6th Gurkhas The Journal Issue 101 by Marine Salvage

FAMILY AND EVENTS

JOURNAL

The

No.101 2021

With kind permission of the artist and the FCDO

FAMILY AND EVENTS

CONTENTS REGIMENTAL 3 6 8 9 12 13 28 32 35 37 38 39

The President The Chairman Letter from Nepal The Editor Regimental Memorial Project RGR Newsletter The Gurkha Welfare Trust Gurkha Museum 6 GRRA Nepal AGM Remembrance Day UK Remembrance Day HK Remembrance Day Pokhara

ARTICLES 40 At War’s End 46 The Honorary Captain and the BBC 51 It’s You He Doesn’t Know 52 Anone Arimaska – The Cannon has Fired 56 Battlefield Tours in India 62 A Passage from India 67 Gandhi and The Admiral’s Daughter 72 Hari 75 Poodle-Faking on the Top of the World 84 The Best Job in India 89 Seeking a Hat Felt Gurkha 94 A Tale of Two 6th Gurkha Sevens 96 The 6 GR Rugby 7s Streak 98 The Emperor and the Sarus Cranes END PIECE

Front Cover: Line of March of a Bengal Regiment of Infantry, early 19th century, by kind permission of Christopher Clarke Antiques.

99 Book Reviews 104 6 GRRA Income and Expenditure Account

Inside Cover: Portrait of Her Majesty The Queen by the artist Miriam Escofet, commissioned by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in 2020.

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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 and Major David Bredin Finance Officer:

duncanria.briggs@gmail.com 133 Station Road, Dullingham, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 9UT. 6grspeedy@gmail.com

Editors Editor: Major Rick Beven

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

Family News Editor:

griffharu@hotmail.com

Captain Anne Griffith

Communications Officer: Captain James Herbert Committee:

jamesherbet1@btinternet.com

Major Khusiman Gurung, Captain Nick Gordon-Creed, Captain Gary Ghale

Subedar Mansing Gurung (Centre front) with his winning platoon at the Rawal Puch Assault-at-Arms Drill Competition, Abbottabad 1930. (Mansing was subsequently awarded the IDSM after NWF operations in 1937, became SM of the Regimental Depot in Abbottabad in 1940 and in 1947 retired as Hon Lt SM OBI IDSM).

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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

doubt that many will regard 2020 as among the best of years. My upbeat message last year was written just before the Coronavirus pandemic began to make an indelible mark on all our lives, and to those who have lost loved ones or suffered as a result of this scourge, we all offer our sincere condolences. We must hope that, with the introduction of the vaccination programme and improved treatments, we can look forward to a brighter, healthier and above all ‘lockdown-free’ life sometime in 2021, and in UK we owe the oftmaligned and incredibly-dedicated NHS our gratitude for all they have done. Unfortunately, a successful resolution will also depend on some of the more feckless elements of society realising that their complete disregard of the rules destined to keep us safe are threatening the lives of others.

Whilst the pandemic has limited training, our Brigade has played an intrinsic part in providing “Military Aid to the Civil Community” and have been involved in helping to control Coronavirus within the UK. QGE and QGS applied their skills to the building of the Nightingale hospitals, while both QGE and 1 RGR ran Covid-19 testing programmes, initially on lorry drivers bound for Europe and later within local communities. QOGLR assistance ranged from logistical support for the transport of medical supplies to the running of one of the quarantine facilities. In Brunei, the garrison has been able to operate near normal and have supplied the manpower to Nepal for the 2021 recruiting process. Our reputation remains high. Enhancements to our Brigade continue. The latest batch of 431 recruits have passed-out and joined their units or started their specialist training, and the next intake of 340 recruits will have started training by the time you read this. New Corps squadrons continue to form, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Support Battalion will become a Gurkha Unit in due course and 3 RGR, formed on 6 January 2020 at Company strength, is expanding and will relocate to Aldershot.

The protracted lockdowns this year have played havoc with planned Regimental and Gurkha Brigade Association events. The annual Bhela, the GBA events in November and at Sandhurst, the Association gathering at Winchester Cathedral and the AGM all had to be cancelled, as did the hugely popular Cuttack Lunches. On the other hand, our redoubtable Regimental Secretary, Mani, managed to get together representatives from each Infantry Association and, joined by Hugo Slim and his wife, on VJ Day we laid wreaths at the Chindit Memorial, the Slim Statue and the Gurkha Statue, where we were joined by a few well-wishers and a piper and bugler. Mani and I had planned, at the very least, to lay wreaths at our Book of Remembrance in Winchester Cathedral but these plans had to be called-off at the very last moment; the new Gurkha Museum Curator, Daren Bowyer, did manage to lay the wreaths on our behalf later on. In November we were all delighted to hear that Manikumar Rai had been appointed a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Hampshire. This is a significant and well-deserved honour, and to have one of our own in such a prestigious post recognises the outstanding contribution our soldiers, retired and serving, make to the Hampshire community. Many readers will remember Ken Neville-Davis, who served in 1/6 GR before rejoining the Police. For many years Ken was Gil Hickey’s right-hand man in the Regimental Committee, and we were all delighted to hear that his wife, Doris, has been appointed a Member of the British Empire: over the past 35 years Doris has been heavily involved in Education, serving as a school governor of nine schools, as well as in other roles, and we congratulate her. When the Gurkha Chautara was unveiled in 2014, those of us involved in its construction were well aware of the debt we owed Rob Cross QGE, who designed it and oversaw the construction. We congratulate Rob on his appointment as a Member of the British Empire for services as both Chairman

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of GWT North Midlands Branch, where he and his late It has been a hard year, but we must hope for a wife raised over £100,000 for our soldiers, and for better future. Our Brigade’s reputation remains high, and the incredible mountaineering exploits of Nirmal their work on behalf of GBA. Purja have reinforced the reputation of our Gurkha In 2015 we commemorated the 70th anniversary soldiers: we salute him. We have a new Colonel of the fall of Mandalay and many of us were able Commandant, for in November Lieutenant General Sir to meet Major John Phillips, who had commanded Nick Pope handed over to Lieutenant General Richard D Company in that action. On 16 September John Wardlaw, and Colonel Jody Davies is now firmly celebrated his 100th Birthday and on behalf of settled into the demanding post of Colonel BG. We the Association I was privileged to send him are fortunate that our Brigade is in such safe hands. our congratulations. May 2021 be a kinder year wherever you are and, in And there is more to follow, for later this year we the words of the wonderful Irish blessing: hope to see the publication by Pen and Sword of the enthralling diaries of Robert Atkins MC, who served ”May the wind be always at your back, in 8 GR during partition in India and with 1/6 GR from May the sun shine warm upon your face, 1950 to 1958 in the Malayan Emergency. Robert, now The rains fall soft upon your fields and 94, passed his diaries to Lieutenant General Sir Peter until we meet again, Duffell who, together with Brigadier Christopher May God hold you in the palm of His hand.” Bullock, has prepared them for publication: the Gurkha Museum and Brian O’Bree helped with photographs. John Anderson You will also read elsewhere in the Journal about the presentation portraits of Field Marshal ‘Bill’ Slim.

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Major John Phillips, OC D Coy 1/6 GR at the fall of Mandalay in 1945, celebrates his 100th birthday (Sadly John Phillips passed away in March 2021)

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LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

t is a complete understatement to say that 2020 has been a different and extraordinary year. As a country we have probably not gone through such a pandemic since the so called “Spanish Flu” of 1918–1922. To members that have suffered as a result of the Covid-19 flu, our sincere sympathies and to those who have lost family or friends, our heartfelt condolences; it has been a most difficult year.

Very sadly, all our Association’s planned activities, such as the much anticipated presentations on Slim as a Gurkha Officer, were gradually cancelled as the year wore on, each time hoping that the situation would be good enough to allow something, but in the end having to be cancelled. The first effect of the pandemic for me was my Chairman’s visit to our Nepal Branch at the end of March, something that I was particularly looking forward to; hoping to catch up with very many old friends. The second was our much anticipated visit to Medicina to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of the town on 16 April. We had a group of 26 from the Association, in conjunction with many from the Kings Royal Hussars Association (formerly 14/20th Kings Hussars) and a party from the Royal Gurkha Rifles. It promised to be a wonderful trip. Having paid for flights and accommodation, we put off cancelling until as late as possible; how little we realised then what Europe and the rest of the world would go through.

daughter told us she was expecting her first baby in December and we are still here. New Zealand has been essentially Covid-19 free in the community since May, except for a brief period in September when one person was infected working on the docks which led to over 220 infections and eight deaths. It was fascinating though, to see the way this was dealt with and the detail that the authorities were able to go into with each individual case, tracing who had caught it and from whom. All this while other countries were desperately dealing with thousands of new cases each day. This led to some interesting experiences; neighbours in our remote bay set up a Facebook Closed Group and we were amazed at the imagination and spirit of camaraderie among our friends. We were able to experience Anzac Day on 25 April, observed here much more strongly than Remembrance Sunday and in the Group competition to commemorate the day I was able to relate the Gallipoli experiences of our Regiment which surprised everyone as most people here see Gallipoli as just an Australian and New Zealand experience.

One really worthwhile initiative that the Association did complete was the professional copying of the portrait of Field Marshal Slim which used to hang in the 6 GR Officers Mess. A full copy is soon to be presented to the Gurkha Museum, something that should have happened long ago, with a head and shoulders copy to be presented by the Regimental Association to the newly formed 3 RGR. I was amazed The pandemic did lead to some interesting advances; at the complexity of the process and the huge amount of work done by our President, ably assisted with our committee meeting and the Trustees meeting being held on Zoom, plus I am sure that all by John Mackinlay. our Members must have made use of this amazing As many will be aware; 2020 saw important changes type of technology to keep in contact with family at the Gurkha Museum. Gavin Edgerley-Harris retired and friends. after 27 years service; the latter seven years as Director. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude On a personal note, Ria and I were due to return for the outstanding way that he developed the to UK in March 2020, but Emirates cancelled all Museum as one of the four Pillars of the Brigade. flights three days before at no notice and so we He was awarded a most well deserved OBE in the decided to stay in New Zealand and wait and see. New Year’s Honours list. The Association gave him a Plans for a June return were shelved when our

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The Association Bay of Islands New Zealand Chapter – Duncan Briggs with Edward (Ted) Wilkie

small presentation to show our appreciation. We also welcome the new Director; Daren Bowyer, a former Royal Engineers officer, who will I am sure maintain the tradition of excellent Directors that we have had since the Museum was properly set up in Winchester. I would also like to record the sterling service to the Museum by John Anderson, our President, who retired in 2020 after 10 years as a Trustee.

off donation to cover lost years. Your help is very much appreciated and will help to fund activities such as the current Journal. Our Lapsed Members Roll will take effect from early 2021 for those Full and Associate Members who have failed to set up annual payments to the Association. We were delighted to welcome a number of new members to the Association in 2020, it is lovely to have you aboard.

A further initiative this last year was assisting the BBC in the production of their programme commemorating 75 years since the victory over Japan in 1945. We arranged for Honorary Captain Kulbahadur Gurung MM to take part in the programme and for many he was the star of the show. Many Members will remember him presenting the British Officers with their badges at the 200 year Commemoration in Pokhara in 2017.

A most important change during the year was that of Honorary Secretary of the Association. Manikumar has stepped down after five years of the most wonderful and dedicated service to us all over an extremely busy period including the celebrations for our 200th year Anniversary. We are extremely grateful to him for all his hard work. His departure was marked by a small presentation from the Association. I also wish to congratulate Mani on his appointment as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, a well deserved honour reflecting his huge contribution to the county.

Our efforts to chase up subscriptions has continued this year and I am extremely grateful to those who have now set up a standing order to the correct account and to those who felt able to make a one

As well as Mani, I would also like to thank our

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committee, particularly Rick Beven, our Journal Editor, Anne Griffith for managing the family news, Khusiman Gurung for his help with subscriptions and James Herbert for supporting and improving our web site. I would also like to recognise Mike Adler, our Hon Treasurer, who has done such an outstanding job in supporting our drive to sort out the annual subscriptions.

continue the same excellent service that our Hon Secs have provided for many, many years. 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 and continues to be. Jai Sixth!

