for Intake 16 exercise was a great success; with the HQ running soldiers. The cadre was run by Major Rob Morford smoothly, two full planning cycles were conducted and B (Gallipoli) Company out of Penanjong Camp, and executed, the report from CAST North came back and consisted of the usual mix of conceptual and positive but with plenty of recommendations for its physical assessments, with the exercise elements next run out later in the year. of the course moving between the jungle and the urban environments. This gave our next generation of junior leaders the challenge of operating in the Ex PACIFIC KUKRI PK 19, April – May 2019 urban environment, which they have not done since Between April and May, C (Tamandu Company) joining the battalion two years ago. The cadre was a deployed to Shoalwater Bay Training Area in

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Queensland, Australia, for 2 RGR’s annual overseas training exercise, Ex PACIFIC KUKRI. This gave C Company, under the command of Major Andy Blackmore, a fantastic opportunity to conduct both blank and live firing up to Company level, with support elements of recce, snipers, anti–tanks and mortars embedded throughout. Shoalwater Bay’s subtropical climate and varied terrain gave everyone an opportunity to experience something different from the Brunei jungle, and for many was the first time operating in conjunction with support weapons.

As well as the tactical elements of the training, it was a great opportunity to test the Company’s ability to deploy overseas and continued the RGR’s longstanding engagement with the Australian Defence Force.

During the Exercise, C Company were given the honour of taking part in Rockhampton city’s ANZAC day celebrations, forming part of an 800 strong parade which was watched by 5000 people from the city.

The exercise phase concluded with a dawn attack onto Freshwater Camp in Company strength. The men, exhilarated but exhausted from almost five weeks of operating, then returned to camp and turned their focus to adventurous training. Advanced planning meant in January 40 C Company soldiers were qualified as PADI Open Water divers and were able to enjoy a three-day diving package on Heron Island, which forms part of the Great Barrier Reef.

Exercise PACIFIC KUKRI was a triumph for 2 RGR and for C Company, a huge training opportunity that was capitalised on by all participants. B Company looks forward to their deployment in 2020 to New Zealand, in the exercise’s next iteration.

Support (Imphal) Company Cadre, April – May 2019 2 RGR’s annual support weapons cadre was run shortly after Easter leave. The whole of Support Coy deployed to Sittang Camp to enable the recce, sniper, machine gun, anti-tank and mortar platoons to train and select new soldiers from the Rifle Companies. The end result is the Battalion is positioned to offer its full suite of capability to any future deployments.

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OC Support Company placing a radio transmitter in the ear of a black rhino prior to release

Ex MESSINES RIDGE, May 2019 Shortly after the conclusion of Ex PACIFIC KUKRI it was now BHQ’s turn to deploy to Australia, this time in Brisbane as part of Exercise MESSINES RIDGE. 2 RGR HQ was subordinated to an Australian Brigade HQ for the exercise with elements playing Lo-Con too, all this part of a much larger Australian Defence Force exercise. BHQ personnel had a great opportunity to see a large joint headquarters in action, and to feel the realities of operating as a small cog in a joint and multinational environment, with its longer planning timelines and fewer freedoms. In contrast to CAST in February the exercise was run at a slower pace, giving plenty of opportunity for BHQ personnel to enjoy Brisbane during down time.

Ex TYPHOON KUKRI, June 2019 As part of a wider drive for 2 RGR to prove its deployability into the jungle, Ex TYPHOON KUKRI was run in June. The Ex aim was to test 2 RGR’s ability to conduct a battlegroup sized deployment into the jungle and sustain the whole battlegroup once installed. This was a great opportunity for the Battalion, as while we are all confident fighting in the

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jungle, it has been years since the combat service support elements of the battlegroup have been tested in this way. With great support from across British Forces Brunei, especially from 7 Flight, 2 RGR was deployed at reach into Ulu Tutong. Now the challenge of sustaining the battlegroup began. The CSS team did a great job, combining road, aviation and boat moves to keep all soldiers stocked with front line scales throughout the exercise. The Exercise acted as a warm-up for Ex HIKMAT BERSATU, which again would see the Battlegroup deploying into the Ulu Tutong, but this time with a free play enemy.

Op CORDED, Malawi, July – December 2019 This year, 2 RGR have had the privilege of deploying a small team of mostly Support Company soldiers on Op CORDED, a counter illegal wildlife trade mission to Malawi and Zambia. In July, the team returned to the UK to conduct pre-deployment training and for the next five months they were deployed in Malawi, assisting local park rangers in the fight against poaching.

The areas of Malawi and Zambia that the Op CORDED team were operating in are hotspots for biodiversity, and have particularly large populations

of African Elephant, as well as being rich in other highly threatened species such as black rhino, lion, pangolin, African painted dogs and others. This makes them a good target for poachers and a high priority for anti-poaching work. The teams were focussed on intercepting poachers, recovering snares and improving the patrolling skills of the park rangers they were partnered with.

The Op CORDED team had the honour of hosting HRH Prince Harry, who visited as part of his Africa tour at the end of September. There was poignant moment during his visit when a memorial for Guardsman Talbot, who was sadly killed by an elephant earlier in the year, was unveiled. With the Gurkha’s natural skill in the multinational environment the CORDED team have achieved a lot in a small time and have learned a great many lessons to take forward into future Op CORDED deployments.

Ex HIKMAT BERSATU, September 2019 Continuing from the training objectives of Ex TYPHOON KUKRI, 2 RGR, ably supported by K Troop, 42 Commando, a boat troop from the Royal Engineers and a troop from the Kings Royal Hussars, deployed on Ex HIKMAT BERSATU. Once again 2 RGR

Battlegroup TAC on Ex HIKMAT BERSATU

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there was a great selection of entertainments on show and a good time was had by all. Even with Ex HIKMAT BERSATU stepping on the toes of Dashain, the Pujari party were still able to conduct all the proper ceremonies on time, and the Battalion distilled its celebrations into one week enabling everybody to take a rest.

Ex PANTHER GOLD, November 2019

A Thai Army soldier getting up close with the local wildlife on Ex PANTHER GOLD

battlegroup deployed to Ulu Tutong and this time faced a free-play enemy made up of C (Tamandu Company) and the troop from the KRH. After a road, heli and boat insertion of the battlegroup to Ulu Tutong, Recce Platoon then led a 10-day advance and clear operation in the Brunei jungle. Eventually, after 10 days of signs but no contacts, the Enemy were found, which started a quick planning cycle to redeploy A and B Companies to be ready for the assault with machine guns and mortars in support.

Ex HIKMAT BERSATU was the first time 2 RGR had deployed the whole unit into the jungle during our current Brunei tour and C Company provided a varied and unpredictable enemy force. The difficulties of jungle warfare at this scale were replicated throughout, with resupply proving complex and time consuming, and the relatively simple task of finding the enemy taking 10 days to complete. After a final attack in which the enemy were surprised, surrounded, then defeated, the end of the exercise saw 7 Flight conduct their biggest ever aviation lift in Brunei, flying over 200 soldiers out of the jungle in a single day.

Dashain and Tihar As always, the auspicious festival of Dashain was celebrated in grand style by 2 RGR. With the addition of a professional entertainment troupe from Nepal,

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November saw A (Amboor) Company deploy to Thailand for an exercise with the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Royal Thai Army. The exercise focussed on building interoperability between the two armies, with both sides learning from the other’s jungle experiences. This saw soldiers from both nations integrating directly into the sections of their partners and following each other’s TTPs throughout in a totally embedded environment. The exercise concentrated on the low-level tactical drills at Platoon level which are of use to the Royal Thai Army in securing their borders against smuggling and poaching. Once again, our soldiers’ excellent ability to work alongside partner nations was in evidence, and the exercise concluded with a fullscale karaoke party to celebrate the joint success.

RGR 25 and Recruit Intake 19 This year 2 RGR celebrated the RGR 25 by combining the parade and celebrations with the arrival and attestation of Recruit Intake 19. After a gruelling nine months at ITC Catterick the RI 19 Riflemen arrived in Brunei to get their first taste of the jungle on a two-week induction cadre. The cadre concluded with a jungle exercise under the close supervision of their instructors. This has truly set the conditions for RI 19’s further training and integration into the rifle companies. Their final attestation parade was a great success and Nishani Mai was expertly borne

by Captain Shiva and his party.

Alongside the major events of the year there have been significant successes by individuals and small teams across the Battalion. Corporal Subas Rai (B Company) won the Queen’s Medal at the Army Shooting Competition at Bisley.

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Queens Medal winner Corporal Subash Rai being carried in the winner’s chair

2 RGR Shooting team at Bisley The shooting team’s success has continued in Canada as part of an international skill at arms meet, with Rifleman Amrit being awarded the best shot of the competition. We have had a team in Nepal conducting AT and there are now many more qualified PADI Open Water divers than last year. We have had a team win the PARAs 10 and most recently the Cambrian Patrol team returned from Wales with gold medals.

2 RGR’s success on career courses has continued, with many Instructor’s Recommendations and Distinctions on the Section Commanders’ and Platoon Sergeants’ Battle Courses, and 2 RGR Officers and NCOs have continued in that vein on the Jungle Warfare and Operational Tracking Instructor’s Courses. 2 RGR have continued their support to the Jungle Warfare Division in Medecina Lines and have sent two platoons to provide force protection in BATUK. The annual Champion Company Competition was held just before summer leave and, after a hard fought two weeks, Support Company were crowned the winners.

Following the New Year, JLC 20 for RI 17 is now underway, before B Coy go to New Zealand for the next iteration of Ex PACIFIC KUKRI and finally the unit move to UK.

Anti-Poaching Patrols in Malawi The last four months has seen members of the 2 RGR

Cpl Ananda on patrol with the Head of Security for Liwonde National Park

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OP CORDED team at the gate of Liwonde Training Centre

deployed on counter illegal wildlife trade operations in Liwonde National Park, Malawi. The team partnered with Malawi’s Department for National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) and African Parks (AP); two outstanding organisations. This is the fourth iteration of Op CORDED, the name given to the British Army’s counter poaching efforts.

On 1 August 2019, 35 members of 2 RGR along with attachments landed in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe. A road move South and the team were met by sightings of their first wild animals; impala, kudu, waterbuck and elephant all just metres from Liwonde National Park’s (LNP) main gate. The ranger training centre in LNP was to be the home for the team for the next four months. Some final training involving tuning in the team’s tracking skills to the bush, familiarising ourselves with the Ranger’s SOPs, and most importantly revising the dangerous animal behaviour actions on. We were now operational.

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The team operated on a three-week rotation of long patrols tackling illegal logging in the Forest reserve North of the park, riverine operations combating the poachers entering the park via the Shire river and maintaining a QRF at 15 minutes Notice to Move. Partnered patrols of AP Rangers and Gurkhas achieved fantastic synergy, merging two specialist skillsets to achieve tactical and strategic effect.

Whether pursuing poachers before positioning rangers to enact an arrest, or tracking and monitoring black rhino for darting, the tracking prowess of the Gurkha soldiers and AP Rangers was put to the test daily. Operations both during the day and night resulted in large numbers of illegal fishermen being arrested and their boats confiscated in a bid to preserve some of the fish species not found anywhere else in the world. Our operations tested everyone to a man in a new environment, with the added threats of dangerous game, including all the Big 5 species.

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From fighting fires day and night to responding to real life emergency casualties, the team deployed in Malawi dealt with an array of life-threatening situations. The list of once in a lifetime experiences is too long to mention, the highlights of which include darting and collaring elephant, rescuing a pangolin (the world’s most illegally trafficked animal) and assisting in the rehabilitation of cheetah. The climax of this operational tour was the critical role the team played in the largest black rhino translocation in history. The team planned and assisted in the moving of 17 male and female black rhinos from South Africa to Malawi before releasing them within LNP. Upon landing in Lilongwe in the early hours of the morning, the team escorted the seven trucks carrying rhino arriving in LNP just after first light. A quick reconsolidation of manpower and the operation started. Trucks and release teams pushed to all parts of the park ready to release their allotted rhino. The operation was at the forefront of game capture release techniques; rhinos were sedated and guided from their boxes using manpower on heavy duty ropes.

Coming face to face with the vast and majestic black rhino was a surreal and special experience.

The rhino would be sedated whilst teams worked quickly to attach ear tags and assist the vets in checking the rhino’s health. Once all the work was done it was a case of injecting the reversal drug and giving the rhino space to wake up and adjust to its new environment. Observed from a quickly-climbed tree or the back of a pick-up, a brief moment of relief as another rhino was successfully released into the park. With the adrenaline still pumping it was then onto the next one, a conveyor belt of rhino wrestling. By the time all the rhinos were released there were a lot of sore bodies, but the stories will be spoken about around fires for many years to come. To see the future of Malawi’s rhino population thriving in the days following the release has to be a highlight of many of the team’s careers.

The tangible impact our team had during the tour stretches beyond the realms of the tactical actions on the ground. Community engagement projects culminated in the team raising over £3,000 for the park’s Happy Readers scheme, looking to promote conservation values while teaching young children to read through the medium of interactive story books.

Educating the local population about nature conservation and human wildlife conflict is particularly important; as we experienced when a lady, five months pregnant at the time, was struck and gored in the abdomen by an elephant. Our medical team’s response, led by WO2 Surendra Tamang, to this casualty and their utter dedication to the lady’s well-being resulted in not only saving her life but also the life of her unborn child. Headlines in international press spoke of the ‘miracle’ performed by the medics and shed greater light on the incredible work that our partners were conducting daily. This was not an isolated incident; the medics dealt with and saved, the lives of three individuals during our tour – a testament to the medical skills of each and every one of them.

By the time the team left Malawi lifelong bonds have been forged between soldiers, rangers and the park staff. A shared hardship of four months, culminating in an historic translocation of black rhino had ensured this was the case. A small National Park in a small African country has left an indelible mark on 35 Gurkhas. Liwonde has 35 new lifelong supporters and the world has 35 new conservationists. The African Parks team continue their fantastic work, through hardship and sacrifice, to provide the world with one of its truly special places, protecting some of its most precious species. We are eternally grateful to them.

Jai 2 RGR!

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A GWT 50th birthday celebration in Nepal

THE GURKHA WELFARE TRUST “Gurkhas Living Out Their Lives with Dignity” Our success in 2018/19 Last year (2019) marked 50 years of The Gurkha Welfare Trust in Nepal. Thanks to the incredible and continued support of the British public, thousands of Gurkha veterans and their families now receive a guaranteed monthly income, have a roof over their head, have medical assistance and live in communities which have vital access to clean water and education.

As we continue to support Gurkha veterans, their widows and communities across Nepal we rely on your support.

With your help, last year: • 4,831 Gurkha veterans and widows across Nepal received our Welfare Pension.

• 1,000 Gurkha veterans or widows were awarded Emergency Hardship Grants.

• 406 family members received a Home

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Carer’s Allowance.

• 227 disabled children of our core beneficiaries received a Disability Support Grant.

• All Welfare Pensioners received a Winter Allowance of warm winter clothing.

• 73,500 cases were treated by our medical staff.

• 2,817 people attended two medical camps.

• 48 vulnerable Welfare Pensioners received roundthe-clock care at our two Residential Homes.

• 30,342 people had clean water piped to their homes thanks to 101 build and repair projects, and 5,252 taps were installed.

• 28,647 children benefitted from our Schools Programme, which included six major refurbishment projects and two brand new model schools.

• 103 earthquake-resilient houses were built for Gurkha veterans and widows whose homes were deemed most at risk of collapse in the event of another earthquake.

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Gurkha widow Aitamaya Limbu outside her earthquake-proof house

• 666 ex-Gurkhas received advice from our two UK Welfare Advice Centres.

Other news from 2019 2019 marked our 50th year supporting Gurkha veterans and their dependants, which was cause for congratulation in both Nepal and the UK. Each of our 21 Area Welfare Centres held their own event in traditional Nepali style, while here in the UK we organised a celebratory curry lunch at the Gurkha Museum in April. This was well-attended by current staff and trustees as well as original Trust fundraiser Anthony Wieler, several of our former chairmen, and vice-patrons Field Marshal The Lord Bramall and Field Marshal Sir John Chapple.

Last year we took pre-emptive action by building 103 new earthquake-resilient homes for Gurkha veterans and widows. Studying the structural weaknesses of pensioners’ homes destroyed in the 2015 earthquake encouraged us to take this action to protect our most vulnerable pensioners. Our homes are built to an earthquake-resilient design and they are able to withstand the heavy rains and strong winds of the

annual monsoon season.

We were delighted to welcome bestselling author and Trust supporter Alexander McCall Smith CBE to Nepal in January to see first-hand the vital work we do.

The author, who is best known as the creator of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, visited Gurkha

Alexander McCall Smith and Lal Bahadur Gurung

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veteran, and recipient of our Welfare Pension, Lal Bahadur Gurung during his trip: “We met in the courtyard of his son’s house. He walked quite well for a man of 105, supported by a walking frame bought for him by The Gurkha Welfare Trust. He sat down, and I sat down opposite him, our interpreter at his side. He told me his story. After signing up, he had been sent to India, and from there to Iraq. Then he went on to Egypt, where he fought in the Western Desert. I asked him whether he had been under the command of Montgomery, and he said no, it was Mr Churchill who was in charge. Then he was taken to Italy, with the invasion, and he fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino. He said: “I lost many friends. Many of us did not come back.”

We were saddened to hear of the death of Lord Bramall at the end of 2019, at the age of 95. From his time serving in World War Two until his retirement in 1985, he was part of almost every UK military campaign, serving as Colonel of the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles in the late 1970’s, then Colonel of the entire Brigade of Gurkhas and, finally, the Head of the British Military from 1982 to 1985. He became Vice Patron of The Gurkha Welfare Trust in 1999 and was a staunch supporter until his death.

2019 also saw the loss of one of the Trust’s most generous supporters, philanthropist Sir Michael Uren, who died in August aged 95. Sir Michael donated the funds which enabled us to build our two Residential Homes in Nepal. Thanks to his generosity, our most vulnerable Welfare Pensioners will receive essential round-the-clock care for the rest of their lives, a tremendous legacy to leave, and grateful residents at both homes in Kaski and Dharan held their own puja in his honour.

In June, we were delighted to hear

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Field Marshal The Lord Bramall at the GWT 50th birthday celbrations

that both our Chairman and a member of our UK team had been recognised in the Birthday Honours list. Lieutenant General Sir Nick Pope KCB CBE was appointed to the military division of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Nick is Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the British Army and the official head of the Brigade of Gurkhas, as well as the Chairman of The Gurkha Welfare Trust. Mahendra Kumar Limbu MBE was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to Gurkha personnel and their families. Mahendra is our Welfare Officer in Aldershot, providing advice and support to Gurkha families choosing to settle in the UK. We strive to provide our staff in Nepal with the very best training, to enable them to perform their roles to the utmost in a challenging environment.

Working in partnership with the Institute of Advanced Motoring, we ran two motorbike riding courses to train 33 members of staff in 2019. This training will enable our staff to travel out to Gurkha pensioners in remote locations safely and quickly. Last year, we also partnered with Team Rubicon to deliver emergency response training to GWT staff across the country, using practical scenarios to help them

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plan how to react in the event of a natural disaster.

This vital training will be rolled out to more of our staff in February 2020, enabling us to better support our veterans and their dependants and communities, when the very worst happens.

Back in the UK, we have been humbled as always by the unstinting support of the public for our work in Nepal – and the lengths some will go to on our behalf. Trailwalker remains one of the highlights of our fundraising year and, in 2019, 232 teams completed the 100km challenge across the South Downs in aid of the Trust and our charity partner Oxfam GB, together raising close to £1m. The Queen’s Gurkha Signals were the first to cross the finish line in 10 hours and 25 minutes, beating reigning champions the Royal Gurkha Rifles. A further £12,000 was raised by six individual supporters who ran the London Marathon for us, three of them crossing the finishing line in under four hours. And we rounded off the year with a traditional carol service in St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London, the week before Christmas. The church was filled to capacity, and the stirring event raised another £8,000 for the Trust.

What next in Nepal?

OUR MEDICAL AID

2019 was the first full year that all of our medical clinics were in full operation. Each of our 21 Area Welfare Centres now has a medical clinic available to Gurkha veterans and their families which offers world-class facilities, delivering a high-standard of free medical care for Gurkha veterans and their families. Each medical clinic is equipped with top-ofthe-range equipment, a pharmacy, and highly trained doctors and nurses.

Our Pensioner Support Teams will continue to visit and assess Gurkha veterans and widows in their own homes to provide medical check-ups and home aids, and other welfare assistance. We will also run four medical camps in remote areas of Nepal.

Our Residential Homes care for 48 vulnerable Welfare Pensioners, and provide intensive rehabilitation to others who have been left frail and immobile due to illness or injury in two new dedicated doublebedded facilities.

EARTHQUAKE HOMES PROGRAMME

We are again this year rebuilding 100+ new earthquake-resilient houses a year for our most vulnerable Gurkha pensioners.

OUR FINANCIAL AID

We currently pay a Welfare Pension to just over 4,300 impoverished Gurkha veterans and widows (as at 31 December 2019) who do not receive a British Army pension because they did not serve the requisite number of years. There are around 270 World War Two veterans still receiving our support. Just over half of our Welfare Pensioners are over 80 years old and more than 20% are over 90. Amazingly, 63 of them are over 100!

WATER PROJECTS

In July 2019, the pension was raised to 11,500 Nepali Rupees (NPR) per month, or roughly £82. This 5% increase ensures the pension continues to cover the cost of the shopping basket we use, so that its value is retained.

COMMUNITY CENTRES

In 2019/20, in partnership with DFID, we will build and repair 110 water schemes and bring clean water directly to the doorsteps of almost 41,000 people.

SCHOOL PROJECTS

We are building three new schools in 2019/20. Each of these major projects will include teacher training and library installation.

In 2019/20, we will build two further community centres in remote rural areas, as a gathering place in time of both disaster and celebration.

Adam Bentham

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Colonel Cecil Allanson’s medals, purchased with a grant from 6 GRRA’s Legacy Fund

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GURKHA MUSEUM

s one of the Four Pillars of the Brigade, the Gurkha Museum continues to fully engage with the other Three Pillars as well as the public in this country and abroad. Both locally and nationally we are expanding educational outreach opportunities and developing stronger links and partnerships with other museums, organisations and agencies. This year we have consolidated our position in the provision of Gurkha heritage to the serving Brigade, wider Army and the public.

Staff In February 2019, Christine Bernath, Charlie Martin and Doug Henderson were given the opportunity to travel to Nepal. During their stay they visited British Gurkhas Kathmandu, British Gurkhas Pokhara, the Nepal Army Museum and the Gurkha Memorial Museum.

Christine Bernath also visited the Indian United

Services Institute in October as part of a National Army Museum initiative to provide a museum curator’s course for Indian military collections. I am also pleased to announce that Charlie Martin has been promoted to Head of Fundraising and Marketing and has been joined by Alison Wells as Fundraising Co-ordinator. A new Administration Assistant, Marta Lourido, joined the staff in October and, as always, the three Gurkha staff, Megh, Hom and Mekh continue to provide work and service at the highest level. In December they were also joined by Chris Manson to help as a Museum Assistant.

Trustees After serving seven years as Colonel BG, Colonel James Robinson CBE, stood down in September as ex-officio Trustee of the Gurkha Museum Trust with Colonel Jody Davies MBE becoming the new ex-officio Trustee in his place. Likewise, Major Chandrabahadur

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Pun stood down as a Trustee in March and was replaced by Major Gajendra Angdembe, OC Gurkha (Sittang) Company. Further new Trustees appointed during 2019 were Lt General Sir David Bill KCB, Mrs Sudha Rai and Major John Harrop.

Volunteers Volunteers at the Museum provide invaluable help and assistance in enabling the Museum to function efficiently and provide a high level of support. We currently have about twenty five regular volunteers that assist in the shop, archives, collection and stewarding exhibitions. They are to be commended for the quality of their work, commitment and time freely given.

Education and Outreach Since my last report we have had 24 visits from Brigade units and units from the wider army. Military visits accounted for over 1,000 soldiers which is 10% of our total visitor number of 10,903. I would particularly like to thank The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment for their tangible support for the Museum’s Armed Forces Day event in June. We continue to host annual visits from Gurkha Company Catterick as part of Ex TESRO KHADHAM. In addition to the unit visits, Nepalese communities continue to organise large group visits with Kamal Purja bringing 275 to the Museum in May from Maddhat Shamua.

This group also visits nearby Hillier Gardens where there is a Gurkha Memorial Chautara. This year has also seen the Museum develop a partnership with Hillier Gardens which will help with the education and outreach development of us both.

