ARTICLES
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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