Mani has been succeeded by Major David Bredin JP, who many of you will know, and will I am sure

Duncan Briggs

LETTER FROM NEPAL

BY CHAIRMAN 6 GRRA (NEPAL)

ith the coronavirus pandemic spreading rapidly across the world, the year 2020 was a horrendous year and it did not spare Nepal. It totally ruined everything the 6th Gurkha Rifles Regimental Association Nepal had planned for the year. Much effort and hard work had been invested in preparing for the 24th Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled to be held in Pokhara on 21 March 2020. A month earlier, a preliminary meeting was convened on 22 February 2020 at Gurkha Haven to ensure everything was fully prepared and synchronised for the main event. We had anticipated attendance by over 200 members, including families, from Pokhara and neighbouring areas. A suitable venue had been identified and provisionally booked. Everyone had very much looked forward to meeting old Regimental friends and reliving glorious bygone days.

the area Chairmen from Kathmandu, Butwal and Syanja, and some members from Pokhara, including two UK members who were there on vacation. Very early next day, committee members from Kathmandu and the outlying districts had to make a very hasty retreat to avoid the impending nationwide lockdown. Apart from the AGM we had also planned to organize mini ‘Regimental Reunions’ in Pokhara, Kathmandu, Butwal and Chitwan at later dates. Selected Central Committee members had been nominated to attend these events to show presence and solidarity with the regional associations. Sadly, these events also had to be cancelled.

Later in the year, on 11 November 2020, Remembrance Day was organized at Gurkha Haven in Pokhara. Yet again, due to various restrictions and safety issues, only nine local resident members managed to attend the function to remember and A few days prior to the function, with coronavirus spreading rapidly in Nepal, the Health Ministry issued pay their homage to all our fallen comrades. Major Gyanbahadur Gurung laid the wreath and presided a directive “limiting the number of people in any over the ceremony on behalf of all 6 GR members. gathering to 25”. Thus, to the disappointment of all, After which, everyone departed for home with take the AGM had to be cancelled at very short notice. But to comply with another Nepali legal requirement away curry lunch packs! Regrettably, the usual drinks followed by delicious curry lunch and gaph saph also pertaining to ‘Associations in Nepal’, a mini-AGM was convened on that day with a total of just 22 in fell victim to Covid-19. attendance, comprising of the committee members,

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Beside these events, the committee members were also very much engaged in the 6 GR Memorial Project. The previous year, Major Gopal Bahadur Gurung MBE, chaired several meetings to recommend the best form of memorial and visited numerous places to identify an ideal location. Several potential sites were earmarked, discussed and recommended for consideration. This year, although actual meetings could not be held, ideas and comments were exchanged and discussed online. The chosen site was revisited several times to ensure suitability, compatibility with our 6 GR ethos and longevity for future generations to admire and cherish long after we are gone. Then, after much deliberation and lengthy negotiation, Chairman Gurkha Memorial Museum (GMM) Pokhara, kindly agreed to allocate a prominent place between the two cannons in the main square within the museum complex. Throughout the process the UK team was kept fully informed and their opinions and agreement

sought. We would like to record our gratitude and appreciation to the Chairman and committee members of the GMM Pokhara for their gracious gesture in allocating a place for the 6 GR Memorial at such a prestigious site. Finally, with deep regret, we report that 71 6 GR pensioners have passed away in Nepal and elsewhere during 2020. Most due to old age and related illness and some succumbing to the deadly coronavirus. Of these departed members, five were Gurkha Officers: Major Dhanman Limbu, Captain Narbahadur Rai, Captain Kamalbahadur Gurung, Lieutenant Kalsai Gurung and Lieutenant Partabahadur Gurung. May their departed souls rest in eternal peace. Jai 6 Gurkhas! Captain Bhuwansing Gurung

A QUICK NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

uch of the duty of Journal Editorship is sitting at my computer chasing members around the world for articles. This leads to many exchanges of emails and conversations, providing illuminating windows on what is happening around the world. 2020 has been a strange year following the identification of a highly contagious and deadly virus in Wuhan in late 2019. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic affected everybody wherever they were. It meant that our Chairman was unable to return to the UK from Covid-free New 4989 Rfn Lal Bahadur Tarami with last year’s Journal

Zealand. Other members in the Antipodes have been relatively unaffected. Unfortunately, as the higher-than-normal list of our deceased shows: the UK and Nepal have not been so lucky. And the world we emerge into, literally in many cases where people have been shielding, is very different to the world in 2019. This Journal is full of references, allusions and gaps created by the pandemic. Sadly, readers will see that many Regimental events in 2020 could not happen or were significantly smaller than usual. However, our successor Battalions – including the newly formed 3rd Battalion – have been incredibly busy, in many

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Normality, at times like this, is good and I have increased the number of articles in this year’s Journal to compensate for the lack of Regimental news. I have also included A Letter from Nepal by Chairman 6 GRRA (Nepal) as they have been unable to publish their newsletter because of the pandemic.

of the programme was undoubtedly 101-year-old Captain Kulbahadur Gurung MM of 3/6th Gurkha Rifles. Duncan Brigg’s account of the making of that interview is included in Articles. So too is a fascinating account by Acting Major Gil Hickey MC* of quelling the Indonesian independence movement in the Dutch East Indies at the end of the war. In a remarkable twist of events British and Japanese soldiers – bitter foes a few months before – found themselves fighting side by side.

2020 was the 75th anniversary of the end of WW2. Brian O’Bree has written an historical account of what our Battalions were up to At War’s End. I was lucky to catch the TV programme commemorating the 75th anniversary of VJ Day, introduced by no less than Joanna Lumley, the daughter of a 6 GR Officer, who grew up in pre-Independence Kashmir. The star

A theme of this year’s Journal is ‘Hind’, partly because some of our readers – myself among them – were born and spent our childhood there, partly because many of our Association have lived, worked and visited India at some point during their lives, but mostly because the history of our Regiment is intertwined, like the roots of an ancient banyan tree, with Hind.

cases assisting with the government response to the pandemic.

Panorama looking North from the Recruiting Centre at Lehra

Dhaulagiri Himal

PK 25,429 PK 25,064 PK 24,158 PK 21,442

Dhaulagiri 26,810

Annapurna Himal

Annapurna I 26,504 Nilgiri North Peak 23,068 Kali (Krishna) Gandaki

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The articles about India in this year’s Journal – from Helen Hickey’s evocative account of her childhood in Bihar to Charles Blackmore’s article on his great Aunt, the Freedom fighter Mirabehn, show the depth and complexity of our relationships with Hind.

a serving SNCO in 1 RGR for a copy of the Journal for his father who had served in 6 GR. A Journal was promptly dispatched and I later received a thank you and a photograph of his father catching up on Regimental news.

The painting below used to hang in my office when I was Officer Commanding British Gurkhas Pokhara. It illustrates the Himalaya from the Recruiting Centre at Lehra and reminds me of the views from my father’s tea gardens in Assam. I never imagined then that one day I would proudly serve with the men that lived in the hills beneath the ‘abode of the Gods’. How fortunate have I been!

I would like to finish by thanking the people that assist me putting together the Journal every year. First, Anne Griffith, our Family Editor who has been collating the Family News for the last 10 years. Finally, to Peter Williams, our designer for the last nine years. The content and beauty of the finished Journal is largely thanks to their hard graft and craftsmanship.

The purpose of the Journal is to provide news of what Jai Sixth! the Association and its members are doing. I was reminded of this last year when a request came from

Rick Bevan

Lamjung Himal

Ganesh Himal

PK 24,858 Machapuchhare 22,958 Annapurna II 26,041 PK 24,630

Manaslu 26,658 Marsyandi

Himal Chuli 25,801

PK 25,705 Buri Gandaki

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6TH QEO GURKHA RIFLES

REGIMENTAL MEMORIAL PROJECT

year ago we had developed an acceptable design and organised a location for the Regiment’s Memorial. In 2020 we were looking forward to trimming the cost and planning a funding strategy; however, in March, the coronavirus pandemic halted our investigations, both in UK and in Nepal. We had hoped to reduce costs by carving the Memorial in Nepal using Nepalese materials and skills, but lockdowns in Nepal prevented us from searching for a suitable sculptor. Meanwhile the Pokhara Highway Authorities decided to widen the road outside the Museum compound which impinged on our proposed site, making it unworkable.

The Nepal and UK Committees are enthusiastic about our revised plans. The new design is much simpler and comprises an upright stone measuring approximately 7–9 feet tall and 10 feet wide with a base that extends about four feet from the front wall of the museum. It would be carved from a hard stone and pale in colour that would contrast well with the surface of the museum behind it. In this position it will look very striking.

As at the beginning of this year we have been much encouraged by further developments on the practical aspects of the Project: we now have a number of potential choices for a sculptor from a variety of locations, which we are currently evaluating and which will enable us better to manage the cost of the Since then we have agreed a new location with Major Memorial whilst achieving the quality the Memorial deserves. We have made significant strides forward Yam Gurung (Chairman of the Pokhara Museum in locating resources in Nepal for the site survey Management Board) which is against the front wall of the Museum building, immediately to the right of and technical aspects of eventually installing the the entrance doorway. We have also developed a new Memorial; with the generous assistance of the wider Brigade community in Nepal, negotiations are in hand design that is more suited to the new location.

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very solid case for a space and a memorial where they and their families can meet and celebrate for puja and remembrance ceremonies, and have, additionally, indicated significant financial support; the UK based Nepalis have also stepped up to the plate with an impressive figure and we, the UK Association, must now deliver our best efforts to support the Project, which will yield a lasting memorial to the Regiment in which so many of us, British and Nepali, have been proud to serve, or with which so many have in recent years wished to be associated.

for the engagement of a local project manager in due course to oversee the physical development of the Memorial at the Museum in Pokhara. Hand in hand with designing and creating the monument we now need to accelerate our funding efforts. 6th Gurkha veterans in Nepal have made a

Our objective is to have the Memorial in place for a late 2022 unveiling ceremony in Pokhara; it’s the year in which Her Majesty the Queen, whose name the Regiment has borne for more than 60 years, is due to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. Can there be anything more fitting? Mike Channing

ROYAL GURKHA RIFLES NEWSLETTER

FIRST BATTALION

aintaining a light infantry battalion at very high readiness in 16 Air Assault Brigade is an exciting challenge; 2020 has proved no different for 1 RGR. The first quarter saw engagement in routine training, the second and third a shift towards innovative training delivery and the fourth a return to a ‘new normal’ in the build-up to a major joint exercise scheduled for Spring 2021. Throughout the year, one lesson has proved abundantly clear: maintaining readiness as the Air Manoeuvre Battle Group set the foundations required to thrive through uncertain circumstances.

The year started with the induction of new Riflemen from ITC Catterick. Under the guardianship of C Company the new Riflemen were put through their paces in the wet and cold of Cinque Ports Training Area. As well as the staple recce patrols, ambushes and attacks, the exercise also sought to build

resilience through Public Order Training, teaching the soldiers the importance of controlled and measured aggression. Concurrently, a team of novice cross-country skiers led by Sgt Deep Nursing deployed to Sweden and France for Ex NORDIC KUKRI. The only team across the whole Army led by a SNCO, the 1 RGR team conducted extensive training before competing in individual cross-country, skate and patrol serials at the Infantry and Divisional Championships. Having never skied before, the soldiers enjoyed the transferability of skills in land navigation, fitness and marksmanship through snowy, sub-zero conditions. In a similar vein, a team led by Lt Parsons departed on Ex FROSTED BLADE, the annual Army Infantry Ski Championships held in Val D’Isere. With the Team comprised of two experienced and six novice skiers the Battalion Team adjusted well to the demands of

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The 1 RGR Nordic Ski team led by Sgt Deepnursing – Ex NORDIC KUKRI

downhill racing. The 1 RGR team competed on both the A and B hills with novices and juniors winning medals on both. The Battalion’s winter sports capability is ever increasing with the potential of a Bobsleigh team being added to the 21/22 season. G4 echelon activity within an air assault context provides its own unique challenges. Back on CPTA, the A1 Echelon contingent under the BGLO and MTO practised hasty mustering to serve B (Sari Bair) Company’s air manoeuvre exercise, Ex AGILE KUKRI. Resupplying essential stores of fuel, water and rations, the logistic contingent practised both pre-determined RV resupply and dead drops by night. Meanwhile, the troops of B (Sari Bair) Company enjoyed a bitterly cold week of offensive action and air landing operations training with RAF CH-47s.