Together with the other military museums in Peninsula Barracks we have had 597 school children visit from ten different schools across the region on STEM subjects, history and remembrance. Children’s craft events throughout the year continue to attract large numbers of children and parents, currently numbering 300.

Staff from the Museum have given lectures on Gurkha heritage to Gurkha units in Camberley, York, Maidstone and Warminster and to special interest

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groups in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire, including a regional Royal British Legion annual conference in Newbury.

Lectures Lectures in 2019 increased in number and variety. In May, Adrian Hayes spoke about his experiences on K2; in June, Dr Robert Lyman gave a lecture on Viscount Slim; Brigadier David Morgan spoke about the Falklands and the Director gave an evening lecture entitled ‘Bandits, Revolt and Confrontation’ regarding operations between 1948 and 1966. Of particular note was the lecture given by Tim Bean on Imphal and Kohima. It was so popular it was repeated the next day with over one hundred people attending both dates. Garfield Smith was instrumental in arranging this talk which in total raised over £4,000 for the Museum. The Museum also hosts six winter lunchtime lectures on behalf of Winchester’s Military Museums on various military topics which receive good local support. We continue to host the popular Sirmoor “Armchair Battlefield Tour” lecture series given by Major Gordon Corrigan.

The Museum will be instigating seminar format events with multiple speakers and a curry lunch.

Two so far being planned will be on the topics of Mountaineering and Valour.

Exhibitions Doug Henderson curated this year’s summer exhibition entitled “Between Two Worlds” detailing life and activity in the Gurkha Brigade between the two world wars. The exhibition, opened by Colonel Brigade of Gurkha designate, Colonel Jody Davies, ran from 1 August for one month and attracted 725 visitors.

This was an 18% increase over last year’s attendance.

GBA I would like to thank the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles’ Regimental Association (6 GRRA) and Trust for their help and support throughout the year.

Many Associations and Trusts hold their meetings here in the McDonald Gallery and 7 GR, 9 GR and 10 GR also hold their annual reunions at the Museum.

The financial support given to us by you and other Associations and Trusts is most welcome and is a very

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Gavin presents a copy of 6 GR’s History Volume 2 to The Gurkha Memorial Museum in Pokhara

important element of our annual income. It helps us protect and preserve Brigade heritage and to educate and inform others of the contribution that Gurkhas have made to this country.

GWT There has been a significant strengthening in liaison with the Gurkha Welfare Trust. GWT staff have been to the Museum on a number of occasions to find out more about Gurkha heritage and the Museum.

The Gurkha Museum entered teams for the Doko Challenge and Trailwalker raising over £1,700 for the Trust and on 11 April the Trust and their guests celebrated their 50th Anniversary with a Curry Lunch at the Museum. GWT Trustees continue to hold meetings at the Museum and earlier in the year Museum and GWT staff jointly attended three days of training by the Brigade Culture and Language Team in our McDonald Gallery. In October GWT and the Gurkha Museum featured together on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow when Major Bishnu Pun was interviewed with the medals of his father, Captain (QGO) Bhaktasing Pun MM. The medals are held at the Museum.

Commercial and Communications Charlie Martin, our Commercial Manager, has expanded the product range of our shop with new lines for all age groups. Trading continues to develop as new opportunities to market and advertise the shop are taken. A number of new unique and Gurkha branded products have been added to the range including a USB memory stick in the form of a kukri! A children’s item that is proving most popular is the Museum’s Gurkha Tiger soft toy called Nepti. Part of the trading development is through the website and social media platforms and these are playing a far greater role in promoting our products as the number of followers increase. Facebook has seen a 30% increase in followers, Twitter a 9% increase and for Instagram 50%.

Fundraising At the end of 2019 the Museum finalised plans to make provision for a dedicated fundraising capability.

This will enable the Museum to achieve routine fundraising potential and at the appropriate time, capital fundraising capability. There are several factors that are affecting the choice of time in launching plans for the re-development of the displays

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and archives and the Trustees are mindful that this should be done at the right moment. It is an exciting time for the Museum with new staff, new Trustees, new initiatives and new plans. As already reported, Charlie Martin will head this new initiative forward.

Of particular note this year was the money donated to the Gurkha Museum from an auction of items belonging to Jean Stone, the widow of Lt Colonel Geoffrey Stone (5 RGR and 6 GR). In total £1,480 was raised from the sale of 5 RGR and 6 GR pieces, including a very fine, white gold and diamond 6 GR sweetheart brooch. A copy of Volume 2 of the 6 GR History from this collection was also donated to the Gurkha Memorial Museum in Pokhara and delivered in person by me when visiting Nepal in November. I am grateful to Lt Colonel Brian O’Bree for organising this auction and magnificent donation to the Museum.

Acquisitions Of great significance to the Museum has been the donation of the decorations and medals of Colonel Cecil Allanson of Gallipoli fame. These medals came to us via 6 GRRA which used their Legacy Fund to purchase the medals for £11,200 before presenting them to the Museum. Following that donation, John Allanson Davies donated the important Allanson Papers to enhance the 6 GR archive. Later in the year Don Ruffell donated a fine and recently renovated portrait of Lieutenant Hugh Wallace, tragically killed in action in 1963 whilst serving with 2/6th GR in Borneo. Although we do not readily accept kukris into the collection (we already have over 350!) we did take advantage of acquiring two kukris and two Afghan knives collected by Captain George Robinson of 2/6th GR in 1935. There have been welcome donations to the collection and archives.

Friends of the Gurkha Museum Friends Membership is almost exactly the same as last year and stands at 596. Membership charges have risen this year to £20 for single membership, £30 joint and £200 for life membership. I would encourage all to join and enjoy the benefits of free entry and many discounts for the shop, gallery bookings and the café at Peninsula Barracks. The AGM and Tea

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The restored portrait of Lieutenant Hugh Wallace

by Juliet Pannett which was presented to the Museum by the Ruffell family

held annually in May is to be commended as a way of learning more about the Museum and next year there will be other Friends only events.

Legacies We have produced legacy information material for circulation and have added it to the Museum website.

A fundraising and legacy strategy will be produced in the new year when it is hoped there will be more effective measures to raise awareness of our need to be financially supported via legacies.

Conclusion In 2020 there will be appointed a new Director as I shall be retiring, having worked at the Gurkha Museum in one guise or another for twenty-seven years! It is the right time for me to retire and I will do so at a date yet to be fixed. It is appropriate that my successor should be in post from the start of our new fundraising initiatives and exciting plans for the future of the Museum. Thank you for the consistent help and support you have given the Museum, my staff and me personally.

Gavin Edgerley Harris

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The 6 GR Table: Duncan Briggs, Michele Pettigrew, Bob Richardson Aitken, Flit Whitehead, Paul Pettigrew, Sophie Shoesmith, John Mackinlay, Ria Briggs, Anthony Vosper, and Rachel Mackinlay

GBA MEMORIAL SERVICE AND REUNION LUNCH

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8 June 2019

he GBA Reunion begins with a service in the Royal Memorial Chapel in Sandhurst. This Chapel has played a huge role in the lives of the Officer Cadets and their instructors but it has also played a role in this “Wife Of’s” life! We have had two family weddings in the Chapel, firstly in September 1967 my father, who was then Commander of Old College, married my beautiful stepmother, Christine De Jenner, the youngest sister-in-law of the Adjutant (Giles Allan, Irish Guards). Three years later in July 1970 John and I were married there. As we left the Chapel, George Mackenzie piped us out and Michael Whitehead and Tom Blackford formed a Guard of honour for us!

I digress. The Service this year was approximately the 29th (!) we have attended during our married life. To be honest my main reason for going is to see old friends throughout the Brigade. However, the service itself is also hugely important, especially when the Brigade is involved in war. It allows us to acknowledge the sacrifice many have made in the service of the Crown. The best years are when no names are read out.

After the final blessing we all process outside the chapel towards the sound of a Gurkha piper playing beside the memorial to the fallen soldiers of the British Army. The Padre is joined by a Hindu Priest and a Buddhist Lama and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist

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Enjoying bhat: Jon Titley, Ray Pett, Libby Fisher, Dai Hitchcock, Marie Pett, David Bredin, Trisha Hickey, Carole Horsford, Mrs Dammarbahadur Shahi, Dammar Shahi and Gary Ghale

prayers are said and sung and wreaths are laid before the statue.

Following this moving tribute we gather for drinks in the Indian Army Room (which was the original Chapel in bygone times) and we have time to embrace special friends – and eat some delicious Aludam. This year 172 people attended the lunch, of whom 33 or thereabouts were from 6 GR. After years of formal seating plans I like to play a game of “pot luck” – last ones in, and no idea with whom we’ll be sitting. Our table showed the strength of Gurkha family connections: Mani (a son of the 10th and 7th) and Sudha (a daughter of the 10th), Helen and her son Brian Hickey (a son of the 6th), Tina and Charles Blackmore (Charles’s father was in GTR) and a charming friend of theirs, John and me (also a daughter of the 10th).

The highlight is the Chairman’s address, a chance to find out exactly what has happened, what is happening, and what may happen. At Buckingham Palace 60 years ago on 10 June 1959 a party of serving and retired officers and soldiers from both the 6th and 7th Gurkha Rifles witnessed, in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, the granting of their Royal Titles to their respective regiments – as the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own and the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles.

We also learned that RGR would celebrate 25 years of service to the Crown on July 1 and were pleased to hear of awards to several serving officers and soldiers. However, the best was saved until last – the momentous news that the Brigade was expanding by 80% for the first time since the early 1960s. How marvellous is that?

Louise Anderson

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COMMEMORATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MICHAEL ALLMAND VC

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23 June 2019

n Saturday 23 June 2019 the Association commemorated the 75th anniversary of the death of Captain Michael Allmand during the attack on Mogaung in Burma, for which he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Before World War II, Michael Allmand, with the rest of his family had worshipped at St Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Golders Green, north London. After the war the parishioners created a beautiful stained-glass window in the church which included the 6 GR badge and the VC in recognition of Michael Allmand’s sacrifice, and readers may recall the articles and photographs from ceremonies at the church in the 2016 and 2018 Journals.

This service was taken by Professor David Lawrence, a Deacon in formation who, despite the short time to

organise the occasion, did a wonderful job. The service was attended by the three children of Michael Allmand’s sister, Roger and Martin Murphy and Anne Rose, plus a strong contingent of their children and grandchildren. It really was a wonderful turnout from the family. Sadly, Christopher and Bernadette Allmand were committed to a pre-arranged cruise on the Danube. Martin Russell, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Greater London with special responsibility for Barnet, who had been very involved in organising the commemoration, and his wife Bridget also attended, as did Councillor Lachhya Gurung, the Deputy Mayor of Barnet and leader of the Nepalese Burnt Oak Community. With Lachhya, from the Burnt Oak Community came our own Captain Bombahadur Gurung and Jitbahadur Gurung; it was wonderful to see them both. A small group of four from RGR led

by Captain Scott Sears also joined us, as well as a number of relations and parishioners. The Association was represented by John Anderson, Paul Pettigrew,

The Allmand family at the Golders Green War Memorial

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The 6 GRRA group at the Golders Green War Memorial

Bhagwansing Thapa and Duncan Briggs, as well as Captain Bombahadur.

The church service included a reading of Michael Allmand’s VC citation, Sir Ralph Turner’s tribute to Gurkha soldiers, the Bidding and the Kohima Epitaph, as well as the laying of a wreath by the Deputy Mayor and the 6 GRRA wreath by Anne, Roger and Martin.

It was a very moving occasion, so well led by David Lawrence and so nice to include so many generations and people from such different backgrounds, each with their own link to Michael Allmand.

After some photographs and a small presentation to David Lawrence, we walked to the Golders Green War Memorial on a traffic island just outside the

The group gathered in St Edward the Confessor Catholic Church

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Underground Station where, with the traffic circling, we had a second short ceremony. There is a lovely bronze “book” recording the fallen from the borough, but unfortunately Michael Allmand’s name was not included. Some years later, after a campaign led by a local builder, Michael Allmand’s name was added and as such is the most obvious one.

As part of the service a wreath from the Barnett Council was laid by the Deputy Mayor and the 6 GRRA wreath was laid by Captain Bombahadur accompanied

by Duncan Briggs.

We all felt that it had been a fitting occasion to honour an extremely brave young man, who had given his life for what he believed in and the country that he loved, plus the many others in 3/6 GR who had fought alongside him. It was particularly gratifying to meet so many from the Allmand family, and we had a lovely message afterwards from both Christopher Allmand and Anne Rose. It was also extremely moving to be able to join so many local people from the Barnet Community.

Captain Bombahadur Gurung laying the 6 GRRA wreath at the Golders Green War Memorial

Duncan Briggs

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Cuttack Legionnaires

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THE CUTTACK ROWING CLUB

ollowing on from the success of the Great River Race in 2018, the task for 2019 was to find another suitable challenge for us to take part in – sadly the dates for the Great River Race 2019 did not match the availability of most of the original crew – or at least those that professed to wanting to give it another go.

‘Didi’ (the boat) is now a fully paid up member of the Thames Traditional Rowing Association (TTRA) who organise a number of races/ challenges in order “to support and promote the sport of traditional fixed seat rowing and sculling on the River Thames”. Other members of the TTRA include a number of livery companies and City based institutions.

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The Tudor Pull The Tudor Pull is an annual ceremonial event, this year involving the Queen’s Royal barge Gloriana, the Royal shallop Jubilant, the Company of Watermen and Lightermen’s shallop Lady Mayoress and accompanying cutters, and assorted other craft, all decked out in full regalia, rowing twenty-five miles down the Thames from Hampton Court to the Tower of London. The main aim is to deliver to the Governor of the Tower a symbolic stela (a piece of medieval water-pipe made of hollowed-out elm) and thus to promote the use of the Thames for transport. The event also commemorates the sinking of Eleanor of Provence’s barge, and the drowning of one of her courtiers, the Lady of the Bedchamber, under Old London Bridge, in 1256.

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This year’s Pull, marked the 505th anniversary of the founding of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, under Henry VIII in 1514, and took place on 29 June. A new crew had to be recruited for this challenge. In addition to NGC, David and Henry Bredin, Nigel a Brassard (an old school friend of Nick’s/ GWT supporter and huge fan of ‘bhat’), Mel Brown (the photographer who covered our 200th Drinks Party at Mercer’s Hall in 2017), Major Sarah Greenwood (Admin Officer for Brunei Garrison with 1 RGR in 2013-2015) and Victoria Carroll (a very experienced oarswoman

and now a fully-fledged Legionnaire) stepped up to give it a go. Sarah and Victoria are in training for the Talisker Challenge in December 2020 – essentially rowing the Atlantic.

Whilst the event is not competitive, Gloriana does not hang around so a decent pace has to be maintained to keep her in sight. This year was no exception: Gloriana roared off leaving the accompanying flotilla of 30+ boats spread the length and breadth of the Thames; it made the work of the safety boats very challenging.

Approaching Tower Bridge: Henry Bredin once again at ‘stroke’

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Didi more than held her own, overtaking at least five other boats – it wasn’t really a race but – and we were the 4th or 5th boat to arrive at St Katherine’s Dock. Rowing through the centre of London, dodging the City cruises/ ferries/ barges/ pleasure cruisers is quite an experience. Bear in mind that rowing boats are not allowed into the Port of London area without special permissions and a lot of safety equipment but, because this is an official event, we were able to make our way steadily, waving to the crowds of people on the banks and boats all out and about on one of the hottest days of the summer (32°C).

One Man in a Boat: Nick and Didi

Conditions were very spicy towards the end as it was wind against a strong tide mixed with the wash from all the commercial traffic on the river and we hit a number of big (for the Thames) waves with one particular wave dumping a good three inches of water into the boat... at least it wasn’t cold! The Atlantic girls were happy.

Didi is now known as the Gurkha boat so I shall seek to expand our presence on the water. Who knows we might have a crack at one of the races in 2020 as there are number of ‘sons’ who have a very distinguished rowing pedigree. Stand to!

Boating at Richmond Didi was built in partnership with the AHOY Centre based in Deptford and this is where she is looked after when not being used. However, Deptford is not the easiest place to get to and that stretch of the Thames is not very scenic, notwithstanding the significant regeneration that is taking place.

So, to counter these negatives Didi was towed up to Richmond and the call went out to Legionnaires, family and friends to see if I could tempt them into having a go. The plan for each outing would be to meet up at Richmond Bridge Boathouse, paddle upstream beyond Eel Pie Island and up to Teddington Lock and then return for refreshment in one of the many local restaurants or pubs that festoon Richmond riverside. There was a mix of evening rows (Wednesdays) and lunchtime sessions (weekends).

The weather cooperated for each outing although

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one Sunday outing tested the resolve of some of the rowers – it was fine for the row itself but absolutely tipping down with rain 30 minutes before departure.

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Boating Events in 2020 Upon placid waters: Paddy Grant and Niall MacNaughton up front

Unfortunately, the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic means that Nick’s boating plans for early 2020 will inevitably be disrupted.

However, Nick will be looking for volunteers later in the year, when hopefully the pandemic will have been brought under control, including: • June/July: A tour from Oxford to Westminster spread over four days with crews swapping in/ out of the boat at various stages unless, of course, someone wants to do the complete journey.

• August: Boating at Richmond (see article).

• September: The Great River Race. Very competitive so training will be required.

Editor

MacInnes, Simon Gordon, Mel Brown, Chris Horton, Marika Cencelli, Sarah Glasspool, Jules Denee, Hugo Denee, Mark Knight, Peter Battle, plus Nick and Eva Gordon-Creed – most attendees had two outings.

Given the relative lack of rowing experience in the boat, expectations were not high with the goal being to finish each outing on time and safely. A few outings had to cope with the very strong Thames tide but all in all the results were very good; timing of the stroke improved immeasurably during each outing and the blister count was not too bad.

The stretch of river between Richmond and Teddington is really attractive with some wonderful landmarks; Star & Garter, Petersham Hotel, Marble Hill House, Ham House, Eel Pie Island, Radnor School (site of Alexander Pope’s villa), to name just a few.

A total of six outings were held with attendees including Duncan and Ria Briggs, Frank and Alison Dufficy, Patrick Grant, Niall MacNaughton, Andy

A worthwhile venture for sure and it will be repeated in 2020 – see you on board?

Nick Gordon-Creed

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Prakash Gurung, Jack Furtado, Paul Pettigrew, Richard Lowe, Rajendra Gauchan, Durga Ramjali, Dammar Shahi

BRIGADE GOLF DAY

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12 September 2019 he GBA Annual Golf Meeting organised

by Major Dammar Shahi was held at the Army Golf Club Aldershot on Thursday 12 September 2019.

recorded elsewhere in the Journal we subsequently dined him out at the Oriental Club on 25 November.

As you can see, Prakash and Durga won prizes.

Richard Lowe however was somewhat distracted as he broke down on the M25 and was eventually I was a bit surprised to see that one of the 6 GR delivered by the AA with his car on a trailer. starters was a certain Major Frutado. However, Jack Exceptionally, they then took his car home to said this was a minor typing error as he has been Chiswick. I had then the pleasure of giving him a lift recorded as Major Fartharder. to Kingston Railway station on the way back home We were fortunate to get a good deal as the President so he could get a train home complete with his golf bags! of the Army Golf Club is Brigadier David Harrison.

Those with long memories will recall he was OIC Normally Dammar Saheb does not divulge the Education at Sungei Patani. Not surprisingly he won location of the next meeting as he thinks some of us two prizes. These were presented, after an excellent might go and practice beforehand. However, I am glad lunch, by Colonel Bijay Rawat. to report that that the location and dates are in the minutes of the AGM. So, put it in your diary.

It was also the last competition for Colonel James Robinson who was to be dined out that evening by Paul Pettigrew RGR on his last day as Colonel Brigade of Gurkhas. As

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REGIMENTAL REUNION

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5 October 2019

urnout for the 2019 Reunion was less than usual – a mere 400 or so compared to the usual battalion strength. Partly this was due to the organiser, Khusiman Sahib, being absent on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet; he returned just in time to attend the annual reunion. However, he had left the organisation of the event – as usual in the Samuel Cody College in Farnborough to his team and they did an impeccable job.

On arrival we were all given chits and directed to the bar for an initial free drink followed by a substantial tipan tapan. Entertainment was provided by Captain

Birbahadur Thapa (Biru) – now in his 70’s – who had many of the older didi bahini tapping their feet to his songs. There was dancing – both on and off stage. Duncan Briggs was given the customary five minutes notice that he had to give a speech. Brigadier John Anderson was somewhat better prepared. The afternoon passed in gaph saph over beers before a majestic bhat was laid out for all attendees. Some of the Gurkhas had timed their return to UK from Nepal so they could attend this annual reunion of our Regiment. There was beer, bhat and the best company one could wish for.

Rick Beven

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Rajendra and Rick

Old friends

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The best bhat in Farnborough

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Balkrishna Sahib with Brigadier John and John Mackinlay

Paul and Michele

Dharam and Khusiman Sahibs

Biru

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GURKHA BRIGADE DINNER 7 November 2019

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t my last attendance of the annual GBA Dinner, Margaret Thatcher was PM, Sir John Chapple had just taken over as CGS, John Anderson was CO and I was a subaltern based at Church Crookham.

That was 31 years ago. My abiding memory of that event was that the antecedent regiments, from the pre-partition Brigade, were there in force. Most could still muster a table of ten and I believe that the 5th had two that year. It is with great sadness, with the benefit of hindsight, that we didn’t get to spend more time conversing with them that evening as their associations would shortly come to a natural end.

This time it was clear that we were now representing a bygone era as those who had served in a preamalgamation regiment. Although we were only able to amass one table of those who had served with the 6th, we typically punched above our weight in the jovial banter stakes (waistlines had clearly increased over the years too) and Jeremy Brade had us laying wagers on the length of the after dinner speeches. We did lose the facial hair award to 7 GR who resembled a collection of ageing hipsters from Shoreditch but maybe not that smart. John won the prize for the most sequential GBA dinners attended – over twenty and counting.

with Brigade friends, I was also extremely interested to attend the pre-dinner briefings from the new Colonel BG, Jody Davies, and from Al Howard and the GWT. Both proved fascinating and I am sure the gist of what is happening in today’s Brigade and the welfare arena will be written about elsewhere in this publication. What was pleasing to hear was that recruitment into the Brigade will increase in 2020 to a level not seen since 1988. The future is undoubtedly brighter than it has been for many years.

After dinner we adjourned to bars various to continue with the reminiscing and to meet some of the serving ‘youngsters’. I found it amusing when chatting with the GM of 1 RGR to find out that he had enlisted the year before I retired. How time marches on.

Last time the ‘sano sahebs’ moved on to Chelsea in search of the bright lights. Jeremy even found a wife that very evening. This time we drifted across St James’s Square to the In and Out to gate crash the Fleet Air Arm’s Taranto guest night. Needless to say, the Generals led the way. A big thank you to Mani and Niall for all they did on the organisational front; it was an exceptionally good evening. Hopefully I won’t take three decades to make it to the next one.

Not only had I been looking forward to catching up

The 6 GR table at the GBA Dinner

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James Cheshire

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FIELD OF REMEMBRANCE SERVICE 2019 7 November 2019

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n the 7 November 2019, members of the Gurkha Brigade Association, and representatives from all the current and past Regimental Associations gathered together for the Field of Remembrance service at Dean’s Yard in Westminster Abbey. The event is organised by the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory as part of the annual Poppy Appeal commemorations.

Each year hundreds of volunteers help to plant more than 120,000 tributes across six Fields of Remembrance in the UK. Members of the public can make a Remembrance Tribute to be planted in the fields in the form of a religious or secular symbol carrying a poppy and a personal message to someone who lost their life in the service of the country.

The Field of Remembrance was started in 1928 by Major Howson MC, the founder of the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory. Major Howson and a few disabled ex-servicemen from the Poppy Factory grouped together around a battlefield cross and with a tray of poppies invited passers-by to plant a poppy in the vicinity of the cross. Since then, the field has evolved to include a wide range of military interests.

Ex-servicemen and women, both young and old, turn out for the opening ceremony to pay their respects to their colleagues.

HRH The Duke of Sussex (Prince Harry) and his wife HRH The Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle) represented The Queen on this occasion. Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB, CBE, Major General Jon Cole OBE and “stand in” QGOOs were presented to the Royal couple. As always, a number of 6 GRRA members attended the Service.

After the Field of Remembrance service the Gurkha Brigade contingent moved to the Gurkha Statue in Horse Guards Avenue. En-route the GBA, 6 GR and 7 GR laid wreaths, as they do every year, at the statue of Field Marshal The Viscount Slim. This was followed by a small private ceremony at the Gurkha

Statue honouring all Gurkha soldiers. A Gurkha bugler played last post which was followed by a two-minute silence and Reveille. Wreaths were laid for all Gurkha Regiments including those currently in the Indian Army.

Manikumar Rai On the following page, clockwise from top left: HRH The Duke of Sussex with Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB, CBE and Major General Jon Cole OBE with the QGOOs; Wreaths laid by the GBA, 6 GR and 7 GR at the statue of Field Marshal The Viscount Slim KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC; Manikumar Rai at the Field of Remembrance

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Signallers from the Queen’s Gurkha Signals and Gurkha Association members preparing to march to the Chautara

ACT OF REMEMBRANCE THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL ARBORETUM

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9 November 2019

nder the auspices of the GWT North Midlands Branch Chairman, Major Rob Cross, and his team, including the National Gurkha Standard Bearer Dharma Rai (ex 7 GR), we gathered in the Founders Room of the Arboretum Visitors’ Centre. In all around 80 members of the Gurkha Associations, supporters of the GWT, as well as Captain Jagatram Rai with his contingent of Queen’s Gurkha Signals, including a piper, were in attendance. This year we were joined by a number of Didi bahiniharu adding a splash of colour to the rather overcast and inclement weather.

After a coffee or two and a good gaph, we were marshalled onto Heroes’ Square by our acting Parade WO, John Lavrick, a Malaya/Borneo veteran, and the Gurkha Legion officer for the Gurkha Veterans Association in the West Midlands. At 1135 hrs,

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processing behind the piper, we made our way to the Chautara where we formed a half-circle. The Chairman of GBA, Colonel David Hayes, commenced the Act of Remembrance with a short briefing on the Brigade followed by Sir Ralph Turner’s tribute to the Gurkha Soldier. Our own Brigadier, John Anderson, followed with the traditional invocation before the two-minutes silence.

Wreaths were then laid by Association representatives as well as GSPSRA, GWT and the Malayan Veterans.

The formal ceremony was concluded by John Anderson leading us in the Prayer for the Gurkha.

This event is repeated annually. Do come along to this very moving act of remembrance: we hope to have a better turnout from 6 GRRA this year on Saturday 7 November 2020.

David Bredin

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Didi bahiniharu adding a splash of colour to the Service

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The 6 GRRA contingent on Horse Guards

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY CENOTAPH PARADE 10 November 2019

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ell, we were really lucky with the weather: Sunday 10 November dawned fine and even sunny. The walk down to Horse Guards through Green Park was lovely and then onto the parade square to try to find the Gurkha Brigade group. I found the BGWS group led by Major􀀉Tikendra and stopped for a chat before locating the Hats Felt Gurkhas across the square. It was a great turnout from the Brigade and from 6 GR. Sadly, we were without stalwarts such as Jon Titley, John Conlin and Julian White, but with a turnout of 12 the rest of us more than made up for it. Interestingly, we had two ladies in the GSA group, Maxine Cook, wife of Nick Cook and Caroline Newton Dunn, widow of Charlie Newton Dunn; it was lovely to see them both.

The usual long wait finally saw us through the arch and onto Whitehall and still in the sun. Thankfully, this year we were close to a large screen so we could see the ceremony at the Cenotaph itself. We found

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ourselves waiting next to a Dutch contingent and a few words in Dutch quickly broke the ice. What an interesting group they were. There was a gentleman in a wheelchair who had fought in Indonesia during WWII and had been attending our Remembrance Parade for 35 years, plus many others with interesting stories. We applauded the other groups as they went past, including our Gambahadur doing a great job at the head of the BLESMA contingent.

Finally, we were off. The march went well, if confusing at a slow pace and even slower tunes from the bands. Photographs done back on Horse Guards, we made our way to a church hall close by where the GSA had laid on bhat and beer. It was really well organised, went really well and was much enjoyed by everyone. A big shyabash to the GSA for the organisation and to those from 6 GRRA who turned up.

Duncan Briggs

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6 GR members at the Remembrance Day Service

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY POKHARA 10 November 2019

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his year, Remembrance Sunday was observed on Sunday 10 November 2019 in the area outside the Gurkha Memorial Museum. The function had been jointly organized by committee members of the Gurkha Memorial Museum and serving personnel from British Gurkhas Pokhara (BGP). Attending the event were personnel from BGP, GWT (N), Kadoorie and former servicemen from the British and Indian Gurkha regimental associations. Dependants of personnel killed in action in recent campaigns were also in attendance. A large number of 6 GR members, comprising mostly of those residing around Pokhara, attended the service. For the first time, members of the Indian Army Gurkhas were also invited to attend and hence the gathering was considerably larger in comparison to earlier years and the area tightly packed.

Precisely at 11 minutes past 11 am, all were brought to attention by 2IC BGP and a two-minute silence observed in remembrance and tribute to all those killed in action in various wars and conflicts. This was followed by wreath laying by various regimental associations in Nepal. Captain Bhuwansing Gurung (Chairman 6 GR Regimental Association Nepal) placed a wreath on behalf of 6 GR. Tea/Coffee and light snacks were offered to all at the end of the parade followed by lunch in BGP for all invited guests.

Lalitbahadur Gurung

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Captain Nam Sing Thapa and ex-Gurkhas pose for a photograph in front of the Cenotaph in Hong Kong

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY HONG KONG 10 November 2019

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he Gurkhas and many veterans from the Brigade of Gurkhas in Hong Kong were assembled with smart Regimental blazers, caps with own Regimental cap badges, medals and decorations at the Cenotaph in Central Hong Kong before 1100 hours on Sunday 10th November. There were many others, also very smart, from various units including ex-servicemen from the Navy, Army, RAF, the Hong Kong Ex-Serviceman’s Association, government officials, consulate representatives, religious representatives etc. There were also serving personnel in uniform from the Scouts, the Hong Kong Volunteer Regiment, Navy, and the Hong Kong SAR Police Force.

else in order of precedence. Captain Tara Prasad Gurung and Captain Nam Sing Thapa laid the wreath on behalf of all members of the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles Hong Kong (6 GRRA HK). After the completion of laying the wreaths, the Chinese national anthem was played by the Hong Kong SAR Police band and instantly anti-government Hong Kong youth protesters in a huge crowd started shouting and waving Union Jack flags outside the area of the Cenotaph cordoned by the Hong Kong SAR Police.

The parade ended at 1130 am and all spectators and guards of honour dispersed. Soon the protesters had also left the area. The programme had run smoothly and successfully.

The Hong Kong SAR Police band played music and provided the bugler. After the two-minute silence wreaths were laid at the Cenotaph, beginning with dignitaries and government officials, then everyone

Jai Legendary Gurkhas! Jai Sixth!

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Nam Sing Thapa

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KOHIMA Written after a visit to the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Kohima, Nagaland.

There’s some corner of a foreign field Not forever England’s, but ours’, our gravestones’.

Assamese or Limbu, we stood here too.

Suffered bullet and bombshell with England’s best, With them died and held, Our blood mixing with that of Dorset, Norfolk, the Fells.

Voices that spoke, speak no more.

The accents we could not understand: The longshoreman’s Lowestoft drawls, Clipped, hard accents from a Sheffield forge.

Nor they ours: Rajput, Rai, Urdu.

The sibilant, soothing, mortal grain of words Have all become this one long silence.

Though language was not necessary after what we did.

One thousand of us claim this ridge, Indifferent now to the homage you bring, Mouthing our lost names under the all-day din Of an oriole in a cherry tree, Where once a sniper culled.

We were young-limbed and beautiful then, And are beautiful still.

It is only death that has made all the difference.

At Kohima we lie in a hundred rows, So many todays for your tomorrows.

Rick Beven, 1992

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ANNUAL BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE CEREMONY Winchester Cathedral

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16 November 2019

t 11.00 hrs on an autumnal Saturday in November 2019, around 40 6 GRRA members, family and friends gathered at Winchester Cathedral for the annual Book of Remembrance Ceremony. In keeping with tradition, the event started with a team photograph in front of the memorial outside the West Front, taken (as it transpired) by the Bishop of Winchester, who happened to be passing and was handy with an iPhone.

Inside, the setting was majestic and uplifting, and our 45-strong congregation fitted neatly into the

North flank of the Nave, which dates from the 1340’s and features a range of military memorials. Canon Brian Rees, who led the service, began by welcoming us to the Cathedral and setting the scene for the service, with its additional relevance as it was the 60th anniversary of the granting of the Royal Title, whereby the 6th Gurkha Rifles became the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles.

Following a short prayer by Canon Brian, Mani Rai read a passage from Ephesians, after which Anthony Wakeman MBE, who was himself present at the granting of the Royal Title, turned the page in the

Front, from left: Linda Dilks, Beth Richardson-Aitken, Felicity Groves, Louise Anderson, Rachel Mackinlay, Ciska Roselaar, Joanna Smith, Anthony Wakeham (behind Joanna), Tony Groves, Marie Pett, Brian O’Bree, Sudha Rai, Doris Neville-Davies, Biru Thapa, Ken Neville-Davies, Jeremy Toyne, Mani Rai, Rambahadur Gurung.

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Book of Remembrance and read the names. There ensued a minute’s silence, followed by a lament played by the piper, Corporal Lokraj Limbu QOGLR. After the Kohima epitaph the wreath was laid by Birbahadur Thapa, followed by the Gurkha Collect and the Lord’s Prayer.

To finish what had been a moving and well-planned service, Canon Brian blessed and dismissed us to make our way up the hill to the Gurkha Museum in Peninsula Barracks for the AGM and bhat.

Jeremy Toyne

Antony Wakeham turns the page in the Book of Remembrance

Rear: Ian Dilks, John Anderson, Michael Amoore, Robin Amoore, Alistair Roberts, David Bredin, Simon Lord (behind Antony), Bob Richardson-Aitken, John Mackinlay (behind Bob), Gary Ghale, Paul Gilham, Ray Pett, Anthony Vosper, Ria Briggs, Jack Furtado, Anne Corbett, Duncan Briggs, Rodney Corbett, Donald Ruffell.

Not in the photograph: Jane Channing, Lorne and Anne Campbell, Carolyn Roberts, Mike and Angela Wardroper.

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6 GRRA AGM AND ANNUAL REUNION Gurkha Museum

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16 November 2019

n a bright November morning, another successful annual Book of Remembrance service complete, we walked from Winchester Cathedral up the hill to the Gurkha Museum in Peninsula Barracks.

The Museum library was full for the AGM, the first for our new Chairman. The agenda included a brief

by Mike Channing on the Regimental Memorial project and the significant progress which has been made. The form of the proposed memorial and its planned location at the Gurkha Memorial Museum, Pokhara was met with unanimous approval.

During the Reunion we marked the 60th Anniversary

since the granting of our Royal Title “Queen Elizabeth’s Own” in 1959. By the door into the library the Museum had kindly placed a board with enlarged copies of both the Special Army Order confirming the granting of the Royal Title and the photograph of the 6th and 7th Gurkhas invited to Buckingham Palace on 10 June 1959 to be received by Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.

Forty-six of us sat down to lunch in the McDonald Gallery to enjoy one of Bindhya’s excellent bhats.

As the guest of honour, it was a great pleasure to have with us Anthony Wakeham MBE, being the only surviving 6 GR British Officer present at Buckingham Palace in 1959. At the time, Anthony was ADC to

Corporal Lokraj Limbu, 10 The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, piping round the tables

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Major General Jim Robertson, then Major General The Brigade of Gurkhas. Also present at the Reunion as guests were Colonel Alistair Roberts (formerly Duke of Wellington’s Regiment) and his wife Carolyn. Alistair is the step-grandson of Major General Geoffrey Bruce who was President of the Regimental Association in 1959. Alistair has written a biography of General Geoffrey which includes his remarkable contribution to the 1922 and 1924 Everest expeditions. Alistair has kindly presented a copy to the Association which our President plans to pass on to the Gurkha Museum for addition to the 6 GR collection.

Among others present were Robin (formerly RGJ) and Michael (formerly 17th/21st Lancers), the two sons of Wyn Amoore, CO 1/6th in 1959 and, as guests of the Association, Canon Brian Rees and his wife Susan.

Canon Rees had led our Book of Remembrance service in the Cathedral with great empathy for the second year running and we hope to see him again next year.

In the absence of Gavin Edgerley-Harris, the Museum

Alistair Roberts with his biography of Geoffrey Bruce

Director, away on a duty visit to Nepal, we were happy to welcome Doug Henderson, the Collections Officer, always a great help to Members seeking items from our archives. It was very good to see both Mike and Angela Wardroper at a Reunion again after a number of years as it was Tony and Felicity Groves.

At the end of lunch, after the loyal toast, Duncan Briggs, our Chairman, thanked everyone for coming, especially our guests. The piper, Corporal Lokraj Limbu QOGLR, kindly brought

by Paul Gilham, played a set around the tables.

And to round off an excellent day, Donald Ruffell most generously presented his family’s portrait of Hugh Wallace (as on the cover of our 2019 Journal) to the Gurkha Museum. It was received on their behalf by our President and Museum Trustee, Brigadier John Anderson; together with Hugh’s Elizabeth Cross it will form part of the 6 GR archive.

Brian O’Bree

Donald Ruffel presents the portrait of Hugh Wallace to Brigadier John Anderson for the Gurkha Museum

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SHOOTING: THE RUNGAPORE SYNDICATE Stanford Hall January 2020

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nce again we were privileged to be given access to Stanford Hall by Nick and Lucy Fothergill for yet another outstanding gathering. The formula for the Dinner Night, preceded by a shoot for those who wish, is now well established and you who do not come are seriously missing out. It is huge fun in a glorious setting. This year most people gathered on Thursday evening for a bhat supper before the shoot on Friday. A wonderful day in the field (or in the Hall for those who dodged the rain) led up to the Dinner Night. The ballroom was set in candlelight. Regimental silver was on display and a piper played splendidly (Black Bear was resounding!). The traditional three decanters of port, madeira and whisky soda circled the table after dinner. Hitch bewitched us on the piano. Tommo masterfully conducted sabrage with a kukri. Tina created a remarkable feast. People were happy! We look forward to next year’s event.

Jeremy Brade

Clockwise from main picture: The Rungapore Syndicate in front of Stanford Hall; The Cuttack Dinner Night; James, Charles and Tommo; Jeremy and James.

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FAMILY AND EVENTS

DIARY OF EVENTS 6 GRRA DIARY OF EVENTS – 2020 Commonwealth Memorial Gate Ceremony

9 March

Cuttack Lunch, Oriental Club (Cancelled)

1 May

RGR Reunion and Army v Navy Rugby, Twickenham (Cancelled)

2 May

Lecture: The story of Indian Independence and the Creation of Pakistan, Gurkha Museum (Postponed)

5 June

GBA Memorial Service and Reunion Lunch, RMAS (Cancelled)

6 June

Patcham Down Indian Memorial Service (TBC)

14 June

Lecture: From the Summit of the world’s tallest and formidable mountains, Gurkha Museum (TBC)

19 June

GBA Bhela, Aldershot (TBC)

11 July

Lecture: For Valour, Gurkha Museum

4 September

All Ranks Reunion, Farnborough

5 September

GBA Golf Competition, Weybrook Park Lecture: Slim Sahib, Gurkha Museum

10 September 28 October

Field of Remembrance Service, GBA AGM and Dinner, London

5 November

Gurkha Chautara Memorial Service, NMA

7 November

Remembrance Day Parade, Cenotaph

8 November

Book of Remembrance Service, AGM and 6 GRRA Annual Reunion, Winchester 14 November Cuttack Lunch, Oriental Club 6 GR Shoot, Stanford Hall Many events have been cancelled or postponed due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

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4 December (TBC) January 21

FAMILY AND EVENTS

OBITUARIES 6 GRRA DEATHS AND OBITUARIES With great sadness the Association notes the deaths of the following members since the last issue of The Journal.

SLIM

Colonel 2nd Viscount John, OBE, DL, who died on 12 January 2019.

STONE

Mrs Jean, widow of the late Lt Colonel Geoff Stone, who died on 3 June 2019.

2ND VISCOUNT JOHN SLIM obe, dl

Viscount Slim in 1945 in Japan

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s a teenager John Slim spent his school holidays with his father. This might not seem so unusual, until it is noted that his father was the wartime commander of the 14th Army and that the “holidays” were taken near the front lines in India and Burma. There the 16-yearold witnessed the gruelling fighting endured by what became known as the “forgotten army”, as well as its ultimate victory over the Japanese.

Unsurprisingly, as soon as he was old enough, the gung-ho young Slim joined his father’s regiment, the

6th Gurkha Rifles. Cutting a swashbuckling figure, square of jaw and bushy of eyebrow, he served as a supernumerary aide-de-camp to his father’s friend Major-General “Punch” Cowan in the final months of the war in the Far East — months in which his father came to be regarded as a national hero.

Just as unsurprisingly, this made a deep impression on him. As a 19-year-old subaltern in what was by then an army of occupation, Slim toured the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by motorbike. This could be attributed to youthful curiosity, but it also indicated the restlessness

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of a man on a quest to make a name for himself, and, perhaps, escape from the shadow of his father.

John Douglas Slim was born in Quetta, now in Pakistan, in 1927. He was the only son of the then Captain William “Bill” Slim and his wife, Aileen (née Robertson). He enjoyed his childhood in India, describing himself as a “cantonment brat” and remembering a life of vast landscapes, personal freedom and the warmth and privilege of an affectionate household with cooks and servants, picnics and polo. He attended the Rashtriya Indian Military College at Dehradun, where he became fluent in Urdu.

After the war, on return to Burma from Japan, he commanded a platoon of the 6th Gurkhas for 18 months during the tense period of political manoeuvrings that led to the country’s independence outside the Commonwealth in 1948. In that year he was treated in hospital for dysentery and advised against continued service in Asia. He moved to Scotland to secure a regular commission with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Slim went to Korea with the 1st Argylls in 1950 and was regularly engaged in action over the ensuing months, including the advance on Songju in late September after the breakout from the Pusan bridgehead. On his return to Scotland he met Elisabeth Spinney, known as “Buffy”, and they were married in 1958. When she was with her husband in Aden and Cyprus in the 1960s she kept a pistol in her bag and was renowned as the fastest draw from a handbag. They had three children: Mark, who is now the Third Viscount, and Chairman of trustees of the Burma Star Association, Hugo and Mary Ann. The Far East continued to beckon and Slim applied to join the Malayan Scouts, who were to be reorganised as the 22nd Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment. He was selected and became involved in the pioneering of techniques for parachuting into dense jungle. After this he commanded an SAS squadron and was in East Malaysia in 1965 during Indonesia’s ill-judged confrontation with Malaysia. He then moved to South Arabia, where elements of the regiment

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were deployed until the end of the British presence there in 1967. Appointed to command 22 SAS that year, he turned his attention to worldwide counterinsurgency operations.

After completing his command of 22 SAS, he was appointed OBE and left the army as a Colonel to start a new career in business. His working life became divided between associations and charities with which his father’s name was inevitably linked, and after the initial reform of the House of Lords, he became an elected hereditary member and attended the House regularly. He spoke well without notes and his views on defence, security and veterans were respected.

As the 2nd Viscount Slim, a title he inherited in 1970, he kept alive the memory of the 14th Army as president of the Burma Star Association and this will be his most enduring memorial. He put his heart into the interests of the steadily dwindling number of survivors of the gruelling Burma campaigns and the widows of those who died in the conflict. No one wearing the coveted campaign star ever failed to win his attention.

In his work for the SAS Regimental Association, as president from 2000 to 2011 and patron until his death, he was equally assiduous for the welfare of veterans and their families. He also represented the interests and achievements of the regiment in the Lords and in any debate on its history or future.

In the end he may not have entirely avoided the long shadow of his father, but his military achievements could be judged on their own merit. He was always, to everyone, good company, and though he boomed like a foghorn, he was ironically aware of his own theatre.

Colonel John Slim, 2nd Viscount Slim, OBE, DL, was born on July 20, 1927. He died on January 12, 2019, aged 91.

An abbreviated copy of The Times obituary dated 15 January 2019

FAMILY AND EVENTS

John Anderson writes: Like many of 6 GR, the Slim family touched my life.

I resigned from the Rhodesian Army when Ian Smith made the Unilateral Declaration of Independence on 11 November 1965, and I was suddenly stateless, jobless and stuck in the UK. I had no inclination to join a “British” regiment. However, I was then told that Field Marshal Slim was prepared to offer me a commission in his old Regiment, 1/6 GR, which I hastened to accept; I still treasure the personal letter from him. Sadly, I had the honour of commanding the Gurkha Contingent at his funeral on 22 December 1970.

I first met his son, John, in 1969 while I was ADC to MGBG in Malaya. John was commanding 22 SAS and we visited them in Northern Malaya while they were “on exercise”; he was delighted to see my 6 GR shoulder-titles and years later recalled this first meeting. I was very privileged when he asked me, the year before he died, to read the ‘Prayer for the Gurkha’ at his Memorial Service, which he had meticulously planned in advance. We all said farewell to this lovely man at this Service on 16 May 2019: it was the Regimental Birthday of both his and his father’s Regiment, 6 GR.

6 GR Pipes and Drums at Buckingham Palace after Royal Pipe Banner presentations 1962

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SLIM SAHIB

n the 13 March 1942 there was a historic and uniquely 6th Gurkha moment during the withdrawal from Burma. It happened at Prome, the ancient Burmese city on the banks of the Irrawaddy.

The military situation for the British was dire.

Japanese forces had already taken Rangoon and their columns were now streaming towards the eastern borders of Assam. Only the remnants of the Burma Corps stood between them and their ultimate prize – India. Its two divisions were exhausted by a long and demoralizing withdrawal in which they had been continuously beaten back by the Japanese. They were almost a defeated force, physically and in spirit.

It was on the morning of the 13 March that Major

General WJ Slim had flown in from India to take over command of the Corps. The exceptional coincidence of his appointment was that his two principal division commanders would therefore be – Bruce Scott and Punch Cowan. In Slim’s words: “by a trick of fate (we) all came from the 1st Battalion 6th Gurkhas. We had served together for twenty-odd years; we – and our wives – were the closest friends; our children had been brought up together in the happiest of regiments.

I could not have found two men in whom I had more confidence.”

1st Battalion officers and wives Christmas Day 1923 Rear: Lt TN Smith, Lt WK Phillips, Capt WJ Slim MC, Lt IN Macleod, Capt HRK Gibbs Standing: Jem Janaksing Pun, Jem Maniraj Gurung, Jem Gul Hussain, Sub Indrabahadur Gurung, Sub Kharakbahadur Rana, Sub Nandasing Gurung, Jem Pirthabahadur Gurung, Sub Dhanbahadur Gurung.

Sitting: Capt JB Scott, Mrs Hackett, Mrs Glynton, Lt Col GM Glynton DSO, Mrs Scott, Maj HMM Hackett

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British academics have skated over these “twentyodd” years as if they were a blank chapter in the great man’s life. Their routine omission has ignored the importance of Slim’s Indian Army background and the fact that from 1920 up to the 6th Gurkha moment on the banks of the Irrawaddy he was Slim Sahib, not “Uncle Bill”, and that serving in India gave him an experience and friends that were hugely significant to his later success.

During 1919 Slim had been in limbo between two different career possibilities. Having ended his service in Mesopotamia with the 9th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, he had been evacuated to India for an extended recuperation. At 28 he had already absorbed a lifetime’s experience of mass warfare in an infantry battalion. Wounded twice and awarded the Military Cross during the advance towards Kut, he understood the strengths and frailties of the British soldier. Initially he wanted to transfer to the Indian Army for financial reasons, however by doing so he was also escaping from a peacetime British army that would go into recession both intellectually and materially. Whereas the Indian Army was in the ascent and recognised as much more than a colonial gendarmerie, especially after Gallipoli and Mesopotamia.

In May 1920 Slim was eventually posted to the 1st Battalion 6th Gurkha Rifles at Abbottabad. God was watching over him, for he could not have come to a better place. Laying aside the obvious prejudices of this writer, there were substantive reasons why any regiment at Abbottabad would have been a top choice. For successive years Slim’s reporting officers had remarked that a “spell of regimental work would do him more good than anything”. Slim had a developed knowledge of fighting in a rapidly conscripted battalion, now he needed to understand the working parts of a regular unit and become part of a professional body. Throughout the 1914-18 War his experience of an officer’s mess was eating from the back of a truck or the rat-infested transit camps in the Southern Counties.

After a tough journey across India on the Heat-stroke

Express, Slim reached the 6th Gurkhas in May 1920.

In a letter to Philip Pratt he wrote: “I got here without incident and am leading a strenuous but unexciting life in command of a company They are topping little fellows and awfully keen. Of course I’m rather stuck on the language question and I seem to have forgotten most of the regimental soldiering I ever knew. Still it’s coming back slowly.”