Brunei and re-role to jungle warfare across summer leave was delayed 12 months. Battlefield studies, dine-outs, overseas training exercises and much more was cancelled as the Battalion, like everyone else, conducted its estimate on how to approach the changing situation. Easter leave was cancelled, the living in members of the Battalion, whose home is Sir John Moore Barracks had to continue to work from ‘home’ within the constraints of rapidly planned and constantly changing Force Health Protection measures.

The result was overwhelmingly positive and the new ‘modus-operandi’ was lauded Army-wide. PT sessions were conducted over Zoom, the drill pamphlet adjusted to account for social distancing and rankslides were handed over on 6ft-long spatulas on promotion parades. With the Brigade Band and Pipes and Drums on patrol around Sir John Moore Barracks Despite a recce party deploying to The Falkland maintaining communal spirit during the dispersed Islands in preparation for a summer (but southern hemisphere winter) deployment to the South Atlantic, activity. The show needed to go on and go on it did. the arrival of Covid-19 marked a significant disruption Our soldiers, in contrast to their counterparts in to forecasted training. The planned Unit Move to

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Adapting to a new way of working during the first National Lockdown

the wider Army, could not return home to Nepal during summer leave, the quieter isolation period nonetheless allowed respite from a steady drumbeat of training whilst preserving the force by adhering to Covid restrictions. Emphasis was placed on continued conceptual development. Building on Ex OLIVE GROVE in Jordan,

The new normal – awards are handed over on a 6ft-long spatula

1 RGR sought to understand and engage with the complexities of Air Assault and apply the principles through Ex AQUILA STRIKE and various BRAVO demonstrations whilst employed as part of the AMBG. B Coy also deployed to Kenya to fulfil the Force Protection requirement for BATUK; due to the ongoing pandemic the initial six-week deployment transformed into a three-month stint much to the satisfaction of all who deployed. The task proved pivotal for all those attending JLC in 2021 with the three-month deployment being viewed as an opportunity for training in a challenging environment. Apart from training and duties whilst in BATUK all deployed personnel summitted Mt Kenya, as well as partaking in numerous Adventure Training activities and expeditions. The perks of a deployment didn’t stop there with a visit to Regati Conservancy donated by Ex-6 GR Officer, Nick Rowe. All returned to the UK enriched by the experience. Returning to work in August, the Battalion welcomed Lt Col Edd Oldfield as their new Commanding Officer and refocused on exciting opportunities ahead.

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The GM, Battalion 2IC and RSM formally welcoming Lt Colonel Edd Oldfield and his family to 1 RGR on the assumption of his command

Battalion Headquarters practised planning cycles and Companies were building up marksmanship ready for live fire tactical training. Across all departments, tabbing and battle PT returned and the football pitches are alive once more with the shout of squadded commands.

the underground space provides commanders the opportunity to explore different and often more rudimental methods of C2. Learning how an adversary will plan and execute is pivotal to success and this has put 1 RGR in a fortunate position for future challenges.

In early November, elements of 1 RGR deployed on Exercise WESSEX STORM as OPFOR for 2 PARA. Preparations for the role included the inaugural TFH cadre. Delivered by FTU and the LWC Project HANNIBAL team, the cadre served as an introduction to the role of TFH as OPFOR. Whilst not yet perfect, it has, first and foremost, instilled a very clear sense of the new mentality 1 RGR must adopt. On completion of the cadre, the 1 RGR OPFOR ran a series of TEWTs and walkthroughs in Imber village to cement understanding of the actions, and preparations culminated with a force-on-force exercise at section level, during which the soldiers refined low-level TTPs. The response from the Companies was typically impressive; the teams genuinely enjoying the opportunity to think and operate differently. Corsham Tunnels provided a unique environment to train in, presenting difficulties with C2 and communications;

After another demanding year in 16 Brigade, with numerous deployments, exercises and courses, the Battalion was looking forward to a well-earned Christmas Leave. Shortly after standing down for the Christmas period the Battalion were recalled and within 24 hours deployed as part of Op ROSE, a MACA task supporting the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Initially this comprised taking over sites from 36 RE (including 70 Fd Sqn QGE) along the M20, the Port of Dover and at Manston Airport, though quickly grew to include 22 sites across the UK as part of the Upstream Testing capability. This was staffed by a composite ‘D Company’ formed up from across the Battalion and a Squadron of our close friends in the KRH. After almost three weeks of testing the Bn handed over to the KRH BG and a civilian company before returning to work for another busy year.

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JLC Candidates mid-way through an attack

JLC is currently underway and the ‘new normal’ is beginning to sink in as the Battalion resumes normal training in a Covid compliant manner. Amidst uncertainty over the development of the pandemic,

three truths remain steadfast: the cheerful Gurkha spirit through adversity, a will to win, and a bias for action. Jai 1 RGR!

1 RGR Covid testing hauliers on the side of the M20 as part of Op ROSE

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SECOND BATTALION Summary

coronavirus related hiatus, A Company has ended this year on a high. The Company’s main effort was on Op CORDED in Zambia, where it played a crucial 020 has been a busy year for 2 RGR in role in training counter-poaching teams. Meanwhile, these strange times. We have deployed in Brunei, the rest of the Company sought to make B and C Companies to Ulu Tutong on up for lost time by approaching training with Exercise KHUKRI DEFENDER, run JLC for renewed drive. The Company had the opportunity to Intake 17 and deployed A Company on Op CORDED. Sp Compny soldiers have also trained alongside the revisit urban training on Ex AMBOOR URBAN in early November, which provided a crucial chance to hone Royal Brunei Armed Forces, including training with urban skills that had not been practiced since Ex the RPK. In addition to this we have continued to uphold the excellent reputation of the RGR in Brunei, PACIFIC KHUKRI in 2018. Following this, we returned to our more familiar repertoire of training while in hosting successful events for HRH Prince Mateen Brunei, deploying on Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER in Ulu on several occasions, and have had success across the wider Army on career courses and during events Tutong. With much of our command structure still in Zambia, A Company was split into two platoons throughout the year. and attached to B and C Companies throughout the exercise. This attachment provided an excellent A (Amboor) Company A Company, like the rest of the world, found its plans opportunity to work with less familiar faces and severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. As gain a slightly different perspective on training in the jungle environment from our B and C Company such, much of 2020 was characterised by a slower colleagues. Overall, given the circumstances, a tempo than past years, caveated with surge of successful year for A Company. Being able to deploy activity towards the end of the year. Following the

Champion Company Competition 2020

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on Op CORDED in times like these was a privilege. A Company looks forward to 2021 with the same characteristic enthusiasm and professionalism as the year just gone.

the year. B Company are now proud winners of the Champion Company Competition!

The team spirit displayed throughout the competition was excellent across all ranks of the Company. A strong start for the new OC B Company – Maj Ben B (Gallipoli) Company The initial 2020 plan for B Company was to deploy on Norfield. There are high expectations for 2021’s CCC. Shortly after, B Company deployed on Ex GALLIPOLI Ex PACIFIC KHUKRI in New Zealand to then assume STAR. This was a two-week Live Firing Tactical the lead role of the Air Manoeuvre Battle Group (AMBG) in 16 Air Assault Brigade, in the UK. Sadly, with Training package which saw B Company operating up to Company level, at night. After an enjoyable period a global pandemic and Brunei adopting a full lock down policy, the unit move was delayed one year as of Dashain and Tihar, B Company deployed on Ex no international travel was permitted. Nevertheless, KHUKRI DEFENDER. This was a fantastic opportunity for all returning ERE personnel to brush up on their B Company have had an interesting year and made the most of the situation coronavirus has presented jungle skills and enjoy the wonders of Ulu Tutong. B Company now look forward to a well-earned in Brunei. As camp life returned back to semiChristmas break ready to meet the challenges and normality in May, a good proportion of B Company soldiers attended the all-2 RGR JWIC with all students opportunities 2021 will bring. achieving strong results. Autumn brought its own challenges to B Company whilst on Ex GALLIPOLI C (Tamandu) Company STORM, ironically named due to a lightning incident 2 RGR had a rapid start to the year, launching hitting the Coy during the LUP of the final Company straight into the Junior Leadership Cadre for Intake level attack. Fortunately, all B Company members are 17 soldiers. The cadre was run by Major Tobias recovering well and have cracked on with the rest of Whitmarsh and C Company out of Sittang camp and

RGR JOTIC FTX

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consisted of the usual mix of conceptual and physical assessments, with the exercise elements of the course focusing solely on specialisation in the jungle environment. This meant the next generation of junior soldiers were given the chance to master skills and command in the Battalion’s current specialism, so they are best placed to develop future intakes from what they have learnt. The cadre was a huge success, qualifying all students to promote to LCpl and improving the leadership skills and experience of all involved. Top student was awarded to LCpl Bhupendra Rai of B Company, who was promoted to LCpl on conclusion of the Cadre.

as a variety of exercises run over the JOTIC course. This provided a great opportunity for soldiers to gather experience in the jungle and enable the training of both potential special forces and jungle warfare instructors. C Company’s year was rounded off with Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER, a battalion level exercise, that mixed LFTT with blank exercising to assess competence in several areas, including up to platoon level live firing and a series of tactical actions in the jungle up to Company level.

Sp (Imphal) Company, Jan – Nov 20

Another busy year for Sp Company with numerous commitments. After the Junior Leadership Cadre the support weapons platoons received their newest soldiers. They were then trained in their new specialisms and participated in cadres for each platoon. Most consisted of a two-week package, integrating theory and classroom-based lectures with practical application in the field. The new In the latter stages of the year, C Company moved soldiers then participated in a final exercise which onto providing SET support for various exercises in is the consolidation of all they have been taught, Brunei. Support was given to Ex ATAP HURDLE as well testing their new knowledge to ensure they are The next few months brought more difficult times for 2 RGR. However, C Company were still able to enjoy some fantastic opportunities conducting AT in Bali and working with the RBAF operating in the urban environment, enabling key skills to be honed and good defence engagement to take place.

Dashain 2020

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CO Saheb arriving on Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER by RBAF Blackhawk

using the interactive mapping capability. The Company also put on a capabilities and briefing day for the entire battalion. This aimed at educating the Rifle Companies about the niche capabilities of each Pl and included planning considerations and constraints which may apply. This will ensure Rifle Companies can use the specialist capabilities to their Highlights also include three members of Sp Company deploying to Zambia as part of Op CORDED. optimum and specialist platoons get the most out They have been teaching and mentoring the Zambian of being attached to Companies. The year finished off well with the chance to consolidate their training armed forces in tracking and counter poaching with attachments to Rifle Companies during Ex operations in numerous parks across the country. KHUKRI DEFENDER. Machine Gun Pl experimented using map predicted fire through the jungle canopy to assess the effectiveness and possible utilisation in the future. Dashain and Tihar Sniper Pl has been busy forging relationships with The festivals of Dashain and Tihar formed the the Brunei Special Forces, the Regiment Pasukan centrepiece of the unit’s social calendar, and 2020 Khas (RPK) and Special Operations Squad (SOS) was no exception. Dashain festivities started with via defence engagement exercises. These have a temple service and a rousing speech from the included live firing together, and the exchange of Pandit. This led onto the Garrison Officer’s Mess knowledge and tactics to enhance effectiveness party where a wide array of dancers and singers, in the urban and jungle environments. Mortar Pl plucked from across the Battalion, provided the operated out of the state-of-the-art simulation entertainment. Unfortunately, the night proved centre in Penanjong Camp to train both its Mortar to be the climax of Dashain celebrations for the Fire Controllers (MFC) and the mortar detachment year as Brunei then entered a period of mourning trained and capable of fulfilling their new role. The purpose of the cadre is to ensure Sp Company can continue to deliver its specialist capabilities and support the Rifle Companies in achieving their mission.

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due to the sad death of His Royal Highness Prince Azim. Following this sombre period of reflection and subsequent period of training, Tihar beckoned. Largely free from the constraints of coronavirus, the unit felt lucky to celebrate Tihar and fun was had by all. The end of celebrations heralded the start of Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER and the Battalion, re-energised after the week of festivities, embarked on it with great enthusiasm.

entirely primary jungle. It is untouched by human activities apart from a sizeable 20 sq km dam with its waterways providing the main route in and out of the training area via boats provided by the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers boat section.

Ex KUKRI DEFENDER ran between 18-29 November 2020. The exercise was split into two phases; the first phase consisted of five days of Live Firing Tactical Training (LFTT) and the second focusing on a dry, tactical phase. B (Gallipoli) Company deployed first Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER 20 with attachments from A (Amboor) and Support The new Commanding Officer, Lt Colonel Andrew Todd MBE, early in his tenure, aimed to test the true (Imphal) Companies, inserting to the training area capability of the Battalion under his command. 2 RGR, by Blackhawk helicopter provided by the Royal having been in Brunei for over three years, exercising Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF). Prior to this a Gurkha soldier had never seen the inside of a Bruneian regularly in the arduous Close Country Tropical helicopter despite the longstanding deployment of Environment and keen to build upon the success The Royal Gurkha Rifles in Brunei (2 RGR utilised RBAF of last year’s battalion Ex HIKMAT BERSATU 6, were helicopters in 1997-98: Editor). This achievement ready to demonstrate their skills and capabilities. was driven by the Chief of Staff, Major Daniel As a result, Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER was planned O’Connor, and demonstrates the strong relationship with the aim of deploying a 2 RGR battlegroup into we now have with the RBAF. The insertion was high the most challenging of training areas, Area E, Ulu quality training and an excellent experience for our Tutong, for a 10-day exercise. Ulu Tutong consists soldiers, as many of the younger riflemen have never of steep ridgelines, deep ravines and is almost

HRH Prince Mateen live firing during Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER

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been inside a helicopter. Strategically, conducting helicopter training was a significant stepping stone, as 2 RGR will be moving back to the UK in the summer of 2021 to take over the high-readiness air assault task force in 16 Brigade, where operating out of helicopters is essential. C (Tamandu) Coy inserted two days later via Blackhawk, accompanied by a platoon-sized attachment of RBAF soldiers from B Coy, 3rd Infantry Battalion. This again was a first for many years, having Bruneian soldiers fully integrated into an RGR Rifle Coy, conducting joint training on exercise. The first phase of LFTT saw almost 300 soldiers and officers progressing from individual fire and manoeuvre up to a fully tactical boat-insertion and platoon attack. The continuous heavy rain made the terrain even more challenging. The training was in line with two of the Commanding Officer’s directives; being brilliant in the basics and being combat conditioned, both of which were developed throughout the exercise. The ranges were sited in locations that would truly test the firers, with multiple positions, steep inclines, and

thick undergrowth making visibility very limited. Significantly, the exercising troops conducted individual fire and manoeuvre at night in pitch-black conditions, using only their night-vision devices to see and shoot. This was something that had never been done as a battalion, with many people outside of Brunei believing it to be impossible. However, it was conducted safely and effectively, showing that live firing at night in the jungle can be done. The exercising troops walked away from this experience with an appreciation of how difficult it is and the need for being completely competent in their low-level skills. His Royal Highness Prince Mateen of Brunei, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, visited the exercise for two days, observing the training being conducted and participating in live firing on several of the ranges. He thoroughly enjoyed his visit to the exercise. Subsequently, the recently appointed British High Commissioner, His Excellency John Virgoe, also visited the exercise to get an appreciation of 2 RGR’s capability. He observed some of the LFTT and discussed the challenges of training in the jungle with Officers and soldiers.

Ex KHUKRI DEFENDER – GPMG pair

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Once the LFTT had finished; the second phase started with B and C Companies deploying to separate locations of the training area to conduct their own company-level training. Prior to the deployment the company commanders briefed the Commanding Officer on their objectives for this phase; from company-level ambushes to river crossings to dawn camp attacks. Exercise control was managed by battalion headquarters who coordinated their resupply, managed the enemy role-players, and assisted the company commanders throughout. This phase of the exercise was a great chance for the company commanders to train and test their troops through a range of demanding serials. Despite the continuous heavy rainfall and degrading effect of prolonged periods in the jungle environment, training was able to continue, and

morale was maintained throughout. As the exercise culminated and the Companies were due to return to camp, the road out of the training area became flooded from the heavy rain. This caused problems for the MT Platoon but was resolved by quickthinking and a massive effort from the MTO and his team, who worked tirelessly to extract everyone safely. The exercise completed, everyone returned to Tuker Lines to be greeted by a well-deserved dal baht provided by the catering department. The Commanding Officer was satisfied that his intent had been achieved and is confident in the battalion’s ability to deliver in the jungle. A successful, worthwhile exercise both for our relationship with the RBAF and for our personal battalion training, which has undoubtedly put us in good stead for 2021.

THIRD BATTALION

n 6 January 2020 3 RGR commenced its wider capabilities. This offers opportunities to reformation as part of the Specialised deliver Land Special Operations by generating tempo and achieving a disproportionate effect Infantry Group (Spec Inf). against the following three core roles: Sub-Threshold Peer Competition, Countering Violent Extremist Spec Inf is designed to use agility Organisations (C-VEO), Countering asymmetric through its persistent relationships with Partner threats and enabling symmetric manoeuvre in Forces and its ability to draw upon and integrate

3 RGR Re-formation Parade, Sir John Moore Barracks, 6 January 2020

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A (Coriano) Company, 3 RGR, the first Company to be re-formed in 3 RGR, 6 January 2020

conflict. Spec Inf is designated, organised, trained and equipped to undertake four core activities: Strategic Liaison and Reconnaissance (SL&R), Military Assistance (MA), Direct Action (DA) and Information Operations/Manoeuvre/Warfare (IW).

Due to the mature nature of Spec Inf’s role, each Company consists of four Teams comprising of more rank than is usually found in a conventional Rifle Company. This allows Teams to conduct operations with Partner Forces with a focus of Training, Advising, Assisting, Accompanying and Enabling (TA3E) two ranks above. This unique conceptually challenging environment has been an excellent opportunity to empower junior leaders and develop subordinates through genuine mission command.

In the 10 months since formation, A Company has deployed on Ex ASKARI SPEAR 20/2 to Kenya on 1 March 20, conducted dispersed training during the coronavirus pandemic and completed the arduous Specialised Infantry Group cadre, qualifying all members of the Company including chefs and clerks Exercise ASKARI SPEAR 2020 (AS20) was conducted by as Specialised Infantry Operators and Commanders. the 2 LANCS Battlegroup under Spec Inf, comprising

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of individual companies from 2 LANCS, 1 SCOTS and 2 PWRR forming the 2 LANCS BG. Coriano Company, 3 RGR deployed in the role of COEFOR on 5 March 20. The harsh climate, topography and the complex tribal breakdown, make it the ideal location for Spec Inf to validate operational companies prior to deployments across Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. This was the first exercise for Coriano Company, enabling the Company to establish best practice for future operations and gain an insight into how Spec Inf Companies operate in small Teams and integrate into the Specialised Infantry Group. It also provided an opportunity to demonstrate Coriano Company’s ability to operate at reach, in small Teams and in a hostile environment only two months after formation. Tactical actions included day and night navigation in the bush, recce patrols, observation posts and ambushes. Coriano Company also provided support to the BG through assistance in running a complex Company-level LFTT package in the form of a SRCO, RCOs and safety staff; providing not only essential support to the BG, but also developing networks and interoperability amongst the Spec Inf Battalions. Although the entire BG was isolated on the training area and in Nyati Barracks, Coriano Company was able to use the lockdown to its benefit. Individual Companies completed a MACA estimate which was briefed to the Specialised Infantry Group Comd. Coriano Company used all ranks in the process, developing the Company’s conceptual capabilities and was chosen as the preferred COA for its efforts. Coriano Company also conducted a recce to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (LWC) Joint Operations Command Centre (JOCC) hosted by Capt (Retd.) Barry Cork ex 2 RGR of 51 Degrees (a Kenyan based anti-poaching force training provider) providing an exclusive insight into how the Northern Rangeland Trust (NRT) operates.

A Company, 3 RGR, Ex ASKARI STORM, Kenya, March 2020

saw 250 applicants from across the British Army seek to qualify as Specialised Infantry Operators and Commanders. All A Company members are now qualified to deploy under the Spec Inf banner. A Company is now conducting pre-deployment training for a Military Assistance operation in East Africa in April 21 and will conduct a confirmatory overseas exercise in Belize in early 21 to prepare for this potentially arduous deployment.

Coriano Company has utilised its time since the Cadre completing a Commander’s Cadre which saw speakers from across HMG and 6 Division enhancing Coronavirus has been a challenge to all units but has Commander’s understanding of where Spec Inf allowed 3 RGR to focus on the conceptual elements can progress its capabilities, integrate with Other Government Departments and 6 Division itself. It of soldiering that are often overlooked in favour of also afforded an opportunity for Coriano Company more time in the field. Coriano Company dispersed to develop its Company level planning process in training focused on geopolitical knowledge, adherence with Spec Inf’s Future Operating Concept. written coherency, and briefing practice. This paid Furthermore, Coriano Company’s wealth of qualified dividends on the Specialised Infantry Cadre which

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Members of A Company, Ex CORIANO WARRIOR

individuals have been offering support to the other Spec Inf Bns in the form of Jungle training prior to Spec Inf Gp’s deployment to Belize and running an LFTT package to qualify Companies for deployment. Coriano Company has been further building on their experiences and qualifications, completing several courses including CQB instructors, mission specific training to include niche cultural courses and promotional courses to ensure the Company’s tactical proficiency is at its peak before the operational cycle commences in April 2021. The most testing of these events focused on Ex GREY SHARD, a full Bde level estimate and COA back brief to the Bde Comd, all in under 48 hours. It was an excellent learning experience for all involved.

training, Coriano Company has seized each occasion to enhance their understanding and capabilities going forward. 3 RGR, through their relationship with 4 RIFLES, deployed a Team Commander on the Battalion’s first operational tour. Deploying to Afghanistan, Team 1 Commander assisted with the training of the Afghan Special Police Advanced Training Wing. Working with an operational 4 RIFLES Team, has provided 3 RGR an insight into the intricacies of Spec Inf operations and how empowerment of ranks is vital to success in a hostile area. B Company and HQ will form in Summer 21 with C Company in 2022 the most likely course of action. It is an extremely interesting time to be building a new unit with an operation on the horizon. We look forward to pulling on the Gurkha network wherever we should find ourselves in the world next year.

A Company, under the command of 4 RIFLES Bn, a founding member of the Specialised Infantry Group, has provided a wealth of opportunities for progression Jai 3 RGR! Jai Brigade of Gurkhas! in its new role. From joint training to conceptual

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THE GURKHA WELFARE TRUST his year (2020) we have been doing everything we can to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on those we exist to support – Gurkha veterans.

Due to the swift and effective actions of Nepal’s government, limiting movement and enforcing quarantines, the spread of Covid-19 in Nepal has been slower than neighbouring countries. That said, the risk has been high and the risk to our Gurkha veterans and widows even higher, due to their age and their health.

equivalent of Everest in order to raise money for us. Their fundraising efforts raised over £50,000 for our work in Nepal. We also celebrated our most successful campaign to date. Launched in February, the second of our homebuilding appeals raised a phenomenal £800k+.