At 4,000 feet in the foothills of the North West Frontier, Abbottabad was something different from Slim’s wartime experience. Quartered in peace-time comfort lived three of the most fabulous regiments of the Indian Army: the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force), the 6th Gurkha Rifles and the 13th Frontier Force Rifles, supported by the splendid batteries of the Indian Mountain Regiment. In Gibbo’s (aka Lieutenant Colonel HRK Gibbs 6 GR) estimate we had the best officers mess. It was a fine stone building known as the Dovecot with oak panelled ante rooms and a huge fireplace like a London club. The walls were hung with tiger and leopard skins and unique to the Dovecot, the dining room floor had been sprung for dancing. Living-in members hosted dances on an occasional basis to repay the married officers for their hospitality, and girlfriends from distant stations would stay over (but alas, not in the mess).

6 GR’s style was functional but elegant. There were rules – mess kit for dinner, unless you were going out afterwards in which case white tie was permitted, but definitely not in field order; if you had to eat in field order you would get supper on a tray in the card room.

Abbottabad was too far from the the metropolitan centres of the Raj and operationally too busy to become cliquish or pretentiously fashionable. Newly arrived officers were not excluded or degraded by initiation rituals. Mess members ate at the Dovecot but slept in bungalows which they sometimes shared with another officer. Slim shared with Bruce Scott. Each member would have to hire his furniture including thunder-box and bathtub from the regimental contractor, whose tailors would have

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N E

Tirich Mir

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CHITRAL

DU

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ND

LI

A

N

SWAT

LR

IV

E C

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ER

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BU

KHYBER

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F

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R VE RI

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N

L

A

MALAKAND

BU KA

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KABUL

Abbottabad

IE

R

Peshawar

N

T

KURRAM

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Campbellpore (Altock)

E

F

Darsamand

A

RI

N

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IN D

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J

VE R

T H

N O

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WAZIRISTAN

B

W

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T

L I N

U R A

N

D

Kilometres

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sown Slim’s summer mess kit and his 6 GR pattern khaki-drill tunics.

For a young officer in search of a “good spell of regimental soldiering”, Abbottabad was the right place. Twenty years previously it was where the 42nd Gurkha Rifles had become the 6th Gurkhas and therefore deeply embedded in 6 GR’s DNA. Long after it was abandoned in 1947, British and Gurkhas alike spoke of it with glowing affection. When Slim arrived both 1st and 2nd Battalions were quartered side by side and the mess was overflowing with war-time officers returning to India as well as new arrivals.

Gibbos who had joined in 1917 remembers the heroes from Gallipoli: J G Bruce the mountaineer from 5 RGR, who commanded the 1st Battalion during the Helles campaign; Cecil Allanson of Sari Bair fame, now commanding the Second Battalion, Phipson the RMO who had manned the rear link phones and Gambirsing Pun, the Gurkha Major who famously organised the withdrawal from Sari Bair and was awarded an MC to add to his IOM. There were also several DSOs: Cornish, Ryan, Abbott, Hackett and many other decorated officers who had played a significant part in the war. It was an extraordinary period, especially with the hindsight that some of the young men now arriving in that same mess would become gigantic figures in the coming struggle in Burma.

Life in Abbottabad in the 1920s however was not all polo and dancing. In stark contrast to British regiments in the UK, the Indian Army needed to be in top form at all times. Emergencies were frequent and troops could be rushed from IS duties on the Indian plains to picketing up on the Frontier. On the border out of reach of the heliograph, field commanders got used to acting on their own initiative and taking a chance on the bolder option. Newly-arrived British regiments used to the steady regime of a UK garrison were sometimes shocked by the change of style and tempo.

When Slim joined 1/6 GR he was not a sano Sahib, he had survived mass warfare in two different theatres, he had experienced mutiny in his platoon, he had learned materially what kept them going, spiritually

what motivated them, what they distrusted and, most important, how to inspire them. But above all, he now knew that at the critical point when they stood to face the enemy – success hung on their individual resolve to fight.

In many ways the North West Frontier was the antithesis of his previous war; he was now pitched into a new environment, a multi-ethnic garrison, a wild landscape and a fiercely independent people. For more than a hundred years regiments and individuals that succeeded on the frontier became brand names and the ones that failed – perished or sank disgracefully out of sight. This bare and magnificent territory was all things to the army. Professionally it demanded that everyman had to be superbly fit, junior commanders had to be tactically remarkable and C.O.s to have the subterfuge and grit to get their men onto an objective and back again without being surprised by an ever-vigilant adversary. And on the hill tops when the red flag went up to abandon the picket, God help the man who fell as they ran helter-skelter down the scree into the cover below.

Politically the border was a minefield of shifting tribal loyalties. The land was defined by its clans; Masters describes them as men with eagle faces who approached in slow motion with long slow lifting strides, and as they passed stared arrogantly from pale green kohl-rimmed eyes. Across the hills every stitch of land was tribally owned and without the chief’s permission a battalion moving through their area would be resisted by snipers from distant hills, and worst of all an isolated picket could be rushed by tribesmen rising suddenly from a nearby fold in the ground. This is how Kipling’s character Kamal warned the subaltern of the Guides who has just crossed his territory: “T’was only by favour of mine,” quoth he, “ye rode so long alive: There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree, But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.

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In 1920 6 GR was operationally busy. Captain Slim was immediately appointed to command A Company and very soon the 1st Battalion moved out to Darsamand, a fortified camp in Waziristan. Slim’s rather diffident letter to Pratt plays down the physical intensity of his experiences: “I’m off back to jolly old Darsamand in about ten days. Can’t say I want to go a bit – it will be getting hot and fly blown again soon. Besides the war is still going on. Our friends the Wazirs have taken advantage of the reduction of the Darsamand force to two battalions to get up-pish.

They scuppered the escort to the surveying party that is drawing maps of the de-lightful district last week. Only one wounded man got away-the bodies of the rest were recovered that night having been subjected to what we call “the usual Eastern indignities’: Luckily our battalion was not on escort duty when it happened or we should have been for it. The blighters tried a raid on us just afterwards but beyond the loss of one great coat, a pair of boots and the sides of our new tennis court the affair was merely a huroosh and some shooting. I hope they’ll calm before I go back… For the first time in my life I managed to hit something with a revolver.”

Restoring the Viceroy’s writ was complicated and at times a life-threatening activity. A Company was attached to a local force, the Kurram Militia, and immediately Captain Slim needed three languages (Nepali, Urdu and Pushtu) which he did not have, and for the moment got by with survival Urdu (“fire support? – ham top-khana ko bhandabast hai!”).

Each day rifle companies took turns to secure the supply routes into Darsamand and beyond to units in the field. A punitive raid on Char Khan village tested the Battalion’s tactical skills with a night march through un-secured tribal territory. The Wazirs were duly surprised for a short time and the objective, a fortified tower, was blown by the engineers. Then as the Wazirs organised a counterattack in strength, the rifle companies beat a swift retreat, leap frogging past each other as they picketed back to a distant base camp.

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After a year Captain Slim became adjutant or battle adjutant when the battalion deployed in the field. In his short story Student’s Interlude the fictitious raid on “Panch Pir” is a distillation of his experiences observed from the battle adjutant’s saddle. For the Abbottabad Garrison this was the routine, sometimes marching out as a battalion to Malakand in the north, sometimes south to the bases in Waziristan.

Fortunately, the border was visually stunning with swift rivers, dark and dangerous passes and at the Durand line dominated by huge mountains – Sikaram (15,000 ft) and Tirich Mir (25,000ft) in North Chitral.

“As I expect you know I am perched up on a hill just 10,000 feet high, which I suppose sounds a lot but isn’t really. The last of the snow is disappearing and we can no longer rely on melted snow for water but have to trek down into a nullah about 700 feet down to a spring. Its rather a good spot really because the only communication with headquarters is by helio, and up to now six days out of seven we haven’t been able to see Abbottabad. It’s about twenty miles away. The great thing about coming to a place like this is that one gets away from the blasted office for a bit.”

In the 1920s a company commander in the Gurkhas was very visible. To do the job well he had to stand up before his men regularly and speak convincingly in Nepali and Urdu. When the battalions marched to the frontier from Abbottabad, laughter and repartee were useful instruments to stiffen the collective resolve.

And because this all took place before the eyes of the battalion, to be good – a British officer had to be fluent and metaphorically speaking had to understand which buttons to press when they were on parade so often. The 20th century British soldiers that Slim had commanded during the previous war were different; they were urban dwellers from an industrial society, whereas the Indian Army was recruited from remote rural areas. The Indian jawan responded to a different humour and there was a different officer-soldier relationship, their regiments were family affairs and the officers exercised a parental authority.

Once when Slim was on the frontier, he strolled over

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Subadar (out of uniform) of the Kurram Militia, 1908 (c).

Watercolour by Major Alfred Crowdy Lovett ©National Army Museum

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with a Gurkha officer to welcome a newly arrived British battalion, which was making heavy weather of setting up camp next to 1/6 GR. After watching them for a while the Gurkha remarked “Sahib, these are fine fighting soldiers but given a (live) sheep and a maund of wood they would die of starvation.” The significance of Slim’s Indian Army experience was that it equipped him to inspire soldiers from very different backgrounds, who responded to very different references. As a schoolteacher in a Birmingham steel community and as a young officer in the Warwicks,

Slim knew how to motivate the urban British soldier.

As a Gurkha officer and a commander of Indian army forces in Sudan and Iraq he also knew how to stand up and command the attention of a large crowd of jawans.

Twenty years later as Army Commander, General Slim grappled with the huge task of rebuilding the confidence of a force which had been beaten by the Japanese – beaten, but not completely defeated.

At soldier level he had to restore each man’s

Captain Slim as Adjutant with 6 GR Buglers, 1927

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determination to stand and fight an advancing enemy.

And by now he understood with absolute clarity what he needed – materially and spiritually to do this. More than that he had developed a communicating style which succeeded for the British soldiers and also for the jawans. As a confidence-restoring instrument it was very powerful in both cultures, prompting cheers of support from the assembled troops as testified

by John Masters for the 4th Gurkhas and George Macdonald

Fraser for the soldiers of the Border Regiment.

Therefore, to the British he was Uncle Bill and to the Indian Army he was Slim Sahib, and he learned to be Slim Sahib – in the 1st Battalion 6th Gurkha Rifles.

John Mackinlay

Ranchi 18 Nov. 1942

My dear old Gibbos,

It was nice of you to write abou t the C.B.E. The chaps who got it for me were Punch, Bruce, Jonah, Came ron and a few more – the old Abbo ttabad Bde being well to the fore. There was no doubt about it the old Gurk ha showed up better than most.

There were times when I didn’t feel too good in Burma but the old 6th Gurkha party always held me up and I was very, very sorry when it was broken up.

God bless, Yours, Bill

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STUDENT’S INTERLUDE Extract from Student’s Interlude in Unofficial History by Field-Marshall Sir William Slim K.G., G.C.B, G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., G.B.E., D.S.O., M.C.

Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1959.

P

‘

anch Pir!’ announced the colonel, and as he said it we heard the first shot.

The first shot of a fight affects people in different ways. The Gurkhas halted around us, fell suddenly silent, then a low buzz of talk came from them. Our old subadar-major sighed gently. ‘Oho, oho!’ he breathed in a mixture of mild interest and satisfaction. The colonel let his false teeth fall to his lower lip and recovered them with an audible click. For myself, I had momentarily an uncomfortable crosschannel feeling where my breakfast should have been. Why do battles always start at dawn on an empty stomach?

© National Army Museum

The transport was now halted and closing up in the shelter of the outcrop that cut off our view. The colonel and I walked forward until we could see round it. There, rising from one corner of a large walled enclosure was the tower, a tall, rather graceful structure, tapering to its summit, just below which ran the usual projecting platform.

A Waziri tribesman with rifle, North West Frontier, 1919

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Through our glasses we could see a company of the Frontier Force trickling forward in workmanlike fashion from cover to cover towards the walls. A Lewis gun was making the dust fly every five seconds round a loophole half-way up the tower, and a couple of machine-guns joined in, steadily traversing along the wall. A platoon in two widely extended lines passed out of sight at the double round an angle of the enclosure, and a few moments

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later we saw khaki-clad figures on the wall. We heard later that the half-dozen die-hards in the tower had all been accounted for as they attempted to bolt.

‘I suppose,’ I said to the colonel, ‘we’ll sit here for an hour or two while they burn the place?’

‘Ought to burn that in half an hour,’ he replied, ‘but I expect brigade’ll spend two hours writing orders about it!’

But apparently they were not going to, for suddenly the transport began to stream on again, and rather mystified we followed. After half a mile there was another halt. From ahead came the sounds of what might have been a slow practice on a musketry range – a report, silence for a few seconds, then a couple of shots together, another pause, and a single shot. Once or twice we heard the loud bang! bang! of the 2.75inch mountain guns, followed by the dull whump! whump! of bursting shells.

The old signaller, Ranbir, squatting behind me, had seized the opportunity to clean his kukri before the rust of its immersions of last night had eaten into it. His young friend, Jaspati, sat beside him, flicking a flag occasionally at a picket in the way signallers have. The desultory shooting ahead went on, sometimes dying away, at others brisking up into a respectable fusillade. After about half an hour we began to wonder what was happening.

‘Go up and see what they’re up to,’ ordered the colonel. I went forward with a couple of runners, past the ambulance with the doctor still sitting on his pony, and found all the transport huddled in the gorge between two outcrops. Here, to my astonishment, the column ended. I hailed the British warrant officer in charge of the transport.

‘Where’s the rest of the brigade?’ I asked blankly.

‘Gone on,’ he answered simply. ‘Told me to halt here.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘I dunno, sir.’

‘Where have they gone?’

‘Dunno, sir.’

I sent a runner back to tell the colonel that we seemed to have been left behind and forgotten. In a few minutes he joined me, having wisely brought with him headquarters and one company. He arranged our local protection and then told me to go forward again and get in touch with the brigade.

I collected the two signallers, Ranbir and Jaspati, with my runners and moved along a rough track on the side of the long outcrop on our left. We were thus completely sheltered on that side, but on the right quite open. As I walked along, followed by the four Gurkhas, I heard the vicious whine of a bullet overhead followed by the distant report of a rifle out in the plain to the right.

‘Somebody is shooting at us!’ announced Jaspati in a rather awe-struck voice.

‘They are,’ agreed Ranbir, ‘and when that happens, sati, do not go near white stones or sahibs!’

Out of the tail of my eye I saw him hold the others back until there was a twenty-yard gap between us. It made me feel rather lonely. I looked back, and there was our headquarters and the best part of a company all comfortably seated under cover, faces turned expectantly towards us. They must have felt like people in the stalls watching a show; I felt rather like one of those tin animals that are dragged slowly across shooting ranges at country fairs for yokels to bang at. However, it was up to the adjutant, whatever he felt like, to give an example of indifference under fire. I comforted myself with the thought that the bullet had been a long way from me…perhaps it was not aimed at me at all, just a stray shot…

A bullet hit the track about five yards ahead of me.

No, not a stray!

I stepped out a little more briskly. Another crack, behind me this time, and a horrid thud as the bullet found a soft spot in the hillside. One in front, one behind – a bracket! The adjutant must set an example, the adjutant must… I was not running, but I was walking fast, very fast. I began to count my steps, one, two, three, four… A giant clapped his hands in my ear,

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splinters of rock showered over me, and I was running, running as hard as Providence and a good pair of legs would let me. From below came the full-throated roar of a hundred-odd men laughing fit to burst at their fleeing and discomfited adjutant.

We were soon in the lee of another low bump on top of which I saw a Gurkha picket. I scrambled up and found it was placed by the advance-guard. The havildar in charge received me with a broad grin.

‘Why didn’t you give me covering fire?’ I demanded angrily.

figures on it, half-way between us and the village.

‘Call up,’ I ordered.

Ranbir obeyed. No answer. Jaspati came to his assistance and waved vigorously. A couple of semaphorists from the picket supplemented their efforts, and finally the havildar himself contributed a masterly display with two Gurkha hats. Just as the performance was working up to a crescendo of effort, a voice said: ‘Hullo! What’s this? Classification of signallers? I always say you Gurkhas would train at your grandmother’s funeral! I give the old boy with the hats a “distinguished”.’

The grin spread all over his flat face.

Beany Harness rode slowly up to us.

‘Sahib,’ he said simply, ‘I forgot. We were watching you run!’

‘No use training signallers,’ I growled, ‘with a brigade headquarters that’s blind, deaf, and in blinkers.’

I changed the subject.

Beany laughed.

‘Where’s the brigade?’ I asked.

He pointed over my shoulder.

‘Burning the village,’ he said.

‘What village?’

‘Panch Pir,’ he answered as one surprised at a foolish question.

‘Panch Pir! But that’s –’ I looked.

There sure enough below us, on the far edge of the plateau, was a village. The usual collection of mud hovels, hardly distinguishable from the brown earth around them, a mean village, but the veritable Panch Pir. As I looked, thin wisps of white began to rise from one end of it; gradually the line of smoke moved through the village as the demolition parties lit up the houses. The separate smoke columns rose straight into the almost windless air, blended into one another, changed colour to a dull brown, and towered up hundreds of feet, a great, dirty smudge across the sky.

‘Where’s brigade headquarters?’

The havildar pointed to a mound with a group of

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‘And we had a peach of a paragraph in orders about Intercommunication too! Anyway, what’s the excitement?’

I told him.

‘Tut-tut!’ he said. ‘Did I forget you? Sorry, digger.

Never mind, everything’s lovely. We’re for ‘ome, ‘Orace! You’re rear-guard!’

‘Thanks!’ I said dryly.

He pointed out the line we were to hold to let the column through, and went cheerily back to the mound.

Before I left, the havildar proudly showed me a dead tribesman, lying just below the picket. It is difficult to estimate a man’s height when he lies sprawling on the ground, but that fellow must have been within an inch or two of seven feet. The Gurkha took off one of the dead man’s chuplis and gleefully drew my attention to its colossal size. I had certainly never seen bigger footwear on a human being. We heard afterwards that he was the local giant and rather famous in those parts.

© National Army Museum

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1/3rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles returning from road protection duties, Waziristan, 1936

‘Where’s his rifle?’ I asked.

‘His friends got that,’ said the little havildar regretfully, and then, cheering up again, ‘but we got him!’

The colonel came along and we soon had two companies deployed as rear-guard. Nor had we long to wait. Half a dozen stretchers, four bearers to each, passed through, two of the figures lying on them with covered faces – the giant was not unavenged. Then a flock of goats, chivvied along by militiamen, who had slung their rifles and taken to sticks. A couple of mountain guns, the British machine-gun section, and an officer of the Frontier Force with a list of pickets joined us. Behind them came the rest of the force, and as soon as they were well clear we raised the red flag and the retirement began.

The red flag was familiar on the Frontier, I believe, long before it achieved a wider notoriety elsewhere.

Here it had no political significance and only indicated rear-guard headquarters to anxious pickets, being used to signal their permission to withdraw.

Everything went steadily until we drew level with the isolated tower that we had at first thought was Panch Pir itself; then we were told to hold on while it was destroyed. A few shots came our way, and everyone got under cover, the colonel and I sitting with our backs against a big rock, while he cursed the delay.

‘They’ll be on top of us properly if we hang about now,’ he complained. A bullet smacked into our rock and went shrilly ricocheting off into the blue. ‘And to think,’ he groaned, ‘I’ve only six months to go for pension!’

We sat mournfully contemplating the distant tower.

It stood straight and defiant, dominating the drab landscape, one side in full sunlight, the other dark in shadow. Suddenly a puff of white smoke shot out from its base, the great square tower rose bodily, and for a second hovered in the air. Then it sank gently back again and, as a dull boom came to us, dissolved completely. A swelling bronze beehive of smoke and dust bellied up, looking as solid as the tower it had replaced.

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‘As many pounds of gun-cotton as the diameter of the tower in feet plus five,’ murmured the colonel.

Then we got really busy.

The Frontier Force company that had covered the demolition came sprinting back, reported to us, and went on to join its battalion. By this time the tribesmen had recovered from the surprise of our visit, and all the lads of the village and of a good many other villages were after us. While we were waiting, a picket on our left had reported that the enemy were creeping in on them. We had heard a good deal of firing from it, and had made our arrangements to cover it, but it was an anxious moment – a casualty up there now would be very awkward.

The red flag gave the signal and for a moment nothing happened. Then, upon the hill-top, little black bobs like beetles appeared, crawling slowly over a stretch of smooth rock. Suddenly with one accord the beetles stood up, revealing themselves as Gurkhas, turned, and were running in short zigzags towards us. The last man waved a semaphore flag, the recognized invitation to us to deal faithfully with anyone who appeared behind him. But no one did. Our machine-guns had the summit taped to an inch and the mountain guns, experienced in these matters, landed a shell neatly each side of it just where a rush might be expected.

The N.C.O. in charge of the picket reported all complete at the red flag and showed me his kukri, its wooden handle neatly removed by a bullet.

The retirement went as such retirements usually do. The main body plodded steadily on, seemingly heartlessly indifferent to the tribulations of the rear-guard. There was the awful moment when we thought we had missed a picket, and the relief when we found we had not; the nerve-racking delay while a wounded man was brought in; the constant anxiety about covering fire; and the maddening habit that all headquarters have of standing about in bunches.

We held the edge of the plateau to cover the column across the river, and then ran for it. As we were splashing through one of the streams I saw a Gurkha ahead of me stop, bend down, and carefully put his hand into the water. I shouted to him to get on. He took no notice, but gave a sudden flick of his wrist.

There was a flash of silver and a sizeable fish was jerking on the stones. He picked it up, shoved it into his haversack, grinned cheerfully at me, and doubled on. I have never known a Gurkha miss a chance to fish, but I have never seen a chance taken so quickly.

We had another delay after crossing. The transport had, for both speed and safety, forded the river on a wide front, and some time was taken in sorting it out while the advance-guard was putting up pickets again. We seized the chance to eat a hurried meal from our haversacks, and the tribesmen took that opportunity to get over the river downstream of us, as we soon discovered.

© National Army Museum

35th Mountain Battery at Moghal Kot, Waziristan, 1919

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When we moved again, it was evident that there were a good many hanging on to our left as we retired. Then a picket mistook its signal and came in too soon. There they were, tearing down the hill, and we had no covering fire ready for them. Worst of all, a picket farther out was still up.

‘That picket’s come in too soon!’ I yelled to the colonel. ‘The enemy’ll be there in a minute!’

‘They are there, my dear chap,’ he answered quite cheerfully. ‘I can see ‘em!’

Luckily someone else had seen them too – the havildar-major of ‘B’ Company, a fellow of energy and initiative. He seized a couple of passing Lewis-gun sections, and in a flash had them spluttering away at the vacated picket site. Lewis guns are not designed for overhead covering fire, but they did it that day all right. We soon had machine-guns and the mountain battery on the job, called in a couple of pickets in rapid succession, and ran hard for five minutes, thus, like the wise soldiers we were, avoiding the danger by running away from it.

After that, things steadied up. One line of the rearguard would retire while another covered it, but this leap-frogging is at the best a gruelling process.

The rear party, if pressed, flings dignity to the winds and frankly bolts until it is behind its support, but at headquarters we could afford to be rather more deliberate, and we moved at a walk from one stand of the red flag to another. Once, as we trudged along at the head of our little procession, we found a group at the side of the track. A stretcher lay in the dust, and on it a six-foot Sikh Havildar of the Frontier Force; a bullet had got him an inch from his belt buckle, as grim a wound as a man could have. He had already been carried some miles, and his only hope was to survive the agony of another ten. The four bearers from the ambulance were obviously almost exhausted, and there was nothing for it but to detail some of our men who could ill be spared. They raised the stretcher and staggered off, but although they kept moving and we got more bearers from the ambulance, they could not catch up with the main body, and our pace

for the next five miles or so had to be regulated by that stretcher. The more I saw of that Sikh, the more I admired him for his uncomplaining fortitude on that ghastly journey.

Still, we got on quite well. The ground was much more open, and guns and machine-guns, well handled, were keeping the tribesmen at a reasonable distance. We had done between four and five miles after crossing the river, and our rear parties were leap-frogging steadily through one another, when a hitch occurred.

Headquarters was safely behind the second echelon of the rear-guard and we were waiting for the line nearest to the enemy to fall back through us. We saw it rise, turn, and begin to double back. Then one platoon, on the left, stopped and got down again.

I could see some of our men dodging about, and a Gurkha officer whom I recognised as old Subadar Bombahadur, a dear, bone-headed old fellow, prancing up and down among them. Broderick, the British officer commanding that company, halted the rest of his people about half-way towards us and seemed as puzzled as we were. Pickets on each flank had been called in, and if we hung about much longer we might have the enemy between us and the main body.