2,200km across Nepal unsupported on a bicycle

Former Gurkha officer Rob Abernethy took on an epic journey cycling unsupported across Nepal smashing his target of £100,000 to build a school there. Rob departed the UK for India on 29 December From March, the Nepal government banned all 2019 to start his challenge in Darjeeling on New movement across the country; however, because Year’s Day. From there he tackled the brutal terrain we were delivering essential medicine and PPE, we of Nepal in its entirety before finishing the other side were allowed to drive to the homes of the vulnerable in Landsdowne, India. We were delighted to welcome Gurkha veterans and widows we look after. Whilst we Rob twice along the way; once at our Residential normally deliver three months-worth of financial aid Home in Pokhara, and again at Shree Prabha, the to our pensioners at a time, this year we have been school to be rebuilt thanks to Rob’s journey. At the delivering five months-worth, due to the uncertainty school, we made sure to give him a hero’s welcome. of the country-wide lockdown. Hundreds of students lined the streets, each desperate to give Rob a Mala (flower garland) to In the UK, we have been blown away by the unstinting thank him for paving their way to a brighter future. support of the public whilst in lockdown. All of the funds raised by Rob’s cycle will assist Through May, June and July, over 200 in the rebuild of Shree Prabha School in the people climbed their stairs, ramps Gulmi District of west Nepal. and local hills repeatedly with the goal of Trailwalker 2019 summiting the Organised by the Queen’s Gurkha Signals, Trailwalker remains one of the highlights of our fundraising year and, in September 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 veteran Gurkha Rifles. Rana BahadurTamang

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Rob Abernethy at Shree Prabha School, Gulmi District

Rifleman Uttam Kumar Rai outside his earthquake-resilient home

New homes for heroes Thanks to an outstandingly successful fundraising appeal, we took pre-emptive action by building 110 new earthquake-resilient homes for Gurkha veterans and widows before lockdown measures were imposed. 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.

Empowering women and girls in Nepal Though Nepal is increasingly developed in many senses there are still some subjects which are considered ‘taboo’ in some cultures within Nepal itself. As a result there are many misconceptions around the subject of menstruation. In Nepal, only one in ten girls practices good menstrual hygeine. Since 2018, we have been distributing packs of reusable sanitary pads to GWT-built schools, for both students and teachers.

Medical camp in Mugu We provide free medical camps for communities living in the remote hills of Nepal. For many, this is the only medical assistance they receive. Relatively simple procedures like cataract removals and tooth extractions can make all the difference to

those living in discomfort. Our medical team braved the cold weather in the far west of Nepal for the medical camp in Mugu at the end of 2019. Over 1,500 people attended the camp across the four days and the team worked flat out, delivering over 100 eye surgeries, 200 dental procedures and 90 hearing aids.

Keeping elderly veterans and widows warm To help our vulnerable Gurkha pensioners stay warm last winter, we distributed blankets at our Welfare Centres, Residential Homes and at their homes. Weighing over 4 kg each, the heavy 2 x 2 m faux-fur rugs were perfect for the winter months.

OUR YEAR IN STATS SUPPORTING IMPOVERISHED GURKHAS

We deliver a package of care to Gurkha veterans and widows to ensure they can live with dignity. Our Pensioner Support Teams journey into the hills of Nepal on motorbikes, in 4x4 vehicles and on-foot to pay them a pension, check their health and deliver medication in their own homes. Last year our Pensioner Support Teams conducted over 6,806 separate visits.

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FINANCIAL AID

We pay a Welfare Pension to thousands of impoverished Gurkha veterans or widows. Last year, over 4,400 Gurkha veterans and widows, with an average age of 80 years old, received a pension worth 11,500 Nepali Rupees per month. There were 232 recipients of the Disability Support Grant. 420 received the Home Carer’s Allowance. Emergency Hardship Grants were awarded to 1,647 people, including home repair from flood and landslide damage. All Gurkha veterans and widows also received a Winter Allowance of a warm winter blanket. MEDICAL AID

We provide an international standard of healthcare and medication to Gurkha veterans and their families living in Nepal. We do this through our regional medical clinics, via home visits by specialist staff and by arranging subsidised treatment at carefully selected national hospitals. Last year The team treated 84,000 medical cases at our clinics and at home by mobile staff and held a medical camp attended by 1,538 people RESIDENTIAL HOMES

Our two Residential Homes provide round-the-clock Gurkha Widow Nau Siri Gurung care to Gurkha veterans and widows who would otherwise struggle to live alone. With no comparable water-borne diseases such as dysentery. facility in Nepal, they set the standard of care for the elderly. This year our Rural Water and Sanitation Team worked on a total of 109 projects. Over 6,500 This year our two Residential Homes housed households now have access to clean water, 45 residents. benefiting over 37,500 people. CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION

Our water projects bring clean water and sanitation to remote communities in Nepal. We install individual tap stands and toilets to households and schools. By ensuring a safe water source and providing a comprehensive education programme on the importance of sanitation we see sharp drops in

SCHOOL PROJECTS

Our Schools Programme builds, repairs and improves schools in remote regions of Nepal and, in turn, provides access to education and a better future for Nepali children.

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We built three major schools last year, worked on six building extensions, 32 refurbishments and two community centres.

Earthquake-resilient Homes It’s not if another earthquake hits Nepal, it’s when. We are taking pre-emptive action by building earthquakeresilient homes for Gurkha veterans and widows. This year 110 new homes for vulnerable pensioners were completed. These homes offer a safer alternative for some of our most vulnerable Gurkha veterans and widows. Siddhartha Basic School

Adam Bentham

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Gavin Edgerley-Harris passes the baton to Daren Bowyer, the new Director of the Gurkha Museum

GURKHA MUSEUM

rom the moment Gavin Edgerley-Harris announced his decision that, after 27 years of exceptional service (from volunteer to Director) he would retire in 2020, it was never going to be a normal year for the Gurkha Museum. But no-one could have predicted then the impact of a global pandemic. For a start, it delayed Gavin’s retirement and he generously soldiered on for a further, challenging, six months. Interviews scheduled for April had to be delayed until mid-July and my appointment suggests that some much better candidates must have dropped out because of the delay! As I had a three-month notice period, even with some manipulation of untaken leave, meant we could not effect a handover until the very end of September. Gavin’s accumulated knowledge of all things Gurkha is not something I can replicate but I have started climbing the huge learning curve. The Museum’s library seems to be migrating to my study and bedside table! Although I never served in a Gurkha unit, I did serve alongside QGE on a couple of occasions. As a troop commander in the mid-1980s

my Squadron undertook a construction project in Kenya and were augmented by a troop of 69 (then) Independent Gurkha Field Squadron. (We were also augmented by a young SSLC/Gap Year Commission 2nd Lieutenant by the name of Wardlaw – but that is another story!). I also commanded 20 Field Squadron – part of 36 Engineer Regiment which is also RHQ QGE – so my neighbours were the British and Gurkha Officers of 69, and later 70 Sqns QGE. (Another aside – the Colonel Commandant was a subsequent OC 20 Sqn; he’s following me around!). Since leaving the Army in 2008, I have held a range of COO/CEO level roles in education and the not-for-profit sector. It has been an unusual – and in some ways challenging – time to take over a Museum and especially this one which is so firmly embedded in the Brigade and with vital links to both the serving units and the Brigade’s veterans. There are so many people I should have met and have at best been able to communicate with by email or over Zoom. We have, for most of my tenure, been closed to the public and it is very disappointing to find this

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(admissions, shop, gallery hire etc.). In raw terms we saw a hit (to year end, 31 Dec 20) of some £45k–£50k to trading income. On top of this our targets for individual donations, grants and trusts etc. were all impacted by the reduced capacity in the fund-raising department (loss of one member of staff) and the many other pressures on grant makers/donors. We must, though, count ourselves luckier than many. Our supporters are many and generous and what we receive from the Brigade and from the Regimental Associations is very much appreciated. As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2021, we remain in lockdown and so with admissions and gallery hire income remaining zero. We are offsetting this from a developing range of online activity, but there are, of course, production costs to account for. In addition, there is a new threat to our retail income stream in that the GWT has launched an online retail offer with a range of goods very similar to our own. It Portrait of Field Marshal Slim is too early to say what the impact will be on us but, given GWT’s greater reach and marketing capacity, week that we will not be allowed to open with nonit cannot do other than reduce our income both essential retail, indoor leisure such as gyms and pools, and even theme parks (!) on 12 April. Rather we directly from sales and from the individual donations and memberships often generated from them. must wait until ‘Step 3’ on 17 May, along with all but the most ‘high risk’ businesses. However, as Churchill may or may not have actually The closure for most of last year, and now extending said, you should “never let a good crisis go to waste!” The absence of visitors and events from to almost half of this year, has of course affected not just visitor numbers and educational impact, but the Museum, and consequent impact on traditional income generation lines, has been the catalyst also finances. The overall financial position, taken for accelerating our on-line activity and moving at face value, is sound. A strong performance by ourselves more firmly into ‘the digital space’. Not, our investments, particularly in the latter half of I should quickly add at the expense of the physical the year, and a surprise legacy, actually resulted in space, of which more below. a slight strengthening of the balance sheet. Taking into account the legacy and reduced expenditure Last summer, the opportunity of lockdown was used – we terminated two probationary positions and by the team to refresh our website and increase furloughed remaining staff where possible – our our social media output. This has had a markedly outturn for the year at the operating level was a positive impact on our reach. Visitor numbers to deficit of c£60k, better than both the budget and the previous year. However, without that unexpected the website have increased significantly, so we are telling the Gurkha story to more people and across legacy, the position would have been a deficit over £110k and the overall financial position does not reveal a wider geographic and demographic audience. That the full impact Covid has had on capacity and activity. is great news for our impact and has seen a helpful rise in individual donation and in Friends and mailing The greatest hit, of course, is to our trading income list memberships. Our ‘Uncle Bill’ online exhibition

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on the life and leadership legacy of FM Viscount Slim is our most successful online event yet. We are shortly to launch our wider online lecture and podcast series under the brand ‘Gharma Sunnu”. To help us keep pace with increased interest and demand and ensure the continued flow of online activity once we have reopened, we plan to recruit a digital officer. A virtual tour of the Museum is also in planning, which will be ‘Virtual Reality’ enabled: with a cheap and easily available set of VR glasses and use of your own compatible mobile device you will be able to ‘visit’ the museum from the comfort of your favourite armchair!

What’s on at The Gurkha Museum in 2021 The American Revolution

24 June 2021: Lecture and Curry Lunch This talk will strip away the patriotic froth surrounding the events of 1775–1783 and examine the facts of the war

The Story of Indian Independence and the Creation of Pakistan 25 June 2021: Lecture and Curry Lunch

A judicious and unsparing look at events of 1947 from a British perspective

Peak Performers

30 September 2021: An evening of Lectures and Curry Supper First-hand accounts from experts who have summited some of the world’s most formidable peaks.