‘Get that damned old fool back at once!’ ordered the colonel I blew my whistle till I was bursting, signalled the retire, and waved the red flag, all to no purpose.

‘Go and tell him!’ roared the colonel. ‘Take your horse!’

I did not altogether relish the idea – the dilatory platoon was attracting other attention besides our own – but there was nothing for it. I called up my syce, and mounted Nigger. With some vague notion of signalling with it, I still grasped the big red flag by its six-foot pole. I had an idea that the faster I went, the safer I should be, and so I kicked the old horse heartily in the ribs, and off we went. And very ridiculous we must have looked; for Nigger, revelling in a gallop at

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C Company, 3/9th Jat Regiment, Waziristan, 1923

last, went all out. I became involved in that beastly red flag, which wrapped itself round my head, and for a time I thought we should end up back in Panch Pir again. However, I managed, rather flustered to pull up at Broderick, dismount and get Nigger taken under cover. Broderick, a young subaltern, under fire for the first time, struck me as having a very good grip of himself and of the situation. He had just sent back a platoon under another subadar, Ratanbahadur, to help extricate old Bombahadur, and kneeling behind a friendly rock he told me what had happened.

Bombahadur stood upright and peered around. Several interested spectators behind rocks had shots at him, but he remained standing till he saw the precious tirpal. He pointed. A young lance-naik rose, slung his rifle, and ran forward. The gentlemen behind the rocks were roused to an increasing interest. Spurts of dust sprang up round the running Gurkha, but after about fifty yards he stopped, and in a moment he was running back with the tripod, still pursued by those ominous puffs of dust. Bombahadur, satisfied, gave the word, and his laden platoon sprinted back.

A machine-gun section had been in action and, when the time came for it to up-sticks and leap-frog back, the guns had been duly loaded onto the mules.

Then the trouble started. One of the mules had been wounded, broken loose and bolted, unfortunately towards the enemy. As it went, it bucked, burst a girth, dragged its saddle until it could kick it free, and vanished. The result was that as old Bombahadur came doubling back, he found himself passing through an area littered with bits of machine-gun, spare parts, and saddlery. At once the old man halted his platoon, and set it work methodically to collect the pieces. At last almost every man in the platoon had retrieved something, but Bombahadur, running his eye over the spoil, saw an essential was missing. ‘Tirpal?’ he asked, but no one had the tripod.

Meanwhile the other subadar, Ratanbahadur, had got his platoon up on Bombahadur’s right. We could see him walking about unconcernedly, searching the ground in his turn. Ratanbahadur is worth a word. He was the biggest, blackest, and most powerful Gurkha I have met. Rumour had it that he was an escaped slave, though I never heard of anyone brave enough to ask him. He had risen by sheer strength, courage, and personality, in spite of the very real handicap of his origin. Although an officer, he was not quite a gentleman; he was noisy, boastful, and in his cups distinctly hairy-heeled, but he was generous, cheerful, and feared positively nothing, animal or human, natural or supernatural.

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Ratanbahadur walked up and down; then he saw something that Bombahadur had missed. It was the

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machine-gun pack-saddle lying where the mule’s last frantic kick had left it. A pack-saddle is no mean weight, and a more awkward thing to carry it would be hard to devise; but Ratanbahadur picked it up with an easy swing and gave the order to retire. They came at the double, the subadar with the saddle resting on his hip. After a hundred yards he slowed to a walk, and himself halting, faced towards the enemy, raised the saddle high above his head, the broken girth streaming loose, and roared: ‘M’lai her! Look at me, Subadar Ratanbahadur Rana, I-D-S-M.,’ and he fairly rolled the initials of his decoration, the Indian Distinguished Service Medal, off his tongue.

He then did a couple of press-ups with the saddle and resumed his retirement. As a bit of bravado it was worse than foolish – but there was something magnificent about it. It pleased the men tremendously; the Gurkha is a simple soul who likes people to behave in character. So do I, when it is Ratanbahadur’s sort of character.

After this delay, the tribesmen pressed more boldly, and for the first time we caught an occasional glimpse of a grey figure scurrying from cover to cover. Our battery had always a couple of guns in action, and they helped us as only well-handled mountain artillery can.

We speeded up. Our bounds, as one party leap-frogged through another, became shorter, but had to be faster.

The afternoon was drawing out, the men had covered a lot of ground in the last twenty hours, a good deal of it at the double, and they were tiring. There was, too, a marked increase in the tribesmen’s fire. They were particularly concentrating on the two British officers with the rear parties; puffs of dust followed them wherever they moved. They changed their topis for less conspicuous Gurkha hats, but, whatever he wears, a British officer is somehow always identifiable, whether in Piccadilly or on a battlefield.

It looked as if we were in for a run of bad casualties.

The only thing that was saving us was the tribesmen’s extraordinary bad shooting. At the time we could not understand it and only hoped it would continue.

But we could not expect it to, and we got back from the ambulance some riding ponies, fitted with

special saddles that not-too-badly wounded men could cling to. These ponies we managed to collect at rear headquarters, but it was not so easy to keep them there. The syces were only unarmed followers, hurriedly enrolled; they were very conspicuous, and one had been killed already, so it was trying them rather high. It was something else to watch, and by this time we had more than enough to keep our eyes on.

At last we reached the big village, Fakir Kot, that we had rounded up the night before. For the moment things had eased up a bit, as we had rapped rather smartly the knuckles of some sportsmen who had been too bold in following us, and they were now hanging back a little. The Sikh battalion we had left yesterday in the village had gone on, leaving the inhabitants to their own devices, and we looked rather nervously at the long wall and the towers only a couple of hundred yards on our flank. We could see heads bobbing on the ramparts and what looked like a crowd at the gate.

As we drew level, a drum began suddenly to beat. I was riding with the battery commander: we looked at one another and our lips formed the same words, ‘The Chiga Dol!’ – the call to arms. The crowd at the gate, about fifty of them, all with rifles, streamed towards us, the drum still beating. The gunner was just getting his section into action at point-blank range when we saw a khaki-clad figure in a topi running with the mob and recognised it as the political officer.

His achievement was remarkable. He had persuaded the Fakir Kot chiga, the village pursuit party, or at any rate some of it, to turn out to help us. What eloquence, what promises, what threats he had used, I do not know, but there they were, looking none too friendly and far from eager to fling themselves into the fray. The political officer shepherded them into a rough line along a small nullah and took his stand behind them, ready to nip in the bud any idea of premature retirement.

He asked me to stay with him to see there was no misunderstanding between our fellows and their new

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allies, and I called to our subadar-major to join me. It was well we stayed, as we were just in time to catch our old friend Subadar Ratanbahadur Rana – ‘I.-D.S.-M.’ – stalking the line from a flank with a Lewis gun. I explained, and regretfully he passed on.

Our rear party doubled through and left the three of us with nothing but that thin and shabby line of ‘friendlies’ between us and whatever might be following. Frankly, I did not like it a bit. I quite expected that chiga to start the proceedings by bolting and/or, as we say in military documents, shooting us. However, exhorted by the political officer, they remained, crouching along the shallow nullah, while we fixed our eyes on a low rise about three hundred yards away. Suddenly, a ragged bunch of figures came swarming over the crest, and I Iiked the position still less.

‘Fire!’ yelled the political officer in perfectly good English. The chiga obeyed, but I noted that every rifle was pointed skywards – they were not going to risk any unpleasantness or blood-feuds with their neighbours.

At the ragged volley, the three of us turned and ran. The political officer had, not so long before, been one of the best sprinters at his Varsity, but he told me afterwards that he had never done the 220 yards in better time. Be that as it may, I was never more than five yards behind him, and the fat, bow-legged old subadar-major was a close third. It only shows that how fast you run depends on what is after you.

By now our troubles were nearly over. The chiga certainly had not shot anyone, but they had, at least, rather flabbergasted the pursuit. Dusk was coming down as we approached the final crossing of the river, and to our immense relief we found our old friends, the Sikh battalion, in position waiting to cover us across.

I stood with Broderick, whose company was rear party, waiting to give the word to an officer of the Sikhs that we were all through his line. Among the last to pass was the wounded Sikh havildar, carried by a mixed party of Gurkhas and ambulance men, all so exhausted that they had dropped right back to the

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rear-guard again. He was still conscious and spoke to me, but it seemed impossible that he could survive the appalling journey. Nevertheless, he did, and eventually was invalided on a pension. I hope it was a good one, and that he is still enjoying it in some Punjab village.

The men were whacked. With little rest they had done over thirty miles since the previous evening. Actually, the length of the track we had followed was thirtytwo miles, but to that must be added the digressions to pickets and flanks that most of them had made, and the constant doubling of the rear parties. Now that they were almost in safety, they staggered and shuffled past in the fading light, tired and more than tired, but still cheerful.

I turned to the officer of Sikhs.

‘That’s the lot, I think.’

‘Right-o! We take over,’ he agreed cheerfully.

Then we saw creeping toward us through the deepening gloom, a bowed, hump-backed little figure.

Slowly and unsteadily it drew near, a very small Gurkha, bearing on his shoulders a leather two-gallon container that held water for a machine-gun. It was his share of the rescued equipment. He had been told to bring it in, and bring it in he would. He was in the last stages of exhaustion, and no wonder, for the poor little mutt had not had the sense to empty out the water. We relieved him of his burden and went down to the river.

Almost my last memory of a full day is the doctor’s bulky figure, still perched on his wretched pony, planted fairly in the middle of the river. The patient beast had struck at last; its head was buried in the water. It was almost dark, but the doctor’s ample silhouette showed black against silver, and some sportsman out beyond the Sikhs was having a farewell shot or two. Plonk! A bullet splashed into the water, and the doctor’s fat legs jerked frantically, drumming his heels on the horse’s ribs, but it only sank its nose deeper. Plonk! The doctor removed his

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topi and belaboured his mount with it, but to no avail: that horse meant to drink his fill. Luckily for them both, the light was gone and the tribesmen were still shooting atrociously.

Later on we found out why. In the informal way things are done on the Frontier, we sent a message to the enemy, telling them, among other things, that we did not think much of their shooting. We received an answer which complimented us on our raid. It had been, they said, a thoroughly good show, and they regretfully admitted that for the first time on record we had killed more of them than they had of us.

In fact, the training of the troops had shown much improvement on any they had so far met, and reflected great credit on the brigadier. Touching the matter of their shooting they were rather ashamed, but there was a reason. Their rifles were all Short Lee-Enfields, acquired in previous fights with our troops – a shrewd cut that – while their ammunition, which had been generously provided by the Amir of Kabul, was British also, but it was unfortunately the old pattern Mark VI, and the rifles were sighted for the new Mark VII. They had not realised this at the time, but had now calculated the adjustment necessary, and they would be delighted, should we give them an opportunity, to demonstrate what a difference it made to their shooting! One cannot help feeling that the fellows who wrote that ought to be on our side.

An hour after we reached camp, having collected the dozens of reports that everybody wants to give an adjutant when he is most tired, I crept to my tent. I was dead beat. I lifted the flap, switched on my torch, and the first thing I saw in the circle of light was that beastly Hindustani book, lying where I had tossed it two days ago. I thought of Rahman Buksh and of examinations – and I groaned. Student’s interlude was ended.

W.J. Slim

A watercolour painting of Slim Sahib

by John Mackinlay

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Flagstaff House, Seremban

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ON GETTING OUR ROYAL TITLE AND OTHER MEMORIES

he group photograph on the inside back cover of this Journal was taken at Wellington Barracks in 1959 on the occasion of the Regiment being granted the title of Queen Elizabeth’s Own and now contains only one living British 6 GR officer – me. I was only there thanks to the generosity of Major General Brigade of Gurkhas, Jim Robertson, whose ADC I was. Another invitation of great generosity arrived in my computer 60 years later from Duncan Briggs who invited me to attend the 6 GRRA reunion and AGM in November 2019 to help celebrate that unique occasion. So, after all that time of silence from me, I attended. I am so glad I did.

In 1959 the Malayan Emergency was still on, albeit victory was not far off. 17th Gurkha Division had been

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the centrepiece of the defence of Malaya for six years and there were two years to go before peace was declared. In my time as ADC we lived in Flagstaff House, Seremban, where the architect of the victory, Field Marshal Gerald Templer was an occasional guest. What a fascinating guest he was and what a fascinating time I had.

We often flew in a Pioneer of the Army Air Corps piloted by Roger Hulton-Harrop (I think from the 14th/20th Hussars), an aircraft capable of landing and taking off on 100 yards of runway in theory. It took us to most of the British and Gurkha units still clearing the jungle of Communist Terrorists (CTs). We once visited wretched Gurkhas in a leper colony and shook hands without fingers.

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Army Air Corps Pioneer

There was fun too. General Jim had a speed boat at Port Dickson- my introduction to water skiing.

The London visit apart, the highlight of 18 months as ADC was a trek in Nepal preceded by a visit to Kathmandu, where we stayed in the British Embassy.

Coincidentally, the American ambassador was to present his credentials the next day to which the General was invited. It was not done by halves.

The new ambassador arrived on an elephant with a squadron of cavalry to escort him. The entire staff of the US embassy were presented to His Majesty in order of precedence, including the Naval Attaché who was last in line. Since the nearest ocean must be several hundred miles from Nepal it seemed fitting that he should bring up the rear.

Newly retired Gurkha Major Nainasing Thapa had invited us to his village Dhumpu, on the way to Annapurna II. The scenery was breathtaking, including the magnificent Machhapuchare ‘Fish Tail’ mountain. It took us about a week’s walk from Pokhara. Nainasing

Sahib put on an amazing welcome complete with a band and nautch. We had been told that fishing for mahseer was on the cards. Fishing was sadly cancelled on the grounds that he had run out of dynamite.

1/6 GR was based in Ipoh in 1955 when I arrived as a very green young National Service officer fresh from an interview in London with Colonel Bruce of Everest fame. I suspect that I had been chosen due to a letter from my father to Field Marshal Bill Slim whom he knew from their days in the staff college in Quetta.

Dad had been in the 18th Bengal Lancers, later to feature in the film ‘Bengal Lancer’.

Nothing had prepared me for the first Mess Night. My young orderly was almost as green. He had neatly laid out my mess kit on the bed. I discovered that either he, or more probably some brother officers, had my cuff links sewn into the collar where my wing collar should have been. My studs were neatly fixed into the cuffs. I was late for dinner.

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Lt Colonel ‘Speedy’ Bredin DSO, MC on his first jungle patrol, Malaya

Major General Anderson and Lt Colonel Bredin

Colonel Walter Walker was CO at the time and he claimed with some justification that 1/6 GR was the best unit in the 17th Gurkha Division – we had more ‘kills’, we won the Nepal Cup more often, and had the best trained riflemen – Bisley proved it. He went on to greater things soon after my initiation as you will know. He was replaced by Lt Colonel ‘Speedy’ Bredin from the Dorsets. His formidable reputation was confirmed by a DSO and MC. He was reputed to have walked ashore in Normandy complete with dog and walking stick. What a privilege it was to see his son keeping the Bredin attachment to the regiment alive at the reunion. Colonel ‘Speedy’ soon wanted a taste of jungle warfare and I suspect felt that his newest and youngest officer needed blooding. I was put in command of his first jungle patrol. Not an easy task when neither of us had one word of Gurkhali.

was on a deep jungle patrol where we had run out of food due to a DC3 airdrop failing to complete. On that patrol we bumped into a small group of British SAS troopers who failed to warn us of their presence.

They were lucky. We ate tapioca (simul tarrul) found by the Gurkhas and originally planted by the CTs. With some difficulty we built an LZ on the side of a steep mountain. The first RAF ‘chopper’ was unable to hover in rarefied highland air and crashed into trees below us. It was a miracle that six Gurkhas with mortars and grenades on board and the pilot all managed to escape. The Fleet Air Arm chopper sent to extricate us did better.

The main tactical concern at that time was an ambush of the supply convoy on the very steep road from Tannarata in the plain up five or six miles of winding road to the Boh Tea estate where the rifle company was based. In the end I never let my piece off in anger As far as I was concerned that was put right by a on jungle patrol. I got close on escort duty in a Ferret posting to a rifle company on detachment in the scout car armed with a Browning sub machine gun.

Cameron Highlands. Bill James was in command Our Gurkha driver did not drive slowly and negotiating complete with British gunners armed with 5.5” one particularly sharp bend caused me to pull the medium guns. We had a small fleet of Ferret trigger on the Browning. Happily, some 50 rounds scout cars for escort duties. That year gave me an ended up in the hillside and not in the village ahead introduction to active soldiering. of us. The Gurkha Quartermaster at detachment HQ I witnessed two helicopter crashes. One with the new was good enough to congratulate me on my target practice. Soon after I applied to join the Regiment as GOC, Major General ‘Totty’ Anderson, and his ADC, John Aslet 2 GR, on board and happily unhurt. Another a regular and for some reason was accepted.

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Then there was Hong Kong. The Regiment was based in Sek Kong in the New Territories. Separated from the city by steep hills navigated via the Snake Pass (Route Twisk) the bulk of the British military force was stationed in the New Territories. Our job was to prevent immigrant Chinese from crossing the border from mainland China. The Snake Pass was our link to the temptations of eligible expatriate girls from the UK living on Hong Kong island. I was lucky enough to have an older Naval cousin living on the Island at the time, all very handy. Inexplicably I was made MTO, the fact that I did not have a driving licence did not seem to matter. My driving test was reversing a Land Rover between a set of goal posts. Having learnt to drive a Ferret in Malaya was another possible reason. Essential access to Hong Kong depended on a battered MG which shed a rear wheel driving down the Snake Pass one weekend. I cannot remember which of my brother officers took it off me. Colonel Brunny Short was reaching the end of his command and I used the money from the MG to buy a large and very thirsty Oldsmobile from him.

Soldiering in the New Territories was mostly open warfare training and chasing wretched immigrant families across the paddy fields in the dark or arriving in rowing boats along the coast. The nearest we got

The unsuccessful RAF Helicopter

to excitement was a night driving exercise when a Gurkha drove a Ferret into a very large buffalo on the road. The Ferret was damaged, the buffalo walked away unhurt, the driver had a headache.

It was from Hong Kong that my second tour ended.

I suppose the thought of non-stop training based in Kluang in a peaceful Malaya persuaded me that the end of active service was likely to lack excitement.

How wrong I was. Within, I guess, 18 months the battalion was in Borneo sorting out the Indonesian invaders. It was too late. My resignation had gone through, confirmed by a charming letter from the Colonel of the Regiment, Field Marshal Lord Harding, which I still have. How moving it was to reconnect with the Regiment in Winchester on 26 November 2019.

Postscript.

This article was written by an 83-year old whose memory is fading. Please forgive any inaccuracies.

A large number of photographs of my time with the Regiment were ruined by my trunk being dropped into Singapore harbour on its way home, which explains some of the sepia stains on the photographs.

Antony Wakeham

The more successful Senior Service Helicopter

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O

THE MAKING OF THE REGIMENT A PERSONAL VIEW

two battalions. To avoid prolonged litigation, and n 10 September 1994, in a parade the awakening of old sores, the full story of the attended by the Great and the Good formation will have to wait until certain persons are (or at least by the Prince of Wales dead (you cannot libel the dead) for the process of and the Chief of the General Staff, formation brought out the very worst in some of the with many other lesser but still exalted personages) so called Old and Bold, more accurately Middle Aged the Royal Gurkha Rifles was officially born, and 6th Gurkha Rifles, along with the 2nd, 7th and 10th Gurkha and Timid, who despite having left the Brigade and or the Army many years previously, or in Rifles ceased to exist as active units. It some cases hardly served in it at was probably the most magnificent all, somehow thought they were parade that any Gurkha unit entitled to tell the modern (or any British unit, come to army how it should go that) had carried out for about its business. many a long year: the majority of the entire It was the then year’s supply of the Brigadier Brigade of UK Gurkha battalion’s Gurkhas, Christopher blank ammunition was Bullock, who detailed expended in practising me for the job. I was for the feu de joie, and not keen: the thought the Battle of Britain of sending my friends on Flight flew low over the redundancy did not appeal, parade ground in Church but I was told that I had the Crookham as it was being job because I was senior in fired. In practice the merging service (albeit not in rank) to most of the various elements of the new regiment had happened piecemeal The Badge and Shoulder Titles of the British Officers at regimental during the previous months; the (over page) of the RGR drawn by duty, was known to all the Gurkhas and trusted by them. This was of parade, and the jollification that Sapper Tulbahadur Ale, course a blatant appeal to my overensued after it, was only the official Queens Gurkha Engineers inflated ego and I moved initially recognition of our emergence on the to Cassino Lines in the New Territories of Hong Kong ORBAT of the much reduced British Army. and then to the Prince of Wales Building on Hong Kong Island, although knowing what the standards of Now, at the time of writing, no British Officer the latter’s officers’ mess was like I lived with the 2nd currently serving in units of RGR was serving when Gurkhas in the New Territories and commuted daily. the regiment came into being, and many of the Gurkha Officers were but riflemen or junior NCOs, The reason for the savage reduction in the Brigade, so it may be apposite to pen a few words about and the not quite so savage reductions in the wider how we came into being. I make no apologies for army, was the incurable optimism of our politicians. writing this as a personal memoir, for I was detailed As serving officers we rarely came in contact with as the Formation Officer, charged with merging these beings, but the aim of a politician – any the five battalions of the four infantry regiments politician – is to get into power and once there to of the Brigade into one regiment of three and then

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stay there, with all the access to turtle soup and the means to do favours for unsavoury friends while lining their pockets in so doing. To get into power and to stay there requires the bribing of a greedy and ignorant electorate which wants instant gratification and is only interested in those things that affect it directly. To do this, politicians take money away from things that do not impinge upon the everyday life of the mob, and spend it lavishly in an effort, usually successful, to garner votes. An obvious source of extracting money is the Defence vote, four percent of GDP when I went to Sandhurst in 1960 and just two percent now – although even this is a fudge as it includes my pension, and splendid fellow that I am I can hardly be described as contributing to the defence of the realm. With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, bankrupt and with a command economy that did not work, the Cold War was over, and politicians seized the chance to spend what they called the ‘Peace Dividend’. There were to be reductions right across the army but the severest were to be to the brigade: a seventy-five percent cut in manpower, from nine major units commanded by lieutenant colonels to two with the infantry reduced from five battalions to two and the corps units from three regiments to three squadrons.

For the infantry the first point to be addressed was whether to create one regiment by merging the four existing ones, or whether to retain two regiments, with each having one battalion. I was not involved in this discussion, although my personal preference was to disband the junior Western and the junior Eastern regiments, 6 GR and 10 GR, with 2nd and 7th Gurkhas remaining. My reasons were that politically it would be more difficult to disband a regiment than a battalion of a regiment, and that it would negate all the arguments about dress. In fact the Council of Colonels decided that one regiment, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, would be formed, its cap badge being ‘crossed kukris points uppermost cutting edges down the whole surmounted by an imperial crown’. A hasty

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adjustment put the left kukri over the right, otherwise the other way round would have been the badge of 6 GR less the figure 6.

The first problem was that the establishments of the UK Gurkha battalion, the Brunei Gurkha battalion and the remaining Hong Kong battalion were all different, which made the number crunching needed to ensure that redundancy was to be equal pain across the whole brigade, regardless of cap badge, exceedingly complicated. Fortunately the officer responsible for the actual calculations was the highly competent and experienced Major Paul Gay, 7 GR, who manged to juggle redundancy and inter regimental transfers in as fair and equable a manner as it was possible to be. Once the final establishments had been decided upon the various appointments could be filled. The first merger was of the two battalions of the 2nd Gurkhas, relatively straightforward as it involved no changes in dress or recruiting areas, although there were certain inter regimental transfers in keeping with the principle of equal suffering for all. The process of setting up the new regiment was the prerogative of two committees, the Advisory Committee consisting of the Colonels of all four existing regiments, and the Executive committee consisting of the commanding officers of the existing battalions chaired by the Formation Officer (me).

Some questions were relatively easily resolved: regimental funds followed the soldier; regimental silver could be distributed to the eventual battalions of RGR and it was decided that we would furnish our messes in UK and Brunei and then leave the property in situ, rather than having it moved half way round the world every three or four years. One major issue arose when it was necessary to reinforce the Belize garrison with a jungle trained battalion and the Ministry of Defence directed that this should be the 2nd Gurkhas from Hong Kong. This was a time when other than in UK Gurkha soldiers were paid very much less than British soldiers doing the same job (although Gurkhas

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did not pay income tax, National Insurance or for food and accommodation). Gurkhas were accustomed to a tour in Belize but this had always been carried out by the UK battalion and the men were thus in receipt of UK rates of pay. When the penny pinching bean counters of the MOD decided that in Belize the battalion would remain on Hong Kong rates of pay without the Belize LOA admissible to British troops, it was apparent to all that this was simply not fair, a situation swiftly remedied by the then Brigadier BG, Brigadier Mervyn Lee, in a feat of creative accounting about which the less said the better.

I had been careful in all my decisions to keep everyone informed. I visited all the battalions regularly and spoke to BOs, GOs and Sergeants messes, explaining that nobody was going to get what they would ideally like, but all would get what they could live with. I emphasised that we must think as a Brigade, and not as representatives of individual regiments. One matter for discussion was whether one of the eventual two battalions of the new regiment should be made up of men from the East and the other from the West, or whether all should be mixed, as was the case with the Corps regiments, soon to be squadrons. Talking to Eastern GOs and men it was soon apparent that they were concerned that if we were mixed, and now that promotion was in the hands of external boards, rather than the prerogative of the battalions, as in the past, the westerners would get all the promotions because ‘they are cleverer’. They are not, of course, cleverer, but education is more easily available in the West than it is in the East, and so promotion exams might be less of an obstacle to westerners. Whatever the truth, if that was the perception, firmly and honestly held, then we should accept it and retain one battalion from the West and the other from the East.

There were, of course, some stumbling blocks. One colonel of a Gurkha regiment was also the colonel of a British regiment due for amalgamation. He wrote an impassioned letter to the Times and Telegraph bemoaning the loss of his British regiment, but not a word in support of Gurkhas. Fortunately he had

been replaced by the time that I had to deal with the Council of Colonels.

All was going swimmingly until we came to the matter of dress and accoutrements. I had laid down, and had it agreed by commanding officers, that all that was historically significant would be carried forward, but that we must avoid looking like walking Christmas trees. One thing I wanted very much to carry forward to the new regiment was the ‘lale’ then worn by the 2nd Gurkhas. This embellishment stemmed from the actions of the Sirmoor Battalion (later the 2nd Gurkhas) at the siege of Delhi during the Indian Mutiny of 1857/58 and it was this action that brought it home to the British that Gurkhas were rather more than just another martial race. Serving officers and men, when its origins were explained, accepted this, and then the shitstorm started. I had heard on the grapevine that one long retired lieutenant colonel, now dead, intended to write an article in his regimental magazine attacking the adoption of ‘lale’ by the new regiment.

I waited until evening in Hong Kong, morning in UK, and rang him up. I explained that the whole matter of dress was delicate and if he published his article it would not be helpful. ‘Your problem, Gordon, is that you are well disposed towards the 2nd Gurkhas’, he said. ‘I am well disposed to all Gurkha regiments’ I replied. ‘Well, we were brought up to hate them’ said he. Fortunately, a swift fax to his editor ensured that his article was not published. In the event historically ignorant and dinosaurian objection from outside the serving body was such that the adoption of ‘lale’ had to wait until the new regiment came into being, when it was swiftly incorporated.

We had agreed that the metal shoulder title should be black ‘RGR’ and then some bright spark on the Council of Colonels (AKA the Advisory Committee) thought it would be rather good to have a bugle horn affixed to the top of the RGR. I explained as diplomatically as I could (which was not very) that this risked being mistaken at a distance for the Royal Green Jackets, whose shoulder title was a black RGJ with bugle horn, and that in any case my observation had been that the bugle horn tended to break off. In a rather bad-tempered signal from the Advisors I was

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nevertheless ordered to amend the shoulder title to incorporate a bugle horn and thus I submitted a case to the Army Dress Committee. Fortunately, I had a chum on the aforesaid committee and a swift telephone call ensured that the request was turned down.

The Regimental tie took longer to resolve. The colours had to be a combination of black, rifle green and red, but it had to be different to any other with the same combination of colours, and there were, somewhat to my surprise, a great deal of such ties, cravats and cummerbunds ranging from the Ceylon Light Infantry through the Rhodesian Light Infantry to the South Irish Horse and , if one went back far enough, to the Chasseurs Brittanique of the Peninsula War. It was decided that a feminine input was required, one with some artistic talent, and Captain Jean Erskine, then the Staff Captain ‘A’ in HQBG was presented with an array of combinations, none of which had, as far as we could tell, been used before, and she chose the tie that we wear today.

The regimental marches, Double, Quick and Slow, the latter only used at funerals, had to be playable by the band and by the pipes and drums, as it was decided that each battalion should have pipes and drums, rather than a bugle platoon, although drummers would be dual trained. Not all marches can be played

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by both, and eventually it was decided that the Quick March would be ‘The Black Bear’ pending the writing of a new regimental march (which has since been done – ‘Bravest of the Brave’).

At last, after much fencing with dinosaurs various, all was agreed and 1 July 1994 was set as the day when the new regiment would come into being, with all ranks of units of the four constituent regiments adopting the cap badge and dress of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. As the date approached the promised supply of cap badges for Hong Kong had still not arrived. Signals to the supplying ordnance depot brought the suggestion that the 6 GR cap badge with the 6 removed might do until the real thing arrived. Clearly this was not acceptable and at last a somewhat peremptory signal to the Director of Ordnance Services in the MOD got a chilli inserted up somebody’s bottom and the badges arrived at Kai Tak the day before formation. I and my wife (on leave from Germany) spent the day driving round Hong Kong delivering the requisite number of cap badges so that on the following day all could wear the badge of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.

And so the Royal Gurkha Rifles was officially born.

Gordon Corrigan

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WHO WAS THUKTE SHERPA? “In his life in the moment, in his freedom of attachments, in the simplicity of his everyday example, Tukten has taught me over and over, he is the teacher that I’d hoped to find…

“When you are ready,” Buddhists say, “the teacher will appear.”

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Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard, Viking Press, 1978, p. 316.

hope you agree that the above is a very impressive accolade for anyone, let alone a humble Lance Corporal, from an award-winning author, and is the main reason that prompted this article. What had we all missed about Thukte?

this request! As it happened, he was a great choice. He was always popular with the British Officers, very cheerful, with a wide ready smile.

The other mess waiter for the 2/6th was Desmond’s orderly, Tekbahadur Pun. The two for the 1/6th were Kalusing Gurung and Rambahadur Thapa. Kalusing became a renowned “joker” and dancer in the 1/6th for which I got much credit from his CO Gil Hickey.

In the 1960s, Matthiessen, who had lived with the Amazonian tribes of Brazil, and taken their “spiritual medicine”, ayahuasca, introduced his wife Deborah to LSD and other hallucinogens. She in However, Thukte was a bit of turn had given him the rudiments an outsider in the 6 GR Gurung/ of Zen Buddhism and this became Thukte Sherpa, Nepal, 1962 Magar environment and he found his primary study for the remaining it very difficult, when made a Lance Corporal, to get 40 years of his life. He eventually became a Zen monk and established a Zen Buddhist retreat on Long others to work for him given their view of his jhat and status. Regrettably he subsequently volunteered for Island NY. redundancy and was discharged on 15 March 1970.

The Snow Leopard describes a journey Matthiessen Soon after his discharge Thukte was hired for made with the naturalist George Schaller in 1973 to Bonington’s Annapurna expedition. The other Sherpa the Dolpo Region of Nepal. was Ang Pema. Of the two Sherpas, Bonington wrote: Some 18 months after joining the 2/6th I was sent “Ang Pema was invaluable as a high-altitude to Nepal to help recruit the 1,700 strong 1962 Galla. porter while Thukte was a superb chef and major This was the largest post war intake of recruits domo. He was well built but lacked the inherent and replaced those who enlisted in 1947. Although toughness of the successful high-altitude porter”. persons much more expert than I carried out most of the recruiting I was given the specific task of Bonington’s observations provided some clues to recruiting four mess waiters, two for each Battalion.

Thukte’s origins. Throughout his life he claimed to be One of these was Thukte Sherpa. from the Khumbu region, but his inability to succeed at very high altitude indicates that Thukte was born at Thukte arrived in Dharan with a message from a much lower altitude than Ang Pema. He was from George Lorimer for Desmond Huston that he might the Khumbu region, at 13,000 feet above sea level, make a good mess waiter. I could hardly turn down

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Thukte cooking breakfast on the Ranges in Hong Kong

near the foot of Mt. Everest. Thukte had a Sherpa name, but not necessarily Sherpa lungs.

I discovered many years later that Thukte was born in Tibet and crossed over to Nepal some time on or after 1950 aged about 10, when thousands of Tibetans were pouring over the passes into Nepal to escape the horrors of the Chinese “liberation” of Tibet. A family named Xangbu in Khunde, headed by Ang Dorje and Ang Bhuti, with three brothers and two sisters, adopted Thukte.

At this stage you might say “so what”? The reason being that Kathryn (Kate) O’Hehir, a Zen Buddhist from Arizona, contacted me in 2004 about a long article she had written about Thukte. His part in The Snow Leopard, like me, had prompted her article, and the extracts below shows Peter Matthiessen’s close empathy with Thukte (whom he called Tukten).

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In the rear window of the cab, Tukten is ghostly; I stare after him as he withdraws into the dusk. It is not so much that this man and I are friends. Rather, there is a thread between us, like the black thread of a live nerve; there is something unfinished, and he knows it, too. Without ever attempting to speak about it, we perceive life in the same way, or rather, I perceive it in the way that Tukten lives it. In the way he watched me, in the way he smiled, he was awaiting me; had I been ready he might have led me far enough along the path ‘to see the snow leopard’.1 Later Matthiessen goes on to say: At supper, the Sherpas, in good spirits, include me as best they can in their conversation, but after a while I bury myself in these notes, so they can talk comfortably amongst themselves. Usually this

George Schaller

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Thukte (left), Peter Matthiessen and other Sherpa staff, at the top of the Saldang Pass east of Shey, Upper Dolpo, December 1973

means listening to Tukten, who holds the others rapt for hours at a time with that deep soft voice of his, his guru hands extending in a hypnotizing way over the flames. I love to watch our evil monk with his yellow Mongol eyes and feral ears, and it is rare that I look at him when he isn’t watching me.2 O’Hehir wanted to know how Thukte had died and more about his army service. I was able to do this in some detail.

Like many others who went on redundancy Thukte did not qualify for a pension but a lump sum equal to six months’ pay. I had complained at the time to HQBG that this was a mistaken policy, as the money would soon run out, and without employment many would become destitute. Sure enough this happened to Thukte, compounded by the fact that he contracted

TB. A pension no matter how small would at least have meant he could have fed himself.

In December 1982, Duncan Briggs went on trek to Nepal, and while in Kathmandu was informed by the Transit Camp Gurkha Major, Manbahadur Tamang, that Thukte was at Swayambunath and dying of TB. He then set off with a young Adrian Griffith on bicycles to try to find him. They finally did find him in one of the pretty grim “hostels” surrounding Swayambunath and he certainly was in a poor way.

With the help of Manbahadur, Duncan arranged for him to get medical treatment, but it transpired that his TB was so far advanced it was too late to save him.

When I received this information in Brunei I was able to get Thukte admitted to BMH Dharan. He did not

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Robin Adshead in Gurkha, The Legendary Soldier

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Thukte serving Evan Powell-Jones a traditional Mess breakfast

last long, but I am very glad that our intervention enabled Thukte to spend his last days in relative comfort and dignity, and that he received the necessary medical care to minimise his suffering.

Had we all missed something about Thukte that Matthiessen divined? I do not think so. Matthiessen’s journey to the Himalayas came at a moment in his life when his mind was desperate for clarity and, perhaps, solace. His second wife, Deborah Love, had died 20 months earlier, at the age of 44, from a sudden and quickly spreading cancer. Maybe this was

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the reason why he saw Thukte as “The teacher that I’d hoped to find”?

I am sure most of you who knew him, will remember him more as an ever-cheerful and willing Mess waiter.

This is well demonstrated in this photo of him serving Evan Powell-Jones a ‘rumble tumble’ breakfast in the Kluang Mess in 1967. RIP Thukte, whoever you were.

Paul Pettigrew 1 Matthiessen, Peter, The Snow Leopard, Viking Press, 1978, p. 316.

2 Matthiessen, Peter, The Snow Leopard, Viking Press, 1978, p. 242.

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EXERCISE MOUNTAIN DRAGON ANNAPURNA SOUTH PEAK

A

1976

Sanctuary, to be our Sirdar and recruit our porters. fter being posted back to 6 GR in It was agreed that they would be local villagers Hong Kong in 1975 and commanding rather than professional porters and that we would A Company, I met up with Captain try hard to look after them. Finance was another Peter Cooper, Gurkha Engineers, and key issue and we were most fortunate to get the established a rock-climbing partnership. We both support of Ronnie Ross, Frankie Gouldsbury’s father however, had ambitions to climb a “small” peak in the Himalaya and were encouraged by the success of and a prominent businessman in Hong Kong who provided a vital interface the Hong Kong Expedition with local companies who to Lamjung Himal in 1974 might support us. As well which had included Frank as financial support we Fonfe from 6 GR. After received help in kind with considerable research and on such things as clothes and the advice of Jimmy Roberts blankets which we were in Pokhara, we opted for later able to pass on to our Annapurna South Peak (ASP) porters. I also contracted at 23,683 feet (7,219 metres) to do some articles for the by the East Face from the Sunday South China Morning Annapurna Sanctuary and Post (SCMP). in the post monsoon period, i.e. September to November.

With the very positive The mountain had only been support of Mike Wardroper, climbed twice before and then Commanding Officer only once via the East Face 6 GR, Corporal Rinchen and, at that height, would Wangdi Lepcha, Rifleman mean that we would not Dhanbahadur Pun and our need oxygen.

Peter carrying a load using fixed ropes on attached PTI, Staff Sergeant Serac Ridge Rick Broad and myself were Permissions were sought all released for the expedition. WO2 Li Nai Chung and eventually received, the mountain booked, but from the School of Physical and Recreational Training then the Nepalese authorities changed the rules in Hong Kong made the lead climbers up to 6. Support and only through the splendid efforts of the Defence climbers were Lance Corporal Martin Callaghan Attaché were we able to continue. There was much from the Light Infantry and Rifleman Sukrabahadur to do; finance, equipment, rations, flights, personnel Rai from 1/2GR with Sergeant Bill Noble from 18 etc, etc: 1976 became an extremely busy year for Field Ambulance in Sek Kong as our medic. Rifleman Peter and myself. One of the key issues was porters, Rasbahadur Gurung, 6 GR, and Sapper Belbahadur as the Lamjung expedition’s porters had walked Gurung, Gurkha Engineers, who were both to be on out and nearly scuppered the whole thing. In the leave agreed to act as our mail runners. With four of spring of 1976, Ria my wife, and I did a recce to the the six lead climbers, the mountain and also persuaded Honorary Lieutenant Sanbahadur Gurung, a former 6 GR RSM and resident Sirdar and one mail runner, this had become very much a 6 GR expedition! of the village of Chhomro, the last village before the

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Rick and I formed the Advance Party and we arrived in Kathmandu on 16 September. Bob Duncan 6 GR, then Acting Defence Attaché did an outstanding job helping us through the bureaucratic minefield we encountered at the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Customs etc. I left for Pokhara on 20 September and Rick joined me in the British Gurkha Camp a couple of days later arriving by truck with all our kit. The porters arrived in the camp on the 22nd and Sanbahadur Saheb had done a magnificent job. 65 men from the Chhomro area organised into 6 teams each commanded by a “naik” who also carried a load, but was paid more and was responsible for his team. They collected their loads and clothing and we certainly had the best dressed porters of 1976.

Rick and I had a wonderful walk in; the porters were great fun and we made lots of friends. Our night stay in Chomro was particularly memorable and we were made extremely welcome. We arrived at Base Camp in the Sanctuary, where the lodges now stand, on 27 September in a blizzard and unpacked the

porters loads as quickly as possible. The following day the main body arrived in sunshine and we began the expedition proper.

While sitting in my tent door looking up at the mountain it struck me just what a challenge we had taken on. Only Rinchen had limited Himalayan experience, Peter had done a couple of seasons in the Alps and so was the most experienced, Rick and I had virtually no snow and ice experience; Dhanbahadur none, and Li, despite being a very good rock climber, had never even seen snow! It was going to be quite an adventure.

After sorting our kit and doing some snow and ice instruction, introducing many to their ice axes and how to use them, we tried to push a route up the left and around the top of the glacier running between Hiunchuli and ASP. After finding a suitable place for

Summit photo looking west towards Dhaulagiri, 8,167m

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Camp 1 the going across the glacier proved extremely difficult; it was heavily crevassed and threatened with avalanches from Hiunchuli. After six days we abandoned this option and over the next few days established a longer route below the snout of the Hiunchuli-ASP glacier and then up the right-hand side. We had formed into three teams of two, Peter and Rick, Rinchen and Dhanbahadur and Li and me.

One team would do the lead climbing, supported with carries by the other two teams. We had no porters above Base Camp and carried all our own loads to establish camps and the route.

man� snow anchor. This meant that all loads above Camp 2 had to be hauled up the 120-foot buttress and we personally had to climb the rope by prussiking and then abseil on the way down. All pretty hard work at over 18,000 feet. Camp 3 was established on 18 October above the barrier and at the foot of what we called Serac Ridge. This was a steep ridge alternating between reasonable snow fields and then ice cliffs ranging between 50 and 100 feet in height and which led to the summit ridge of ASP.

I tried to send regular reports to Hong Kong for the SCMP. These were usually written in pencil on a shorthand pad in my tent, carried down to Base Camp By 11 October we had established Camp 2 at 17,500 feet well up on the glacier but below a significant fault by whoever was going down and then sent with my unprocessed slide film with one of our mail runners, line of crevasses, large ice seracs and some rock. It taking three days from Base Camp to Pokhara. It was formed a real barrier and it was not until 18 October then British Forces Post to my wife in Hong Kong. with two teams on the case that we had found a way She tried to decipher my scribble and type it out as through this. The route was dangerous though, with stones flying down after about 10 am. Also, we needed well as choosing relevant photographs from the films to fix a rope over a steep rocky buttress using a “dead before submitting it to the SCMP. Quite a contrast to

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0

TILICHO LAKE

Tilicho

Kilometres

10

Marang

Niligiri Grand Barrier

MA

RSY KHOANGD LA Y

Angapurna

Annapurna I 25,602

Annapurna South Peak 23,607

Annapurna III 24,858

Glacier Dome

Hiunchuli

Machhapuchhre

Hinko Cave

IK M

Chomro

Chandrakot Lumle

KHOL MADI

Landrung

Birethanti

Siklis

SET I KH

Ghan drung

A

OLA

KY

UM

NI

Kuldi

OD

KH

HO

OL

A

LA

22,956

Dhampus Suikhet Nau Danda

Pokhara

Map of the area and route of the walk in

today’s instant communications! In the middle of one night at Camp 2, we heard noises outside our tent.

We knew no one else was on the mountain, but the noise of rustling in our supply dump outside the tent

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got louder. I shrank even further into my sleeping bag; the effort of getting dressed and going outside in the intense cold was unthinkable. Eventually the noises stopped and we went back to sleep. In the morning

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MAIN ANNAPURNA GLACIER

BC

I GLACIER SNOUT

ANNAPURNA/HIUNCHULI GLACIER

II Right Nostril Left Nostril

III

IV V

SERAC RIDGE

Annapurna South Peak 23,607

Route taken by Exercise Mountain Dragon

we found that the supply dump had been significantly disturbed and there were large cat foot prints in the snow. We assumed that we had been blessed with a visit from a Snow Leopard!

The day we established Camp 3 we had an interesting event when a group from the UK Rambler’s Association arrived at Base Camp and one of their number collapsed and lost consciousness.

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Rinchen and Duncan with Machhapuchare, Annapurna II and IV in the background

Bill, our medic reacted quickly, administered oxygen and the man recovered. The Rambler’s doctor was at our Camp 1 having volunteered to do a carry for us! The following day Rinchen started suffering from snow blindness which was relieved with drops carried up from Base Camp by Martin. A day later in the early hours of 22 October, Camp 3 was hit by the tail end of an avalanche. The tent was rolled over 10 metres and partially buried. It ended close to a crevasse! Peter and Rick managed to recover their composure and move the tent further away from the crevasse and repitch it, but valuable stores were lost.

Camp 4, part way up Serac Ridge was finally established at about 20,500 feet on 23 October and occupied by Peter and Rick. The next three days of significant fresh snow were most frustrating and little progress was made. Li and Dhanbahadur became ill and moved back to Base Camp and so Rinchen joined me at Camp 3. Prior to that I had suffered probably the most difficult day of my life, carrying a double

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load through the fresh snow from Camp 3 to Camp 4, knowing that Camp 4 was short of supplies.

By 28 October a site for Camp 5 had been found, pushing up through some interesting steep sections, but Rick had pulled a tendon in his leg and needed to go down. Rinchen and I joined Peter at Camp 4 and on 31 October the three of us occupied Camp 5 at around 21,500 feet. We still had over 1,000 feet of steep, but good climbing on steep and sometimes vertical water ice and on 1 November we gained about 800 feet and fixed some ropes. We decided to go for it the following day, but took our sleeping bags, duvet jackets plus a stove and some food just in case. It was slow going; we had all been at over 17,000 feet for well over two weeks without a break. We pressed on beyond our high point, but at around 200 feet below the summit ridge we stopped at a small crevasse and decided to set up a bivouac. I stayed there to build the bivouac under an overhanging roof while Peter and Rinchen completed the route to the summit ridge. It was an

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Peter and Rinchen with Machhapuchare, Annapurna II and IV in the background

uncomfortable night at 23,000 feet sitting on a snow bench, but thankfully in our sleeping bags.

The following day, 3 November, we started late, after the sun had hit the bivouac. We quickly climbed to the summit ridge but were hit by a viciously cold wind. The snow was difficult too as we often broke through the crust making walking really hard work. It took over three hours to reach the summit, but from there at 13:00 we had the most amazing views of the surrounding mountains and into the far distance; we really did feel as if we were on the top of the world. By this stage Rinchen was suffering from exposure and he struggled on the way back down the ridge. Peter did a wonderful job looking after him as I was also in poor shape. We decided a descent to Camp 5 was too much for Rinchen, who by this time had also lost a crampon, so having made it to the bivouac we put him in all three sleeping bags until he recovered. Peter and I realised he was OK when Rinchen was sick; but he carefully avoided being sick on the sleeping bags; clearly he would survive! We

then spent another night sitting on our uncomfortable bench, but in relative warmth and with luke warm tea as the water at that height boils at much less than 100 degrees Celsius.

The following day we dropped down to Camp 5, only to find that our tent, with radio and other kit had been blown away. There were some rations however, and we had our first real meal for over two days. Later that day we got to Camp 3, clearing the mountain as we went and were able to radio Base Camp. We had been out of contact for over three days and they had given us up for lost. At least that was how it seemed when we discovered that they had already called up the porters to evacuate Base Camp. From Camp 3, Peter went ahead and I followed on with Rinchen, who was struggling a bit with only one crampon. We jumped over the crevasses on the glacier, feeling very fit in the oxygen rich air. At one wider crevasse I threw my pack over first, only to see it continue to roll and disappear into the next crevasse. This was not good; as apart from my kit, my

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Peter and Rinchen recovering with some welcome food at Camp 5, minus tent!!

pack included my camera with the pictures taken on the summit!! Together, Rinchen and I did a crevasse rescue; it was a scary feeling abseiling deep into a cold blue crevasse, but I made it out and we carried on. As we left the glacier Rinchen stopped and in a small ice cave made a small cairn. He then knelt and gave thanks for our safe deliverance from the mountain. I joined him in the short ceremony; it was very moving. Back at Base Camp that evening we had a barbeque and campfire and finally left the Sanctuary with our now small band of porters the next day on 7 November. We had been there six weeks.

We had a small problem though; what to do with Kanchi? Kanchi was a chicken that Rasbahadur’s mother had given me on the walk in for our supper on the night after we left Chomro. That night though we were cold and tired and ate tinned rations so the chicken returned to the top of the porter’s basket.

The chicken was forgotten about in the rush for the porters to leave Base Camp and we found her

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the following day wandering around the camp. She adopted a place in the Base Camp kitchen and we fed her on scraps. Foolishly, I named her Kanchi. She became very tame, perching on people’s shoulders and I decided to kill her at Dashera. Sadly, I was up the mountain over Dashera and as she was mine no one else would kill her. I wanted to kill her for the last night at Base Camp, but many other members objected as she had become the expedition mascot and pet so I decided to take her back to Chomro.