The British Army in the Napoleonic Wars

9 December 2021: Lecture and Curry Lunch Once described by a (French) critic as being ‘a mob of flogged criminals led by coffee house fops’, The British Army in fact developed during the Napoleonic Wars into a finely honed killing machine. Visit: thegurkhamuseum.co.uk/whats-on/ for all details

All of this has purpose beyond lockdown as it will continue to reach an audience beyond easy travelling distance of Winchester. But we are absolutely not neglecting our physical space. Indeed, good progress is being made with the MOD’s lawyers to secure a long-term lease. With that security of tenure, fundraising opportunities from major grant makers will be opened-up to us and we can start planning in earnest for the museum’s long-term future. In anticipation of this, work is in hand for some short-term improvements. The McDonald gallery is getting a facelift and we are developing displays of the Brigade’s more recent service in Afghanistan and the Middle East, bringing the story up to date. The need to find a suitably prominent place for the portrait of FM Slim, which has been so generously presented by John Anderson and Duncan Briggs, prompted a more wide-ranging re-arrangement of the pictures in the McDonald Gallery. It will now tell more of ‘the Gurkha Story’ clockwise around the room, from Kalunga to Sangin. In addition, QGE are scoping a full redecoration and new conservation blinds have been installed – reducing the threat to the pictures from UV light. A sophisticated track lighting system is on order, which will allow different settings – for lectures, dinners, exhibitions etc. – to be stored and controlled from an iPad, and new curtains have been sourced. When we reopen to the public, the McDonald gallery will be refreshed and better able to leverage its undoubted commercial potential, while also offering a better aesthetic for home users. Meanwhile, QGE are also assisting in the design and construction of a ‘sangar’ mock-up to add atmosphere to the planned Op HERRICK displays. A sand-look floor covering will complete the redesign. We have faced some challenges; there are more ahead. But the future for the Gurkha Museum is an energised and positive one. As ever, we are immeasurably grateful for the support of 6 GRRA. Daren Bowyer

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6 GR REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION NEPAL ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2020

SATURDAY 21 MARCH 2020

he Annual General Meeting (AGM) took place at Hotel Gurkha Haven, Dam Side, Pokhara, on Saturday 21 March 2020. Unlike previous AGMs, it was a minigathering with just 22 members attending including three UK members who were here visiting their friends and relatives. Sadly, this very low attendance, the lowest since the formation of 6 GR Regimental Association Nepal some 23 years ago, was due to the restriction of a maximum of 25 people at any gathering placed by the Nepali authorities to prevent the possible spread of deadly Covid-19 virus in Nepal. Even with very low attendance anticipated and exclusion of some elderly members, we were compelled to go ahead due to legal requirements governing the functioning of ‘associations’ in Nepal. Many of our ‘old and bold’ living in the vicinity, who were eager to attend and would have very much graced the function, had to be politely asked not to come due to the nature of coronavirus affecting the

elderly more than the ‘not so elderly’. This meeting also marked the 23rd anniversary of the formation of the 6 GR Regt Association of Nepal. A month earlier, committee members and Area Representatives from Kathmandu, Chitwan and Butwal had met at this very venue to plan the AGM and simultaneous ‘6 GR Reunions’ at all three locations a week later. Attendance at the AGM at that time was anticipated at 200 members, with most coming from nearby the districts of Baglung, Parbat, Gorkha, Lamjung and Tanahun. And to cater for this number, we planned on hiring a local ‘Party Palace’. The Area Reps had been busy informing members in their respective areas, finding suitable venues and making necessary arrangements for a successful gathering. The Chairman had already nominated committee members to attend these ‘Reunions’ to show our solidarity and the central committee’s presence there. But as the crisis loomed and restrictions became known, we hurriedly altered

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our plans and relocated the AGM to Gurkha Haven and postponed the ‘Reunions’ until such time that the situation is back to normal and restrictions no longer extant. Prior to the commencement of the AGM, all committee members gathered at ‘Gurkha Memorial Museum’ at 0900 hours to review the site for future placement of the ‘6 GR Memorial’. Many pros and cons of the allocated site were discussed and the final decision will be forwarded by the coordinator, Major Gopal Gurung MBE, for consideration by the UK team. Although the 6 GR AGM 2020 had the least number of members attending and no ladies at all, it was a very enjoyable and wonderful gathering of old friends of all ranks. Over a few beers and a delicious curry lunch we relived our happy days and cherished memories as members of 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles. Everyone took time to reflect on the good old bygone days and reinforced the bonds and camaraderie that forever bind us together as 6 GR family. Finally, the Chairman and all members of the central

committee thanked Major Gyanbahadur Gurung for so graciously and continuously allowing 6 GR Regimental Association, Nepal, to use the premises and facilities at Hotel Gurkha Haven gratis for all functions undertaken and as our de facto permanent base in Nepal. Jai Sixth! Lalit Dewan

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REMEMBRANCE DAY UK

6 GRRA Wreaths at the 6 GR Book of Remembrance, Winchester Cathedral 6 GRRA members were not able to attend the Cenotaph Parade or the annual Book of Remembrance ceremony this year because of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown restrictions. The new Director of the Gurkha Museum, Daren Bowyer, laid wreaths at Winchester Cathedral on behalf of 6 GRRA.

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REMEMBRANCE DAY HONG KONG

11 NOVEMBER 2020

very year since the handover in 1997, the Hong Kong Branch of the 6th Gurkhas Regimental Association has paraded at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day and our contingent has laid a wreath on behalf of the Regiment. Captain Taraprasad Gurung has led the three-man party to lay the wreath since he took over the Chairmanship of the Branch from Captain Birbahadur Thapa, when the latter left for England over a decade ago. Hong Kong’s usual Remembrance Day is still the same as it always was; in fact, it has got bigger over the years, as more and more Consuls of different countries have started to lay wreaths. There is still a marching contingent of Naval, Army and Air Cadets. The Hong Kong Police Band and pipes play, and a Police bugler still blows the last post and reveille from the balcony of the Hong Kong Club. There is no Governor there, of course, but there is a Hong Kong Government representative. The national anthem and the flag are now those of China. The service is truly interdenominational, with now 10 priests

of different faiths and denominations saying prayers. Large numbers of Hong Kong people turn out to watch. It remains a moving and impressive occasion, run impeccably by the Hong Kong ExServicemen’s Association. This year things could not be the same; Covid-19 social distancing restrictions prevented the appearance of a marching contingent and a band. Individuals were not permitted to lay wreaths or to approach the Cenotaph, so ex-Hong Kong Military Service Corps Officers, Warrant Officers and Senior NCOs laid over 130 wreaths on behalf of those present. Spectators were kept at a distance from the grass. Masks were obligatory. However, the rest was as normal, two minutes silence was observed, last post and reveille was sounded. Our contingent, led by our Chairman, turned out as normal. The oldest among us was Lt Indrabahadur Gurung, now in his 85th year. The 6th Gurkha wreath was laid. Nigel Collett

From left to right: Mr. Trilok Gurung; 21163430 Rfn Hirasing Gurung; 21157139 WO2 Prembahadur Gurung; 21159130 Hon Lt (QGO) Talimbahadur Gurung; Capt (QGO) Taraprasad Gurung; Lt Col Nigel Collett; Lt (QGO) Indrabahadur Gurung; 21163428 Rfn Ram Bahadur Gurung.

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REMEMBRANCE DAY POKHARA

11 NOVEMBER 2020

n 11 November 2020, 6 GR Regimental Association Nepal organized a Remembrance Day ceremony at Gurkha Haven in Pokhara. Sadly, due to an upsurge in coronavirus infections in Nepal and country wide restrictions on gatherings, attendance at the event was limited to committee members, with only nine attending from the locality.

a two-minutes silence was solemnly observed in remembrance and respect for all our fallen comrades and all those who had recently departed.

“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.”

The Senior Advisor, Major Gyanbahadur Gurung, having attended a similar event organized in British This sombre ceremony concluded with individuals Gurkhas Pokhara camp earlier, arrived slightly forgoing the traditional curry lunch and collecting later than the normally stipulated time to begin their packed lunches, before heading back home. the ceremony. Immediately upon his arrival, the Secretary, Lieutenant Purnabahadur Gurung, began Lalit Dewan the ceremony by reminding the gathering of the significance of Remembrance Day and also read out the names of members and spouses who had passed away over the year in Nepal, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. On behalf of all 6 GR members, Major Gyanbahadur Sahib then laid a wreath on the dais followed by others coming forward to pay their respects and place flowers there. To conclude the ceremony,

Senior Advisor Major Gyanbahadur laying the Wreath

Members attending

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AT WAR’S END

THE 6TH GURKHAS AT THE END OF WW2

n 2020, during the VE75 and VJ75 commemorations, we remembered those who fought and died to bring about peace and the end of the Second World War. In the BBC programme on VJ75, presented by our own Joanna Lumley, I’m sure many of us were very proud to see Honorary Captain Kulbahadur Gurung MM being interviewed about his experiences as a Chindit in Burma with the 3/6th. Our Chairman has written in more detail about this elsewhere in this edition. But where were the men of the Regiment’s four

battalions at the end of the war and what were they doing when the news that Germany, and subsequently Japan, had formally surrendered? Having been in the Middle East from August 1941 and then fought from August 1944 in the Italian campaign, the 2nd Battalion were the first to know that the war had ended in Europe. After their successes on the Gothic Line, then at Medicina and the bitter fighting on the Gaiana Canal in April 1945, the 2/6th, still under command of 43rd Gurkha

2nd Battalion Officers, Abbottabad 1946 (on return to India after the war) Standing (Back): Jem Dalbahadur Gurung, Jem Udbir Gurung, Jem Kharkabahadur Ale, Capt PVR Rao IAMC, Jem Chakrabahadur Thapa MC, Lt GH Walsh, Jem Harkabahadur Gurung IOM, Jem Damarbahadur Thapa, Jem Chitrabahdur Bura, Jem Deoman Gurung. Standing (Middle): Lt J Thorp, Jem Chandrabahadur Thapa, Lt SD Silvey, Jem Sherbahadur Gurung, Lt JA Allen, Jem Kharkabahadur Gurung, Capt JB Cameron, Jem Tamadhoj Gurung, Lt G Forsyth, Jem Bhadrasing Gurung, Lt RC Neath. Standing (Front): Jem Nandaraj Ghale, Capt RH Tuck, Jem Jambasing Gurung, Major GF Maltby MC, Sub Chandrasuba Gurung, Maj WL Greenwood, Sub Nandalal Thapa, Capt WE Murdie MC, Jem Hastabahadur Thapa, Capt KA Hasler, Jem Jangbir Gurung. Sitting: Sub Raghu Gurung, Maj GR De La Rue Browne, Sub Gajbir Ale, Lt Col WM Amoore DSO, Sub Jitbahadur Thapa, Maj JE Dennys MC, Sub Manbahadur Thapa MC. On ground: Jem Kharka Gurung, Jem Bansiram Sharma. (Away from the Battalion: Maj RW Ingall DSO, Lt WD Graham, Sub Maj Narbahadur Gurung Bahadur OBI MC, Sub Kajiman Gurung)

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Lorried Infantry Brigade, were involved in pushing the German remnants North across the Po River and beyond. Having helped mop up in Padua, news of German capitulation in Italy came through on 2 May. On 9 May, the unconditional surrender of Germany was announced. After a pleasant but all too brief break on the coast beyond Vienna the Battalion was ordered to move to Trieste as local Yugoslavian trouble was brewing. Things quietened down and it became a period of training, patrolling and visits of senior officers to the Battalion. One visitor was the Commander 13th Corps, General John Harding, who was to become Colonel of the Regiment in 1951; this was the first occasion he had met the 6th Gurkhas. The campaign in Italy had cost the Battalion some 560 casualties, but it earned eight battle honours and more awards than any of the other three battalions. On 9 July, after a year of almost continuous hard fighting, 2/6th sailed from Trieste back to the Middle East. Still under 43rd Brigade, they remained there for frontier protection duties in Syria until eventually sailing back to India in February 1946. Their march back into Abbottabad was met with a terrific welcome. After a pleasant stay, the Battalion marched out of Abbottabad for the last time on 15 May 1946. Major Wynn Amoore DSO who had acted as CO with such success for the previous eighteen months had handed over to Lieutenant Colonel Richard Proud. With families joining them, Secunderabad was a happy station. On 13 November, the C-in-C, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, visited the Battalion and presented twelve decorations. In 1947, with the impending partition of India looming, the Battalion moved to Delhi and was involved in Internal Security duties during the serious communal unrest. During the formal hand-over of power to India, it played a major part in the ceremonies including the lowering of the Union Jack flying over the Red Fort of Delhi. The Adjutant, Captain Roger Neath, took possession of the flag and it remained on display in the 2nd Battalion until placed in The Gurkha Museum. The 2nd Battalion joined the 1st Battalion in Malaya in February 1948 as part of the British Army.

Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck presenting medals at the 2nd Battalion parade in Secunderabad, 1946. Adjutant Captain RC Neath is on the left.

The Regiment’s other three battalions all served in India and Burma during the war. The 3rd and 4th Battalions were raised during 1940 from a nucleus of the 1st and 2nd Battalions. When the Japanese surrender came on 15 August 1945, all three battalions were engaged in operations in Burma. After a frustrating wait for action they played a major part in Bill Slim’s 14th Army defeat of the Japanese in Burma. The first into action was the 3rd Battalion. They earned their fame as Chindits under 77 Brigade in the gruelling three-month long Operation Thursday (March to June 1944) behind Japanese lines, culminating in the battle for Mogaung. The cost had been high, totalling 485: 20 BOs (11 killed), 14 GOs (6 killed), 451 GORs (108 killed). In addition to two VCs (Captain Michael Allmand and Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun), two DSOs, three IOMs, six MCs, four IDSMs, twelve MMs and three American Silver Stars were earned during this short time. On return to India, the Battalion had a much-earned long period of rest,

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Tulbahadur with family after receiving his VC from the Viceroy HE Field Marshal Lord Wavell at a special parade in the Red Fort, Delhi on 3 March 1945

3/6th Jemadar Rikhiram Ale IOM and Naik Balbir Pun being presented with the America Silver Star by Major General Merrill

preparation for the invasion of Malaya. The formal surrender of the Japanese took place on 15 August. After delays, in October the Battalion moved by air to Bangkok. Duties in Siam included the unpleasant task of guarding both Japanese and Korean prisoners, many who had been guards on the infamous BurmaSiam railway, and ‘Jifs’, the hardcore of Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army. In December, the Before the Chindits were disbanded, a final 77 Brigade parade took place during which the US Major Battalion arrived by sea in Malaya to conduct duties in aid of the civil power. The stay in Malaya was General Merrill presented three American Silver short-lived as orders came through to return to India Stars, two of them to the 3rd Battalion, the first in February 1946. After a further period of support to Gurkhas to receive this award. On a later occasion, Subedar Deolal Pun also received the American Silver the civil power in the uneasy conditions of post-war India, most of the Battalion took the ‘opt’ to transfer Star. The 3/6th then moved to Ranchi and became to the Indian Army and became the 5/5th Gorkha part of the newly formed Indian Airborne Division Rifles (Frontier Force). The 5/5th proudly keeps its under 23 Brigade commanded by Brigadier Lance Chindit heritage to this day. Perowne who later became GOC 17 Gurkha Division and MGBG in Malaya from 1952 to 1955. The 1st and 4th Battalions, respectively under 64 and 62 Brigades of 19 Indian Infantry Division, had By June 1945, 3/6th were back in Burma, still under to wait until November 1944 and the start of 14th the command of Lieutenant Colonel Freddie Shaw. Under 89 Indian Infantry Brigade of 7 Indian Division Army’s advance to retake Burma to see action. The 4th Battalion had its first encounter with the enemy they saw action in the defeat of the Japanese on 6 December and the 1st Battalion on 4 January in Burma. The Division was soon withdrawn in recovery, leave, reinforcement and reorganisation. On 3 March 1945, at a special parade in front of the Red Fort Delhi, watched by his family and 100 of his comrades of the 3rd Battalion, Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun, now Havildar, was presented with his VC by the Viceroy, Field Marshal Lord Wavell.

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3rd Battalion Officers, Landi Kotal Khyber, 1941 Standing: Paul Griffin, Sub Motiram Thapa, Taffy Davies (killed Burma), Johnny Hill, Birman Grg (next SM), Fairfull-Smith (MC Burma), SJ Punter, Sitting: Hubert Skone (CO), SM Mansing Gu rung, Jock Arnott (killed Burma) On ground: SO Punter, Dog ‘Peter’ (Jock Arnott’s mongrel), laying behind dog NK, John Lucas QM (MC Mogaung), James Ritchie Away: Bob Dales (BM Khyber Bde), ‘Prince’ Coldicott (2IC, just left and Freddie Shaw later CO was on his way), Dickie Barber (on leave), David Butler (on course, killed in Burma) and Ian Christie (getting married).

(This was the last photograph taken of 3/6th officers before they became Chindits.)

1945. Both Battalions took part in the bitter fighting to secure a bridgehead across the Irrawaddy river. Subsequently, the 1/6th took part in the capture of Mandalay while 4/6th swung east to lead 62 Brigade towards Maymyo and its eventual capture. These two key locations secured, 19 Division continued south to pursue the retreating Japanese forces. The Battalion was heavily engaged in operations to cut off and clear Japanese forces remaining in Burma. The Japanese rarely surrendered and each encounter had to be followed through to the final elimination of every enemy soldier. When the Japanese surrender was announced on 15 August, the 1/6th had just taken the town of Shwegyin, two miles to the east of the Sittang River and some 100 miles north-east of Rangoon.

Offensive operations quickly altered to the preparation of prisoner-of-war camps and defensive patrolling with orders to avoid casualties. A happy time was spent in Shwegyin until the end of the year with sport, escort duties and some dacoit chasing filling the days. The fishing was excellent and the local jungle teemed with game to the delight of the soldiers. After a move to Meiktila at the end of 1945, in March 1946 the Battalion moved back to Mandalay. Dacoit hunting continued until a further move in 1947 to Mingladoon, near Rangoon. From 1944 until 1947 the Battalion has been commanded by Lieutenant Colonel ‘Sailor’ Dykes MC. The 1/6th remained in Burma until it moved to Malaya on transfer to British Service on 1st January 1948. After 62 Brigade was broken up in January 1946

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1/6th officers, Mandalay, 1946. BOs sitting from left: John Phillips, Pat Patterson MC (2IC), Lt Col ‘Sailor’ Dykes (CO), Bill James, Ken Colquhoun MC. Between Patterson and the CO SM Hon Lt Pahalman Gurung MBE OBI, and beyond the CO is Subedar Nainasing Gurung.

the 4th Battalion moved to Pegu to join 99 Indian Brigade. In April 1946 it returned to India, first to Allahabad (on the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh) for an uncomfortable period of guards and duties in the heat of summer then to Kamptee (near Nagpur, Maharashtra) with a better climate and work. At the end of the year, orders for disbandment arrived. On 22 January 1947, the 4th Battalion marched into Abbottabad for the last time. On 28 January a final parade was held on the Polo Ground at which the Peshawar Area Commander presented a number of decorations. Formal disbandment took place on 28 February, so ending six years during which it added greatly to the Regiment’s honour and history. Throughout its time in Burma the Battalion had been commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Ross-

Hurst. Operations in Burma had cost five officers and 95 other ranks killed and 317 wounded. Decorations earned were: 1 MBE, 9 MCs; 12 MMs and 5 IDSMs. Any account of the Regiment at the end of the war would be incomplete without mention of the Regimental Depot at Abbottabad. At the start of the war in 1939 no Gurkha regiments had training battalions or centralised depots like the rest of the Indian Army. In the summer of 1940, Training Companies of the two regular battalions formed a combined Depot and by November the Regimental Depot came into being, eventually becoming the 6th Gurkha Rifles Regimental Centre. The commander and architect of this transformation was Colonel Hugh Walsh OBE. With a small number of clerks and training staff from the two regular battalions he created the

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Centre and that of the Regiment was to be handed over to the 5th Gurkha Rifles who had enjoyed Abbottabad alongside the 6th for forty-seven years. The cantonment had been our home since the 42nd Gurkha Rifles arrived from Assam in 1900. After a special memorial service in St Luke’s Church, the Regiment’s memorial tablets were removed and taken with the Regiment to Malaya. Today, the Regiment’s memorials are displayed in RMA Sandhurst, both in the Royal Memorial Chapel and in the Academy’s Indian Army Memorial Room. In early August 1947, the main body of the 6th Gurkha At the end of the war the Centre turned its resources Rifles remaining on that day left Abbottabad for the last time. into a Demobilisation and Resettlement Centre. By this time Colonel Norman Eustace DSO had taken Brian O’Bree over from Hugh Walsh. In 1947, the home of the Centre. In the five years of unrelenting demands for trained manpower, it enabled the four active battalions to achieve the successes that made the name of the 6th Gurkhas famous in various theatres of war. In 1943, the Centre reached its manpower peak of over five thousand personnel spread over three separate locations. In addition to organising trained battle casualty replacements for four battalions, the Centre had responsibility for men on leave, categorisation, rehabilitation and pensions of casualties and looking after many hundreds of families.

4th Battalion Officers on disbandment, February 1947 Back: Jem Lilbdr Pun, Jem Amardhoj Grg, Sub Dhansing Grg, Sub Nandabdr Ale, Jem Panche Thapa, Jem lndrasen Suba, Jem Bhawansing Thapa, Jem Dalbdr Rana IDSM, Jem Pahalsing Grg IDSM, Sub Tulsing Thapa, Jem Ransing Grg MC, Jem Gajbdr Grg Middle: Lt ML Jackson, Lt MR Garrard, Jem Thalbdr Ale, Lt JM Neilson, Sub Gangamani Rana, Lt RA Seymour, Lt OE Thompson, Sub Gopal Thapa, Capt AW D Moodie, Jem lmansing Thapa, Lt A Watson, Lt GJB Campbell Sitting: Capt J Phillips, Sub Pahalsing Thapa, Maj GIM Turnbull MBE, Sub Maj Gange Rana OBI IOM, Lt Col KW Ross-Hurst, Maj WK Froggatt MC, Sub Dilbdr Rana, Maj CSF Carroll MC, Sub Ekbdr Grg MC, Capt MB Adams

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Gokul with his father, Kulbahadur, August 2020

THE HONORARY CAPTAIN AND THE BBC THE BBC VJ75 PROGRAMME AND HONORARY CAPTAIN KULBAHADUR GURUNG MM

he email from Paul Corden on 19 June 2020 said, “The BBC are keen to contact any Gurkha veterans from Burma in World War II; do you know any?” Paul had done a secondment with 6 GR from 1990–92, but was now very involved with the Chindit Society of UK and he explained that the BBC were putting together a programme to commemorate the 75th

anniversary of the victory over Japan. I immediately thought of Kulbahadur Saheb who had presented the British Officers with their 200th Anniversary Badges in Pokhara in 2017. I emailed his son Gokul, who had served with us in 6 GR, but was now settled in Swindon, UK to ask about his father. It transpired that Gokul was actually in Nepal, having been caught by the Covid-19 restrictions at the end of his visit from

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Filming the interview in Gokul’s house in Pokhara, 7 July 2020

UK and he replied that his father was alive and well and very happy to be involved with the programme. Developments came thick and fast! Late on 24 June, while at home in New Zealand, I received a phone call from Matt Ramsden, a BBC Producer Director of Studio Events. He was very excited about the possibility of a filmed interview with Kulbahadur, including the events of the battle of Mogaung. I explained that Kulbahadur, while happy to be involved, spoke little English, but that his son, who spoke excellent English was with him and that Matt should contact Gokul direct. I passed on

Gokul’s contact details plus some background on 3/6 GR’s wartime record. This resulted in an 11 item questionnaire as a basis for the interview and it was clear that Matt was interested in Kulbahadur’s personal story; “what was it like in the jungle, what were the hardships that he and his friends faced?” He was keen to show viewers the realities of war. We also got involved with the Chindit Society, their Chairman, Paul Shenton, and Historian, Steve Fogden, both of whom, along with Paul Corden, provided lots of wonderful background information covering Kulbahadur’s service in Burma with the Chindits,

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including the citation for his Military Medal. This was awarded for his outstanding bravery in the battles around Mawlu as part of the White City Block during March of 1944. The citation was signed by his commanding officer, Lt Colonel H A Skone, on 29 March 1944, although it was only gazetted in April 1945 and until these discussions it appeared that Kulbahadur did not know what actions his decoration was actually for.

story on tape which will be a very important part of the VJ75 programme.”