Before we left Base Camp, now with many fewer porters, we distributed all our unused rations, mainly in tins, to our porters, with the clear instructions to ask us if they were unsure of the contents. I had only walked about 400 metres when I found a porter sitting with an opened tin; using his fingers he was sampling the contents and screwing up his face. I stopped and examined the tin: Army Rations Mock Turtle Soup Powder! I couldn’t help laughing but did explain how best to eat it.

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The team, garlanded and leaving Chomro. L to R: Rasbahadur, Lt Hirabahadur (Liaison Officer), Rasbahadur’s brother, Lee, Dhanbahadur, Bill, Rick, Martin, Peter, Sanbahadur Sahib

On the walk out as we entered Chomro we were met and all garlanded by Rasbahadur’s mother and we returned Kanchi. I explained what had happened and although I am sure that she understood every word that I said, there was an unmistakeable look of disbelief in her eyes. A big party was held that night with plenty of raksi and dancing and many of our walk-in porters came to see us and wish us well.

We continued our walk out and were greeted in a number of 6 GR houses. I walked out in my large double boots to protect my frost-bitten toes; walking was quite difficult with no feeling in my feet. We met many trekkers on the walk out, all of whom had heard of our success and the constant question was “Did you get to the top”. I answered in the positive and we chatted about the experience but as I hobbled off down the track I could see them look at me, stumbling over small rocks and then look up to the mountain and shake their heads.

All told, we felt that the expedition had been a great success and we had the satisfaction of knowing that we had worked hard together and achieved our aim of getting to the top. We had been extremely privileged to spend over 6 weeks in the Annapurna Sanctuary, surely one of the most beautiful and spiritual places in the world. No one had been seriously injured, and once we returned to Hong Kong we realised that we had managed to make a small profit. This we donated to the Army Mountaineering Fund set up in the names of those killed on the 1975 Nuptse Expedition, many of whom had been friends. We thought that conditions had been hard, but nothing like the deprivations suffered by the previous generation and we were very fortunate with the one thing you cannot control, the weather. For me it had been extremely hard work setting up the expedition with Peter, but the expedition still rates as the best and most fulfilling adventure in a reasonably adventurous life.

Duncan Briggs

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BORN LUCKY

T

JOINING 6th GURKHA RIFLES, 1962

here are many reasons why a young man should wish to take up an army career and a love of military history is probably as good as any. In my case it may have been inspired by a statue I often passed as a young boy in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, of General Sir John Nicholson. Sword in one hand and pistol in the other, he was the epitome of Victorian martial valour and had even caused the creation of a new Indian religion, the Nikal Seyns, who worshipped him as a living god, and which still exists today. As an avid reader of military history from an early age, he was my introduction to the Indian Army, with a touch of spice from the “Gunga Din” and “Lives of a Bengal Lancer” films and a good dose of Kipling. I was well aware of the 2nd Gurkhas on Delhi Ridge but my only connection to the Brigade was a cousin who served in the 7th Gurkhas in the war and the Brigade was generally believed to be a “closed shop” of father and son.

Back in the late fifties and early sixties the alternative to two “A” levels for entry into Sandhurst was a successful pass of the Civil Service Commission held annually in the UK and Commonwealth for a host of government jobs. Importantly, it was held in October and successful candidates would be called to RCB in Westbury in November and could join in January, rather than waiting for the following September entry. There was a system of crammers for the exam, which consisted of five papers – four of the usual staples, English and a foreign language, math and science – and a fifth, the “General Paper” which was designed to be outside standard school curriculums and presumably rewarded the autodidact.

The names of those who passed were published in The Times with detailed

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John Conlin’s Commissioning photograph

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results to follow by post. I was called to Westbury in early November and found the competition quite tough and, being one of the youngest, found some of the physical tests quite beyond me. Growing despondent I was asked by one group of examiners to name what I was most proud of in the past two months. Being selected for Westbury would have been exceedingly lame so I blurted out that I had been top in the UK in the General Paper in the Civil Service Commission exam the previous month. This seemed to do the trick. Of course, no one remembers who was second or third in anything, so it was real stroke of luck.

Sandhurst was quite well organized to ensure that cadets had plenty of time to make their selection and I interviewed with a number of regiments, with no commitment to any. This was particularly fortunate when we went though “the exercise from hell” in our fourth term. Everything thing went pear shaped, with four days of rain, soaked through, no sleep, vehicles getting stuck in mud and having to be pushed out, etc.

I had never seen Sandhurst cadets being sullen but it really got to us that week. By good luck I had drawn the platoon commander’s slot for this week of misery and was required to demonstrate irrepressible good humor and cajole my fellow cadets for days on end.

Of course, had I been a mere rifleman that week I would have likely sulked in the flooded slit trenches like everyone else.

There was a new member of the Directing Staff attending this exercise and he was quite evidently not happy with what he saw, but he gave me the equivalent of a nod of approval for my relentless effort of cheerfulness as the platoon commander.

He wore a rifle green beret with a red boss type cap badge which we thought would likely be KRRC. At the end of the exercise we stood around drenched, waiting for the threetonners to take us back to Sandhurst.

The new DS stepped forward and announced that he was Major Neil of

the 2nd Goorkhas and was the new Chief Instructor of Victory College. We then got what we would have called a “right bollocking.” What he had witnessed over the past five days was, very apparently, a real disgrace…in a matter of a few months we would be responsible for the lives of British soldiers…if we thought this was bad, wait until you see what a real war is like… This was food for thought as we journeyed back to Sandhurst and a few of us evidently decided that life in the infantry was not for us. Our company commander, Major Pike MC, RA, scooped up a number of ex-infanteers for his beloved gunners, but I decided on the Intelligence Corps (without actually ever meeting a member of that august Corps).

Ordered to report to the officer responsible for the Int. Corps recruiting I knocked on the door, entered and saluted. We both recognized each other instantly.

It was Major Neil, sitting in for the Intelligence Corps, which had no representative at Sandhurst.

Asked why I wanted to go into the Intelligence Corps I summoned all the strategic world vision of the average nineteen-year-old and announced that I didn’t think anything would happen in the BAOR stand-off during my military career but thought that all the action would be in the Far East and the Int. Corps would be a better bet to get there. Major Neil pointed out that there were regiments permanently stationed in the Far East and went on to talk about his regiment, 2 GR. He was a captivating raconteur and even had an Ulster connection, as he had spent his early childhood in Belfast. I was converted within minutes.

Marching back directly to the company commander’s office I respectfully stated that I wanted to join the Gurkhas. Major Pike then announced that he had just hung up from a phone call with Major Neil, who was suggesting that he would sponsor me for 2 GR. No regimental interview was necessary as Major Neil would be commanding the 2/2nd GR by the time I was to join but there was the usual round of a meeting with General Walter Walker and, later, the Council of Colonels. These were regimental colonels, not battalion commanders and all were Lieutenant Generals, except for the chairman, Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer. As the cadet entrant for the senior

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regiment I was allocated first to the Field Marshal. He had obviously been primed with the Ulster connection.

“Where are you from, boy?” “County Armagh, Sir.” “Well, you’re in! What does you father do?” “Imperial Civil Service, Sir” (How quaint that career sounds today!). “Well done!” It was believed locally in County Armagh that the only person Templer actually feared was his mother, still living outside Armagh City, so, when she called my mother to tell her I was joining the Brigade of Gurkhas, I assumed the decision was done and dusted.

There was one fly in the ointment and that was that there was an official rep for the brigade at Sandhurst – a 6th Gurkha – who had been quite ignored in these proceedings and who’s nose was decidedly out of joint. There was worse to come. Hew Pike of my intake, heading for the 6th, changed his mind in the fifth term and got accepted for the Parachute Regiment. In those days nobody asked your opinion – I was peremptorily switched to the 6th to take his place, but I was glad it was a Western Nepal regiment. For the 6th Gurkhas Rep this was double trouble – he had lost the son of a general on the Army Council and gained a recycled 2nd Gurkha. What had been a mere irritation may have hardened into a very active dislike. But revenge is a dish best served cold and was not on the menu for me for another four years.

In the final two terms Major Neil became quite a legend at Sandhurst. We learned that he had been on the first Chindit expedition and had recommended a rifleman in his company for the VC in later fighting in Burma. But the pièce de résistance was that he had personally killed 23 CTs as a lead scout in patrols in the Malayan Emergency. His lectures were legendary and, in the ultimate compliment, cadets added phrases like “hugga mugga” and “luki luki” to their vocabulary. He generated a tremendous amount of goodwill for the Brigade and was assumed incorrectly to be the actual Gurkha Rep. Hew Pike was quite prescient in his transfer to the Paras because, a few weeks before commissioning in December 1962, the current intake candidates for the

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Brigade were assembled in a Hall of Study, together with accepted cadets from the following two intakes.

The Brigade of Gurkhas Liaison officer had come down from the War Office to explain that all elements of the Brigade of Gurkhas were going to be disbanded shortly and we would have to find other regiments.

Fortunately, as good luck would have it, this was reversed the following week, following the outbreak of the Brunei revolt. Thank you, Mr. Azahari, for saving our careers!

Shortly before I was commissioned we were addressed by Field Marshal Bill Slim. We had stood respectfully for some of the most boring politicos, minor royals and retired service chiefs over the twoyear span. Slim’s speech was electrifying: “I have served in every rank from private to field marshal and have had a wonderful and fulfilling life but I envy each and every one of you as you stand here today ready to begin your career as officers in the British army”.

Inspiring stuff for us teenagers!

I joined the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Gurkhas in Hong Kong while it was in the process of deploying to Borneo in the early summer of 1963 and was appointed company officer to Ralph Reynolds of D Company, based in the then British North Borneo, later Sabah. Ralph was responsible for the defence of the whole country, in effect, and had fewer than 200 men to accomplish the task. Apart from a four-man SAS contingent stationed in the distant highlands, all were based in the local town of Tawau. We had a normal strength rifle company to which was added a detachment of the pioneer platoon with three aluminium assault boats, a Gurkha Signals section, the battalion 3inch mortars and two Vickers machine guns (in what may have been their last tactical application).

On my third day as company officer a police patrol boat was ambushed off the coast of the divided island of Sebatik, across the estuary from Tawau. The following day I was dispatched with a sergeant and ten riflemen. A very reluctant policeman came along to identify the Indonesian firing position, which could soon be seen as a yellow scar of a beach against the

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background of mangrove. The mangrove was very thick either side of the position, which prevented landing some distance away to work the flank, and the exposed mangrove roots prevented a fast direct approach. Crouching in the lead boat as it slowly approached the reported firing position I muttered the subaltern’s prayer: “Please, God, this is my first command – don’t let me mess it up!” The Almighty was apparently able to divert his attention from running the galaxy to arrange for the Indonesians to retreat when they saw us coming – and they only left their footprints in the sand.

This was my fourth day on the job! How lucky can one man get!

Army pursuit in Swamp!” But there was little time to rest on any laurels. On the following Saturday Ralph Reynolds announced he would be visiting some of his other responsibilities, the coastal towns of Lahad Datu and Sandakan, to the north. The trip was to be by a scheduled Dakota of Borneo Airways and would take four days. I drove him to the airport at Tawau and his parting words were “John, whatever you do, don’t lose the airport – it will take the Navy four days to get to you.” Heady words for a twenty-year-old – in charge of the defence of an entire country – but nothing the source of my inspiration, General Sir John Nicholson, would have worried about. So, here’s to the memory of General Nicholson Saheb! And, to all those Nikal Seyns out there: Namaste!

John Conlin

On the following day the local Tawau newspaper ran with the headline: “Police Ambush by Indons:

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CIGS

I

t was mid 1951 and Intake 7 was getting close to graduation. Derek Organ of our 1st Battalion was Brigade representative at Sandhurst, he was also Swimming Officer and as I was in the team and also captain of water polo I got to know him quite well. If you haven’t heard of water polo it’s that very un-sahib like game where you do nasty things to your opponents under water, all the while hoping the referee doesn’t notice.

Field Marshal Slim had been brought back in late 1948 from retirement, by Prime Minister Atlee, to take over as CIGS from Field Marshal Montgomery, the first Indian Army Officer to hold the post. He quickly reinstated permanent cadre (it is said previously opposed by Monty) for the four Gurkha Regiments and Colin Scott of the Intake 5 was posted to our 1st Battalion as the first officer to benefit from the system, he was followed by six officers from Intake 6 , including Demi Walsh who also went to the 1st Battalion.

The CIGS decided he would personally interview

the eight contenders for the two places available to Intake 7. We had been whittled down by Derek to something a bit more manageable from the original forty-four present at the first meeting. We all travelled to Whitehall to have our personal interview with the CIGS in his office in the Old Building of the War Office as it then was.

I remember my interview, a daunting experience, went something like this: CIGS. “So you think you are good enough to join my Regiment do you?”

I thought if I said yes he would think me presumptuous and if I said no that would be the end of it so I said: “I hope so, Sir.” The CIGS replied, “I hope so too because if you are not the Gurkha soldiers will see through you in two weeks.”

The rest of the interview was a bit of a blur but

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apparently went well enough. We were fortunate that four of us were accepted, one to each Regiment.

Perhaps we should remember that had Slim not been called back from retirement to be CIGS the Brigade would been officered on the basis of three-year secondments from British Regiments and not the Permanent Cadre from which we all benefitted, as I’m sure did our Gurkha soldiers.

In 1960 the UK Gurkha Contingent, comprised of a rifle company, which formed G Company of the 1st Greenjackets (Ox and Bucks), the Demonstration Battalion at the School of Infantry, plus an outstanding combined military pipes, drums and bugle band also drawn from all units of the Brigade, a total of 230 all ranks, which took part in activities all over the country. One in particular included marching down Edinburgh’s Princes Street with the Greek Evzones and the Royal Highlanders of Canada to the skirl of pipes , across the bridge, into the Auld Toun, along the Royal Mile and up to Scotland’s War Memorial, at the very top of the Castle, where we did a very moving combined wreath laying ceremony before GOC Scotland and a large number of distinguished Scottish guests.

Our very last parade, for the state visit of their Majesties the King and Queen of Nepal, involved marching from Horse Guards Parade and down the Mall. As 2i/c of the Contingent I was, as always, Tail End Charlie. We passed through the Palace gates and under the archway onto the lawn in front of a thousand invited guests, including Field Marshals Harding and Templar. We were inspected by the Queen and the King of Nepal accompanied by Viscount Slim.

As the Field Marshal passed me I would like to have said something like “I’m still hanging in there”, but of course I didn’t. The senior Gurkha Officer of the Contingent was Captain Lilbahadur of the 2nd Battalion and on parade, among others, were Lance Corporal Dalbahadur of the 1st and Rifleman Jaibahadur of the 2nd Battalions, both later Gurkha Majors as most of you will know. After an Advance in Review Order we marched past, followed by an

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impressively large contingent of retired officers from the Gurkha Brigade Association, displaying an unbelievable collection of medals. We marched back down the Mall and were dismissed on Horse Guards Parade. It was of course an unbelievable

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experience for all of us, made all the better for me by the presence of the person responsible for my many happy years in the Regiment.

Neil Anderson

Her Majesty The Queen and His Majesty King Mahendra of Nepal inspecting the Gurkha Contingent during the state visit of the King and Queen of Nepal,1960

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G

THE CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF’S COWS

eneral Sushil Shamsher Rana, the Chief of Army Staff and the most senior military officer in Nepal, lived in Jhamsikel behind high brick walls guarded by a company of elite soldiers from his Ranger Battalion. A white helmeted military policeman always stood on duty outside the main gate, flanked by a pair of gigantic copper vases filled with fresh flowers. At intervals along the wall, machine gun posts poked out of watch towers above the green and white buses ferrying children to and from the Gyanodaya School. The Chief of Army Staff was the most powerful man in Nepal but, as the Nepalese saying goes, eagles have many enemies.

Whilst his compound was a haven of green amongst the urban chaos of Kathmandu, it was a heavily guarded idyll and the new razor wire along the top of the wall illustrated the stark realities of his power.

Military tradition dictated that the Chief of Army Staff was the only army officer in Nepal allowed to maintain a herd of cows inside the ample grounds of his compound. A detachment of soldiers was responsible for looking after the ten chocolate and tan coloured bovines and making sure that churns of fresh milk were delivered to his kitchen every morning. In the monsoon the cows grew fat on the rich green grass inside the compound. In the winter the grass turned brown and the cows were let out of the compound, escorted by two soldiers lazily shouldering their M-16s, to forage for themselves along the grass verges outside the Engineering College. The disruption they caused to the city traffic as they crisscrossed the Pulchowk Road – a major traffic artery – was enormous and a continual source of irritation to the city traffic department.

One day in Bikram Sampat 2063, not long after the second Jano Andolan, Narayan Pradhan, a poor Newari farmer, was squatting smoking a Bijuli cigarette beside the small Durga temple outside the Chief of Army Staff’s compound. His kharpan was carefully placed beside him with that morning’s produce of radishes and spring onions neatly arranged

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in bamboo baskets. Like any other morning, a purple bougainvillea flower had been placed behind his ear by his wife and there was a fresh red tika mark on his forehead. He had been selling mullah in this neighbourhood for years, retracing the same paths to sell his produce to the housewives of Jhamsikel, Sanepa, and Kupondole.

When Narayan had started selling vegetables many years before, the area had been a loose network of Newari villages connected by muddy paths through the green rice fields and bamboo groves. Nothing remained of those old neighbourhoods except a few decaying, red-bricked Newari houses swallowed up by a grey urban sprawl of monstrously ugly development.

As he finished his cigarette, Narayan looked up abstractly at a peeling proclamation on the other side of the road. He read slowly: “Unattended cattle will be impounded and removed.

By order of the Municipal Council of Lalitpur.”

The old farmer reflected how much the world had changed from his youth when cow slaughter was

ARTICLES

As Narayan rose to continue on his peripatetic bazaar he noticed the Chief of Army Staff’s cows being escorted out of the main gate of the compound. It had been a particularly dry winter, he thought, and the cattle had lost some of the gloss on their hides and their noses were not as shiny and moist as before.

What they required was some fresh green mountain grass. The cattle moved slowly along the road snorting in the cold air, their guards in camouflage fatigues following behind them.

District, they were certainly happy when they got there. Tamangs live in idyllic mountain-top villages surrounded by lush forests with clear springs and plentiful grass. However, many Tamangs also live below the poverty line and the cow adoption scheme was a path out of their poverty. The annual report of the NGO showed photographs of contented cows being milked by women with enormous brass ear-rings and of happy farmers making cheese to sell back to the foreigners in Kathmandu. It was a win-win situation according to the report: the city benefited from freer flowing traffic, the animals were certainly happier in their new homes and the Tamangs benefited from their improved livelihoods.

The Jano Andolan had brought many changes to Nepal and the city traffic department had been quick to take advantage of one of them: the declaration that Nepal would henceforth be a secular rather than a Hindu nation. A number of new traffic rules had been rapidly promulgated.

On the particular morning in question, the Chief of Army Staff’s cows reached the main traffic junction at Pulchowk just before morning rush hour. The cows ignored the shouts of the soldiers and wandered off along the road, the rush hour traffic manoeuvring carefully around them.

In collaboration with a foreign NGO, the traffic department had started a campaign to remove unattended cattle from the city’s roads. In a move that would have pleased the many international institutions in Kathmandu the service had been privatised and made competitive; staff were paid for the number of unattended cows they recovered.

The soldiers were always glad to be allowed out of their barracks into the relative freedom of the city. There was a tea shop owned by a particularly attractive woman from Manang where they often took a lengthy tea break during their herding duties, their rifles propped against the wall as they flirted with the owner. The soldiers left the cows grazing placidly by the Engineering Campus and went for tea.

forbidden by law and cattle could roam freely through the streets of the small city and even steal the vegetables from his baskets unmolested.

The rescued animals were kept in the grounds of the forestry college and a fine imposed on those who came to recover them. At the end of the week any cattle that were unaccounted for were pushed and shoved up planks into the back of a big Tata truck and ferried to Trishuli Bazaar. The arrival of the truck in Trishuli Bazaar was carefully coordinated to coincide with the weekly market when groups of whiteturbaned Tamangs from the high mountains in the North came to sell their produce. The NGO ensured the cattle were donated to the poorest farmers although a small charge was levied to cover the transportation costs involved.

If the cows did not enjoy the five day journey to their new homes high in the mountains of Dhading

Later in the morning, when most Nepalese had eaten their bhat and were either returning or going to work, Narayan the farmer began his journey home. His kharpan was swung across his shoulders, the baskets pleasingly empty and hanging like scales as he dodged the buses and tuk tuks on the busy road home.

Some months later a small paragraph in The Kathmandu Post reported the fate of two Nepalese Army soldiers court-martialled for neglect of duties.

They had been severely disciplined and posted to a remote military outpost on the border with Tibet in Dhading District.

Rick Beven

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BOOK REVIEWS

DEFEAT INTO VICTORY Field-Marshal Sir William Slim

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‘

Cassell, London, 1956

efeat into Victory’ is the perfect title for this exemplary book. Rarely in our military history has a commander, having been soundly beaten, gone on to reorganise and re-train his defeated troops and then lead them – against the same enemy in the same theatre of war – to resounding and total victory.

Very few could have achieved it and none was better able to do so than Bill Slim during 1942-45.

There have been many accounts of the campaign in Burma during the Second World War but none better conveys – in both broad sweep and minute detail – the depths to which our forces sank in defeat, and the outstanding success they enjoyed in victory, over what had been assumed to be an invincible enemy. Throughout this book shines the inspirational leadership of ‘Slim Sahib’ as his mostly Indian Army soldiers knew him, or ‘Uncle Bill’ as thousands of British officers and soldiers in all his divisions grew to call him, with a mixture of admiration and fondness.

Force personnel and formations that supported him.

By the time that Slim took over command of BurCorps (as it was known) in March 1942, he had advanced from Major to Acting Major General in only three years and within another two months he was a Temporary Lieutenant General, a meteoric rise.

His earlier years had included active service with British and Gurkha units, as a student and instructor at staff college, as a member of the Imperial Defence College and as commandant of the Indian Army Senior Officers’ School. This accumulation of knowledge (and contacts) was followed by wartime command of 10th Indian Infantry Brigade in Sudan and Eritrea (where he was wounded twice), and of 10th Indian Division in Iraq, Syria/Lebanon and Persia, where he was twice mentioned in despatches. He was supremely fitted for high command.

This book is a very detailed account of both the initial defeat in Burma and the stunning victory there of the Fourteenth Army which he subsequently led.

It is packed with numerous dates, places, unit and personal names and it conveys, almost on a daily basis, the ‘feel’ of the numerous battles.

BurCorps consisted of 1st Burma and 17th Indian Divisions, under his old 6th Gurkha friends and colleagues of 20 years, Bruce Scott and ‘Punch’ Cowan. The corps was, however, outclassed by more numerous, flexible and determined Japanese forces, and was driven out of Burma into India. Slim inherited command during the ‘Defeat’ phase, but he cannot be blamed for the cards that he was dealt.

Throughout this account shines the honesty and self-knowledge of its author. Slim freely admits his mistakes – without any excuses – and makes no attempt to spread blame. He is also unstinting in his admiration and praise for the commanders, staff wallahs and officers and soldiers of his polyglot units and formations, as well as the RAF and US Army Air

Slim describes clearly how the superiority of Japanese strategy, tactics, training and leadership were completely unexpected in Burma, as they had been in Malaya and Singapore. The section headings of ‘Defeat into Victory’ are indicative of the narrative: “Defeat; Forging the Weapon; The Weapon is Tested; The Tide Turns; The Decisive Battle; and Victory”.

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In the book, Slim records what he found on taking command: “Our intelligence was extremely bad; we were ill-trained and ill-equipped for jungle warfare; combat units were becoming much below strength in men and equipment; the local inhabitants were not being helpful; there was a wide gap between our forces in the Sittang valley and those on the Irrawaddy; and morale was threatened”.

He then goes on to describe how he set about addressing those weaknesses, whilst losing his entire air support, and being compelled to move prematurely to support the Chinese divisions in Burma.

BurCorps was soon attacked on multiple fronts by larger, more mobile Japanese forces, which outflanked his positions. Losses were heavy. General Wavell ordered a withdrawal and Slim soon found himself conducting a fighting withdrawal from Burma into India, the longest retreat in British military history – over 900 miles.

In India, Slim then took over command of XV Corps, covering the Japanese coastal threat to India from Burma. He fell out with his Army Commander, General Irwin, who took personal control of the XV Corps advance back into the Arakan in Burma, which was a disaster. Irwin sacked Slim, but soon sent him the famous signal: “You’re not sacked, I am”.

Slim was promoted to Acting General and given command of the new Fourteenth Army, consisting initially of three divisions. By 1945, it included 13 divisions: eight Indian, two British, two West African and one East African, as well as Indian parachute and motor brigades, four independent brigades and Army and RM commandos. Slim also had operational control of the divisional-strength ‘Chindits’ and ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell’s US/Chinese forces. By 1944, Fourteenth Army was the largest army in the world, over a million strong.

‘Defeat into Victory’ describes how Slim turned the new, untried, Fourteenth Army into a formidable fighting machine which, under his inspiring leadership, routed a much larger Japanese army

in Burma, sweeping 1,000 miles from inside India throughout the length of Burma by May 1945, killing 100,000 Japanese on the way.

Slim’s army always fought on a shoe-string budget; Burma was the least of Britain’s concerns during the war, as Slim well understood. He never complained about it during the war and he doesn’t in this book.

He was at the back of the queue for weapons, ammunition, equipment, transport and reinforcements.

Compared with those fighting in the Western Desert or European theatres of war, they became known as ‘The Forgotten Army’.

He therefore planned and trained to operate on light scales, with minimal road transport, and to use the jungle, shunning roads when necessary. Linear defence and attack were replaced with encirclement and ambushes and there was a huge increase in air support and resupply.

His avuncular image could be misleading; Slim was clever and exceptionally knowledgeable about the art of war but – above all – he was a truly outstanding leader, who could inspire exhausted, hungry, demoralised soldiers and their leaders.

Unusually, he had served in both British and Gurkha battalions, in peace and war, so he could converse in fluent Gurkhali, Urdu (the working language of the Indian Army) or the sort of English that ‘squaddies’ understood. His African divisions had a much higher proportion of British officers than in the Indian Army and many British NCOs, so his message got through to all his troops during his frequent, inspirational visits.

Slim takes no swipes in the book at those – above and below him – who let him down, or awkward, ‘semi-detached’, subordinates like Orde Wingate or ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell. He instead heaps praise on his commanders, staff officers and fighting men – and not just those in the infantry, armoured and artillery units, but in the myriad logistic and administrative outfits.

He turned the latter – by direction, training and inspiration – into confident, self-reliant fighting troops who could defend themselves and their vehicles, stores and locations against Japanese attack.

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The book also makes clear that Slim was no ‘Mr Nice Guy’; he ruthlessly enforced standards. For example, he inherited a terrible rate of malarial infection, which accounted for 120 medical evacuations for every wounded soldier, with battalions on average losing 12 men a day to malaria (do the math). Slim’s solution was to impose and enforce daily ingestion of anti-malarial drugs. Following his snap inspections, three commanding officers were summarily relieved of command where daily intake was less than 95% – a lesson that spread like wildfire and reduced the incidence of malaria tenfold.

One message that comes through strongly in the book is Slim’s disdain for the Japanese. He did not see them as ‘supermen’, as many others did. Whilst recognising their initially-superior training and tactics, he was disgusted by their wanton cruelty. Early in the book, he describes an incident when a victorious Japanese unit tied twelve wounded British soldiers to trees and bayonetted them in front of Burmese villagers. At the War’s end three years later, he

ignored the orders of General MacArthur, the Allied CinC, that Japanese senior commanders should be allowed to retain their swords and not be disgraced in front of their men.

In SE Asia, all Japanese officers surrendered their swords, in front of thousands of Japanese POWs, to British officers of similar or higher rank. Slim writes that: “No Japanese soldier who had seen his general march up and hand over his sword would ever doubt that the Invincible Army was invincible no more. Field Marshal Tarauchi’s sword is in Admiral Mountbatten’s hands; General Kimura’s is now on my mantlepiece”.

In summary, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about the war in Burma, or who seeks an insight into true leadership, from a man who went from a Private in a British TA battalion to the commander of the superb fighting machine that was Fourteenth Army; victorious and ‘Forgotten’ no more.

General Ray Pett

UNOFFICIAL HISTORY Field-Marshal Sir William Slim

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Cassell, London, 1959

y the hot weather of 1925, the Adjutant of 1/6 GR was Captain WJ Slim MC. Seated behind his desk with a gleaming Sam Browne and the glacial assurance that is the mark of every adjutant, it would be surprising to learn that this particular adjutant was leading a double life. To the 6th Gurkhas he was the lordly figure, immaculate in his khaki drill and glassy riding boots, who regulated the lives of the 1st Battalion.

But to his readers in the Daily Mail, The Sketch, and the Illustrated Weekly of India (to name but a few) he was Mr Anthony Mills, the ubiquitous story writer and journalist. For by 1925, in a secret partnership with Philip Pratt, he was a regular contributor to a number of journals in several countries. His main reason for writing was – cash, he had no private means and each story could bring him up to fifteen guineas.

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Thirty years later the Field-Marshal’s massively successful memoir Defeat into Victory was published

by Cassell and followed by Unofficial History in 1959.

Defeat into Victory is above all a historical record by a primary source who was central to the event, but Unofficial History as the name implies was not, and was written more in the style of Mr Mills. There are nine chapters, each one is a stand-alone story told in the first person and based on a real-life action in which the author was involved. In the early chapters the story teller is an Acting Captain of an English infantry regiment and by the last chapter he is a Major General commanding an Indian Army Division in Iraq. It is quite clear throughout that in each action Slim is the protagonist, only the names of key personalities around him have been altered. When he is a junior officer he writes boldly and critically

BOOK REVIEWS

about personalities, the unpleasant situations and the incompetent figures who harass him and his men.

Later when he is the Commander, he writes more sensitively about the shortcomings of those around him but remains unswervingly critical about himself and in a confident manner points out the lessons he learned from these incidents.

in the 4 GR vanguard and a staff car approached from the direction of the enemy. General Slim got out and hailed the CO. “Good morning, Willy. There is nothing ahead until you get to the fourth hairpin. They’ve got an anti-tank gun there.” As the car drew away Masters and the CO both noticed a large hole through the back of the staff car’s body.

In the early actions he describes the leap-frog moves of the Warwick’s advance across Iraq with total engagement and understanding, in particular the space of the desert as it appeared to him from the saddle (mounted because he was acting as a Company Commander), the pop-pop-pop of enemy rifles from far away and the 18-pounder guns swinging into action behind him. Later, in the chapter titled Student’s Interlude, he writes from the perspective of the battle adjutant of an unnamed Gurkha regiment describing the withdrawal from a punitive raid on the fictitious village of Panch Pir. Once again the moving parts of the battle are marvellously set out, this time among the ravines and mountain tracks of Waziristan. Slim the protagonist is mounted for most of the action on the Adjutant’s charger except when his syce is summoned to take it away to safer places. A red flag signals the critical moment when the covering pickets withdraw helter-skelter down the khud-side until they are beyond the fire of the Pathan skirmishers who will have immediately occupied the vacated position above. Like John Masters in his Bugles and a Tiger, Slim animates his narrative with tiny details; a Gurkha rifleman now under fire pauses as he crosses a stream to grab a live fish and stuff it into his ammunition pouch.

Slim so evidently enjoyed the personalities around him in these incidents. In his chapter Aid to the Civil we meet the entire structure of colonial officials in the turbulent city of Garampur from the Deputy Commissioner down to Jallaludin Khan, the Special Magistrate whose interpretations of the law were not always strictly impartial at the Hindu-Muslim interface.

In this story Slim unflinchingly describes himself ordering a section of British troops to fire on the riotous mob by the Juma Masjid; the incident is fictitious but nevertheless has a disconcerting similarity to the much darker event of 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh of Amritsar.

Masters came to the North West Frontier 10 years after Slim, did they meet each other in this context? – perhaps not. However, we know from Masters (Road to Mandalay) that they did meet, rather dramatically in the Persian operation that Slim described in the last chapters of Unofficial History. Masters was Adjutant

Several large and memorable figures appear from these pages.

Kelly, the US Marine deserter whose violent and energetic repair of the jammed Lewis gun came too late to fire on the surprised Turks running for cover. There was Chuck the slow-talking bank robber whom we meet in the act of abandoning his getaway car from a very recent job. In the story that follows, Chuck manages to remove all the luxury food items from a closely guarded hospital compound. The robbery is discovered by a controlling and vexatious officer whose behaviour compels the reader to root for Chuck.

In Student’s Interlude the uber-personality is Subedar Ratanbahadur Rana and the story (told in part in a preceding article in this Journal) concerns a raid on a village in Waziristan by the British. During the withdrawal when a quick getaway was essential and the angry Pathans were closing in on the rear guard, a mule carrying a Vickers gun sheds its saddle and

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the load crashes to the ground, spilling a myriad of spare parts. The bits are gathered up by a platoon and Subedar Ratanbahadur Rana checking the area before his men move on finds the discarded pack saddle. Facing the Pathan snipers above he waves it above his head and roars out provocatively “LOOK AT ME!” Slim clearly enjoyed the incident immensely and Ratanbahadur’s credit with his men is sky high. In a 1987 letter (to JM) Gibbos, aka Lieutenant Colonel HRK Gibbs, explained that the incident with the Vickers saddle was a real event. A Scottish regiment, recently arrived on the frontier, had not learned how to pack the saddle and in the haste of the withdrawal the gun and bits fell out and were picked by the Ratanbahadur character. He was real officer, but not of that name. The real version was also a large and boastful man, who alas was wrongly selected for Gurkha Major and was in the end cashiered for fiddling the mess accounts.

Slim clearly admired the Chucks and the Ratanbahadurs in real life. He would not have hesitated to punish them if they had come before

him for disciplinary reasons, but the recurring theme is that the rogues prevailed over the obsessive nitpickers who obstructed their paths. This idea relates to Slim’s dictum that when faced with a logistical impasse “God helps those who help themselves.”

In one sense his dictum urges reasonably for the energetic use of initiative, but in another it might suggest that regulations should be bent or disregarded completely when they obstruct the path to the objective.

Unofficial History is a cracking good read and at the same time explains the development of an exceptional young man who became the most famous Gurkha officer. More directly than any biographer, it shows how Slim’s periodic exposures to violence and the continuous procession of real-life characters that he dealt with in these situations shaped the man, tested his ideas and prepared him for both victory and for defeat.

John Mackinlay

6 GRRA TRUST SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL FUNCTIONS At their meeting on 31 October 2019, the Trustees agreed that with immediate effect the 6 GRRA Trust should provide financial support for groups of 6 GR veterans who might gather for local reunions. This would essentially apply to UK and Hong Kong, as Nepal was a special case already supported by the Trust. The intention was to run this for a trial period.

The perceived parameters were that any eligible gathering should include 15 ex-6 GR veterans, and for UK, five of these should be paid up Association Members. An application for support should be made to the Association Chairman at least 12 weeks before the event including a budget so that the Chairman could get approval for the level of financial support. It should be

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noted that as the Trust has Charitable status, the support has to be limited to: the cost of hiring premises, or supporting the needs of those experiencing hardship or distress. A simple final account of the event, indicating the use of the funds, would also be required.

Please also note that all supported social events, including those in Nepal and the All Ranks Reunion in UK will now be required to provide a budget, explaining how any grant will be spent before payment, and a simple final account to be submitted after the event.

Budgets and accounts should be submitted to the Chairman and Honorary Secretary by email.

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MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 6th QUEEN ELIZABETH’S OWN GURKHA RIFLES REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION Saturday 16 November 2019 Present

3. Matters Arising (Not covered in Agenda)

The President, The Chairman, Members of the Committee and 23 Members and their guests

a. The Secretary stated that all the Matters Arising were to be covered under their respective Agenda Item as follows: (1) Subscriptions – covered under Item 7.

(2) Re- Registration – covered under Item 6.

(3) Journal on the 6 GR Website – covered under Item 6.

1. Welcome and Opening Address a. The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and stated that having the AGM and Reunion Lunch after the Book of Remembrance in Winchester Cathedral had proved to be popular with the majority of members. b. He stated that 2019 was a special year for 6 GRRA as it marked the 60th Anniversary of the award of the “Royal” title so that 6 GR became 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles. He gave a special welcome to Lt Colonel Antony Wakeman, who had been present at the award of the “Royal” title at Buckingham Palace in 1959 and to Canon Brian, who had presided over the Book of Remembrance Service for a number of years, and his wife Susan. c. He stated that with approximately 50 attending lunch it was our best turnout for a while and he hoped that the new format would encourage more members to attend. He asked that if members enjoyed the day to pass on the message to others. d. He said his intent was to move quickly through the Agenda to allow extra time to talk about the Association membership and for The Chairman of the 6 GR Memorial Project Committee to brief members of the progress so far.

2. Apologies for Absence The Honorary Secretary stated that he had received apologies from Brigadiers Bourne and Thomas, Lt Colonel O’Keeffe, Major Beven, Captain Gordon-Creed and Captain Herbert.

4. Financial Report a. Major Manikumar Rai, as the outgoing Finance Officer, circulated the 6 GRRA Accounts up to 30 Sep 18 at the meeting and gave a summary as follows: (1) Income: (£8,984.00) (a) AFCIF investment income: £208.00 (b) Sales of chattels: £355.00 (c) Subscriptions: £2,780.00 (d) Cuttack Lunch £5,434.00 (e) Donations: £200.00 (2) Expenditure (£7,588.91) (a) Cuttack Lunch: £4,913.41 (b) Journal: £1,500.00 (c) Memorial Service Costs: £75.00 (d) ISA Fee: £1,000.00 (3) Account Summary. (a) Excess of income over expenditure: £1,395.09 (b) Current Cash Funds: £2,915.14 (c) Cash Funds RBS Account: £4,310.23 (d) Current AFCIF investment: £5,804.60 (e) Total Net Assets: £10,114.83 b. The Chairman drew attention to the decrease in subscriptions from £2,910 in 2017 to £2,780 in 2018. He stated that this was partly due to the change of 6 GRRA account from Lloyds to Royal

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Bank of Scotland. Some members had not changed 6. Website Report their standing orders and others had stopped a. In the absence of the Comms Officer, the Chairman paying when payment from their standing order briefed the meeting based on the notes provided did not go through.

by Capt Herbert, who reported that: c. He asked the Honorary Secretary to review the (1) The website which was launched a year ago, Membership list and identify defaulters. Those was rebuilt using a new system over the who did not pay their 2019 subscriptions were not past few years to make it easier to edit and to be sent the Journal 2021. Action: Honorary update. This year extra effort was being made Secretary to contact defaulters. Editor to to use the website for more news – such as place a notice about payment of membership the medals acquisition; the anniversary of the fees in the Journal (Chairman to draft) granting of the royal title, etc. and distribute the next Journal ONLY to (2) The most recent journals have also been members who had paid their subscriptions. published on the website using “page turning” software. It was hoped that future journals would be published in this way. The 5. Journal Report web versions of the Journal are redacted a. In the absence of the Editor who was on duty at a to remove personal/family information. The Charity Event for GWT, the Chairman thanked the Editor of the Journal was thanked for his Editor once again for a superb Journal and asked efforts to supply the redacted versions. that a vote of thanks be recorded in the Minutes (3) The new website requires all members to for his sterling work. re-register for use of the “Members’ Area”. In b. The Editor reported that 396 copies of the Journal some cases this has proven to be a challenge had been distributed including 20 to Nepal and with gremlins in the website. Not all members Darjeeling. He stated that he was not happy re-registered. If you have not done so, with the new printers and would return to using please email the Comms Offr, James Herbert the previous printers. The total cost was £5,870 (james.herbert@gemcommunications.co.uk) broken down as follows: during the next few months to trigger the (1) Design – £1,400 registration process.

(2) Printing – £3,620 (4) In due course, the intention is to fully revise (3) Postage – £850. the member’s directory once the Chairman’s c. The Editor announced that the 2020 Journal work in updating and capturing the details of (Edition 100) would be based on Field Marshall the entire membership had been completed.

Slim and his service with 6 GR. The Chairman added that a lecture was being planned to mark the centenary of FM Slim joining 6 GR at the 7. Membership Gurkha Museum in May 2020. a. The Chairman stated that his review of the d. The Chairman stated that the Regimental Trust had 6 GRRA Accounts for 2108 revealed that urgent approved a grant of £5,500 for the next Journal, action was required to address the issue of nonbut that this should not restrict the production of payment of Regimental Association subscriptions. a quality Journal. If necessary, further funds could The situation was serious with much less than be made available. He concluded by asking the half of Full and Associate Members actually Association’s thanks to be recorded to thank Major paying subscriptions.

Beven for producing another excellent Journal. b. He continued to say that from December 2018 he This was agreed, unanimously. had sent out 141 personal Emails and 17 letters to perceived non-payers of subscriptions to which he had 40 email and four letters in response. He received many positive responses and donations

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to cover lost years and the results in the accounts show a 41% increase in subscriptions from £2,780 in 2018 to £3,935 in 2019. He offered his sincerest thanks to those who had responded. c. The Chairman stated that there was however still a long way to go. From the analysis of the 6 GRRA Membership List and the 2019 bank statements, the total Members were 356; Full = 211; Associate = 83 and Honorary = 62. Paying members (Full + Associate) = 294. Identified Paid Up Members = 139, with a further 28 not identified giving a total of Paid Up Members = 167 i.e. only 57% of the 294. d. In discussion with the Trustees on 31 October 2019 it was agreed that: (1) The Chairman should write again to those who have not paid.

(2) The 2020 Journals should still be sent to those who have not paid, but that this would be the last year.

(3) A “Lapsed Members Roll” should be introduced in 2020 for those members who fail to pay annual subscriptions. Their details would be kept and Lapsed Members would not be qualified to vote in the Association nor would they receive the annual Association Journal.

(4) The Chairman should write a flyer and an article on the issue of subscriptions for the next Journal.

8. Forthcoming Events 2020 a. The Honorary Secretary distributed the GBA Forecast of Events and highlighted the following: (1) 9 Nov 19 – Remembrance Service, Gurkha Chautara, NMA Stafford.

(2) 14 Nov 19 – Cuttack Lunch at the Oriental Club.

(3) 9 Mar 20 – Commonwealth Gate Memorial Service.

(4) 1 May 20 – Cuttack Lunch at the Oriental Club (cancelled).

(5) 2 May 20 – – RGR Reunion and Army v Navy Rugby, Twickenham (cancelled).

(6) 6 Jun 20 – GBA Memorial Service and Luncheon at RMA Sandhurst (cancelled).

(7) 11 Jul 20 – GBA Bhela at the Aldershot sports field.

(8) 10 Sep 20 – GBA Golf Competition.

(9) 5 Nov 20 – Field of Remembrance Service/ GBA Dinner at the Army & Navy Club.

(10) 7 Nov 20 – Remembrance Service, Gurkha Chautara, NMA Stafford.

(11) 8 Nov 20 – Remembrance Sunday Parade.

(12) 4 Dec 20 – Cuttack Lunch at the Oriental Club.

9. Memorial Project

a. The Chairman thanked Captain Channing, Chairman of the 6 GRRA Memorial Project Planning Committee (MPPC) and his committee for all their hard work and making such great progress on a project that has inevitably been difficult e. The Chairman noted that the difficulty in identifying to define. subscription payments via the banks statements b. The Chairman of the MPPC briefed Members was that there was no clear requirement for a on the progress of his Committee’s work. The full name to be put on the Standing Order Form. A Planning Committee Report is attached at Annex new SO Form had been drafted that requires the A of the Minutes (Not included in the Journal as members to fill in their name.

Mike Channing’s article on the 6 GR Regimental f. He drew attention to the policy implications for Memorial project is at pages 10-11. Editor). the Association of a large non-paying membership. c. The Chairman stated that Lt Colonel O’Bree Important decisions required a quorum of 1/3 had taken on the task of creating a Regimental of the Full Members; i.e. currently 71 of the 211 Roll of Honour to record all ranks that have total membership. Although not quorum, he asked died on active service with the Regiment. This those present to support the establishment of was to be a practical document in A4 size for “Lapsed Members Roll” by a show of hands. reference purposes.

The setting up of a “Lapsed Members Roll” was agreed unanimously.

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10. Any other business a. 6 GR-RGR links. The Chairman explained that with the support of Colonel RGR (Major General Gez Strickland DSO, MBE) and Chairman RGR RA (Colonel Dan Rex) links between that antecedent regiments and RGR have now been formalised. In 1 RGR 6 GR’s link will be with Medicina Company and with 2 RGR with Gallipoli Company. As well as this it has been accepted by RGR that we, 6 GR, can also establish links with Mogaung Company in 1 RGR. For 3 RGR, soon to be formed, we had been asked to nominate a battle honour for a company link and we have chosen Monte Chicco from those offered. b. Medicina Battle Field Tour. The Chairman informed the meeting that a group of around 25 members

of the Association would be visiting Medicina in April 2020 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the battle. This would be a joint visit with the KRH Association, the successors to 14/20th Hussars. It is hoped that RGR and KRH will also be involved.

11. Date and venue of next AGM and Reunion a. The next AGM and Reunion will be held at the Gurkha Museum on Saturday 14 Nov 2020 after the Book of Remembrance Service at Winchester Cathedral. b. There being no further business the meeting was closed at 1315 hrs.

6TH QUEEN ELIZABETH’S OWN GURKHA RIFLES Regimental Association Income and expenditure account for the 12 months ended 30 September 2019

12 months to 12 months to 30 September 2019 30 September 2018 £ £

Income from Assets

£605.00

Investment Income

£208.00

£208.00

Sale of chattels by auction

£355.00

Subscriptions

£3,935.00 £2,780.00

Sales £55.00 Cuttack Lunch Donations

£5,750.00

£5,434.00

£170.00 £200.00

Micellaneous £7.00 Total Receipts £10,723.00 £8,984.00

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12 months to 12 months to (Continued) 30 September 2019 30 September 2018

£ £ Expenditure Reunion Piper ED Pay

£100.00

AGM Room Hire Charge

£633.50

Reunion Lunch Payment Cuttack Lunch O’Bree Presentation Badge

£648.00 £3,339.00 £60.00

£4,913.41

O’Bree Presentation Winchester Cathedral

£776.00 £150.00

GBA Annual Subscription

£390.00

£75.50

6 GR Journal £1,400.00 Cuttack Lunch

£2,093.40

6 GR Journal Mailing Costs

£2,118.12

Allmand Service Costs ISA Fee (Ex VAT) Hon Sec Expenses Donation to Medicina Coy 1RGR Total Expenditure Excess of Expenditure over Income

£1,500.00

£100.00 £1,200.00 £74.58

£1,100.00

£100.00 £13,182.60 £7,588.91 -£2,459.60 £1,395.09

Statement of Assets and Liabilities as at 30 Sep 19 Cash Funds (RBS)

£1,850.85

£4,310.23

Investment Assets (AFCIF)

£5,845.65

£5,804.60

Assets retained for the Charity’s own use

£7,696.50

£10,114.83

Liabilities Total Net Assets

£0.00 £0.00 £7,696.50

£10,114.83

The accounts of the Association were produced by Mr MFH Adler, ISA (6 GRRT Secretary and 6 GRRA Treasurer)

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6TH AND 7TH GURKHA RIFLES ACCEPT ROYAL TITLES BUCKINGHAM PALACE 10 June 1959 Back: Rfn Budhiparsad Gurung, LCpl Makansing Gurung, Rfn Chhabilal Rana (all 6 GR), Cpl Kulbahadur Limbu, Cpl Jaibahadur Gurung, LCpl Ganbahadur Rai (all 7 GR).

Next: Sgt Sahabir Pun, Capt Lalgopal Ghale MM (2 GR QGOO), Lt Manbahadur Rai, Capt AC Wakeham (all 6 GR), Major RB Kenney, Major TP Rhodes MBE, Capt Harkasher Rai (QGOO), Sgt Lakhbahadur Limbu, Cpl Karkabahadur Rai (all 7 GR).

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Standing: Capt ANC Florey, Major JA Lys MC, Lt Col WM Amoore DSO MBE (CO 1st Bn), Lt Col PB Winstanley MC (CO 2nd Bn), Lt Col HRK Gibbs (all 6 GR), Lt Col JTH Morris, Lt Col HC Pulley QBE MC (BGLO), Lt Col MHF Magoris MBE (CO 1st Bn), Lt Col ER Hill (CO 2nd Bn), Major RE Taylor (all 7 GR).

Sitting: Lt Col HMM Hackett MC, Lt Col FB Abbott DSO, Maj Gen JG Bruce CB DSO MC (President 6 GRRA), Maj Gen JAR Robertson CB CBE DSO* (MGBG), FM The Lord Harding of Petherton GCB CBE DSO MC (Col of Regt 6 GR) (all 6 GR), FM Sir Gerald Templer GCB, GCMG KBE DSO (Col of Regt 7 GR), Brig AJH Ross MC, Col RBE Upton, Lt Col SF Harvey-Williams (all 7 GR).

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Portrait of Field Marshal The Viscount Slim

by Juliett Pannet