For the programme, Kulbahadur’s age was important, but as many readers will know, the age of Gurkha soldiers of his vintage is not simple. Although his date of birth was 17 June 1919, he enlisted on 11 October 1938 and was of course recorded as 18 years old. So for the military, he was 100 years old in October 2020, but in reality was 100 in June 2019 and was a remarkable 101 when being interviewed With Kulbahadur’s responses to the questionnaire, for the programme. Equally, Kulbahadur’s rank; how which were amazingly detailed and frank, and Paul to refer to him plus his Corden’s really helpful regiment were confusing for additions to put the the BBC. It seems that he answers into perspective, was a Havildar (Sergeant) and with outstanding work during the fighting around from Gokul, by 28 June Matt White City, was promoted had his story. From the in the field to Jemadar many emails flying about (Lieutenant), finished his over these few days, Gokul service as a Subedar Major was spending long hours (Gurkha Major), promoted with his father and learning to Honorary Lieutenant a huge amount about his and was now an Honorary wartime service. Captain. Simple really! He started his service in 2/6th But now, in the midst of a Gurkhas and transferred Covid-19 pandemic which to 3/6th Gorkhas before was seriously affecting going to Burma during the Nepal and with limited time Kulbahadur Gurung MM as a Chindit Expedition. In 1947, at before the programme Jemadar in 5/5th Gorkha Rifles, 1960 Indian Independence, 3/6th on 15 August, would it be Gurkhas as a unit transferred to the Indian Army and possible to arrange the interview? In the end, the became 5/5th Gorkhas, and it was in 5/5th Gorkhas BBC arranged for a TV crew from Kathmandu to that Kulbahadur completed the rest of his service. do the interview at Gokul’s house in Pokhara. They Interestingly, when we visited 5/5th Gorkhas in 1990, arrived at 8 am on 7 July and were finished by for their 50th Anniversary celebrations, they still 2 pm. It was a very hot and humid day. The crew were dressed in full protective clothing and masks, referred to themselves as “the Chindits” and proudly sprayed everything with sanitiser, and were clearly wore a chinthe on the left sleeve of their Service Dress uniform. struggling with the conditions; they described it as a “sauna”. Kulbahadur too must have been very Attention then turned to the Daily Telegraph, where Lt uncomfortable in his full winter-weight Service Dress. The crew apparently needed an extra day’s General Sir Peter Duffell, late 2 GR, had been asked to rest in Pokhara before returning to Kathmandu, but write an article for VJ75, linked to the BBC programme, as I believe everyone who has seen the programme about the Gurkhas contribution to the war in the Far will agree, the results were excellent and Matt made East. He was keen to include details of Kulbahadur’s it clear that he was delighted; “so special to have his service, as possibly the only Gurkha veteran of the

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Kulbahadur during his interview outlining life as a Chindit

Burma Campaign still alive and so Gokul was called on again to delve into his father’s amazing memory. In the end, Sir Peter’s article failed to make the newspaper, being relegated to the Telegraph website, which was a great pity because it was an excellent piece and covered the Gurkha contribution to the victory in the Far East exceptionally well. Finally, the big day – 15 August 2020 – arrived and the VJ75 Commemoration programme was aired on BBC 1 at 8 pm, hosted most beautifully by Joanna Lumley OBE; an inspired choice and an Honorary Member of our Association. Her father, Major Jimmy Lumley, had fought in 3/6th GR throughout the Chindit Campaign, initially as a company commander and then as second in command at Mogaung and would certainly have known Kulbahadur. The programme included a variety of presentations; many of them about Gurkhas, but the highlight for most people was the interview with Kulbahadur Sahib. He was just outstanding in every way. It was gratifying that all the efforts of the many people involved had come to fruition and created something very special; in particular, Paul Corden, Matt Ramsden from the BBC but especially Gokul, who did

such an amazing job teasing out his father’s story so that we could all enjoy it. Although not part of the story of the BBC VJ Programme, I believe that it is worthwhile summarising what we learned about the extraordinary service of Honorary Captain Kulbahadur Gurung MM during the research for the programme. Kulbahadur enlisted on 11 October 1938 and I believe was initially posted to 2/6th GR. By 1943 he was a Havildar and a Physical Training Instructor at the War Time Army Training School. Having received a letter from 3/6th GR Subedar Major Mansing Gurung, he asked to be released and joined the Battalion just after October 1943 in Jhansi, training as part of 77 Brigade in the Chindit Division. On the night, probably of 8 March 1944, Kulbahadur landed behind Japanese lines in Burma with 3/6th GR in a Dakota at the jungle strip of Broadway which had been prepared by Engineers who had landed by glider a couple of days before. 3/6th GR then marched for four days to Mawlu where they

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set up a defensive block on the road, river, railway junction as part of what would be called White City. It seems that his first action was on 17 March in the bayonet charge up Pagoda Hill led by Brigadier Mike Calvert, and it was over this period that his Company Commander, Captain Arnott, standing next to Kulbahadur was shot and killed. 3/6 GR was split into two columns, 36 and 63, and Kulbahadur’s C Company was in 63 Column. This was part of a major attack in the Mawlu area on 27 March, capturing the village and killing some 50 enemy using flame throwers, kukris and grenades. This action was the second part of Kulbahadur’s citation for the Military Medal.

However, they were quickly ordered to capture the town of Mogaung, some four days march further north.

Kulbahadur was in A Company, now as a platoon commander, and after being involved in the very difficult attack on Pinhmi Bridge was in the thick of the 23 June attack on the town of Mogaung itself. He lost 14 men from his platoon, coming under fire from the Red House (Lal Bangla), which was eventually taken by B Company commanded by Michael Allmand and including Tulbahadur Pun, both of whom were awarded a Victoria Cross. Kulbahadur’s A Company then went on to capture the Mogaung Bridge, the other strategic objective in the town. Having visited 63 Column was a “floater column” tasked with the site, I believe that the capture of Mogaung was operating outside the defensive perimeter, to a most exceptional feat of arms. The Battalion was attack Japanese forces before they could attack on the lightest scales, having been operating on White City, clearly a dangerous and arduous their feet for over three months, were not equipped mission. They were tasked to attack the town of Kadu, north of White City, which they reached after for conventional war, were undernourished, many with chronic illness, and had lost over half of their four days march, only to be then ordered back to White City as the defences there were under attack. number; it was an amazing victory. Having marched back, with actions on the way, they It is clear that Kulbahadur was involved in a number found the defensive position encircled and had to of legendary battles in Burma, including a lot of fight their way in to join 36 Column. 3/6 GR were close quarter fighting and killing many Japanese. It is based around White City for around seven weeks, or as Kulbahadur remembers it, three long months, wonderful that he came through unscathed, despite the three bullet holes in his backpack and mess tin, with, as he clearly stated in his interview, “battles with the enemy every day and those who died, died, plus two bullet holes in his Gurkha hat and that he is still alive and able to tell his extraordinary story. and those who survived, survived.” He described He had a most successful career in 5/5th Gorkhas this as the hardest period of his time in Burma. after the war and from his photograph taken in 1960 Kulbahadur was commissioned in the field at this time with the rank of Jemadar. As part of 77 Brigade was clearly a tough, no nonsense and distinguished Gorkha Officer. 3/6th GR were then tasked to move north, and it was assumed they would make their way back Duncan Briggs to India, in line with the original Chindit concept.

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“IT’S YOU HE DOESN’T KNOW” Many who read this will have endured that indeterminate period when no Gurkha soldier below the rank of Lieutenant (QGO) understood a word one said, until the magical day when, suddenly, everyone understood. It certainly happened to me, and I remember perfectly clearly when and where my moment came. But this is not about me…

n my last trip to Delhi, in January 1995, Lieutenant Colonel ‘SS’ Singh, CO 3rd/1st Gorkha Rifles, then Public Duties Battalion, invited me, along with Tej Pal Singh who was hosting me in Delhi, to visit his Officers’ Mess, followed by dinner in his official quarter. This last was the bungalow in which had lived the architect who designed the Red Fort, while building took place around him. SS’s wife, Bunny, would be there together with Hari and Bholi Ahluwalia: truly, company and a setting one simply wouldn’t miss. Arriving at the gate to the Fort, TP’s car and driver were stopped. Dismounting and speaking Hindi, TP tried to explain our intention to the Gorkha corporal IC Quarter Guard. Unsmiling, the NCO appeared to understand not a word, and nor did any member of

the Guard standing by, watching a 300 pound Sikh becoming increasingly frustrated, and just holding on to his temper. I believe that all Indian Army Gorkhas have to learn Hindi, but I said, “Let me try.” “Corporal, shayad ma samjaunu paryo”. With a snappy, “hajur!”, the NCO sprang to attention and saluted. “Dherai samay pahile, ma Che Gurkha Paltanma naukri garen. Ahile, tapainko Commanding Saheb hamiharulai bolaunu bhayo, Officers’ Messma kehi piunulai ani, tespachhi, usko qotama khana khanulai”. Another “hajur!”, and the now smiling guard commander said that he had been waiting for us; the jeep and driver next to the guardroom were to take us to the Mess and, later, to the CO’s house. A second salute, and off we went, an incandescent Tej Pal spluttering in the back. “What happened? This is our army, not yours!!” Amused to find the ‘system’ seemed to work across different armies, I explained it to TP. “But he doesn’t know you!” said TP. “Well, no – and yes, he does. He was expecting a former British Gurkha officer, and when someone turns up, speaks his language and tells him what he wants to hear, of course he understands. It’s quite simple, TP; it’s you he doesn’t know.” Jack Keen

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JAVA 1945/46 As we celebrate the 75th Anniversary of VJ Day, the following article by 24-year old Acting Major Gil Hickey MC* is a timely reminder of a little known and remarkable episode of British Military History. In 1945, some weeks after the official Japanese surrender, British troops were sent to Java to help maintain order. Both the strength and resentment of the independence movement under Dr Ahmed Soekarno (aka Sukarno) had been seriously underestimated and the troops were met with considerable hostility. Totally outnumbered by Indonesian rebels and with no British reinforcements available, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, issued the order to re-arm the Japanese prisoners of war to fight alongside British, Gurkha and Indian troops in their battle to save Dutch and other internees from being slaughtered by the Indonesians.

ANONE ARIMASKA – THE CANNON HAS FIRED

blood and plunder. The Japanese were in the process of being disarmed. On the surface there was little to show that the Indonesian independence movement was Japanese inspired, but those better acquainted than the ordinary soldier with Japanese methods, saw clearly the product of a policy which aimed at 3/5 RGR had left Malaya on consecutive days earlier leaving the United Nations a legacy of disturbance as that week, having boarded two Landing Ships Tank at the immediate aftermath of the war. The Dutch were high tide off a beach near Port Dickson. They had just in a state of impotence and unlikely to be able to provide a peace-keeping force from the Netherlands completed their task of rounding up two Japanese for another nine months. battalions (Habu Butai and Kobiashi Butai) in the Kuala Pilah/Landing Geddes area, with the surrender As the briefing continued it became increasingly parade taking place on the Bahao golf course. This evident that 23 Div (The Fighting Cock) was virtually was Phase 2 of Operation ‘Zipper’ which followed 37 Brigade’s unopposed landing three weeks previously on its own and about to be spread thinly over a densely populated area covering 400 miles from near Sepang on the west coast. west to east. Deployment, we were told, was to be as follows: The Brigade Commander, Brigadier N. Macdonald CBE DSO (Mac, of 4/5th fame) met the Battalion on its arrival and briefed the officers on the operational 1 1 Bde (1 Seaforth, 1/6 Punjab and 1 Patiala) – Batavia (West). situation. The CO was Peter Sanders and his rifle company commanders were the following: Cameron 2 37 Bde (3/3 GR, 3/5 RGR and Bde HQ) – Bandoeng (Centre). (A), Gouldsbury (B), Hickey (C) and Buchanan (D). 3 3/10 GR, in coy detachments, was to join an ad hoc force being hurriedly formed to cover The picture was not a rosy one. All reports from the Semarang, Megalang, and Ambarawa, to the north interior showed that Dr Soekarno had lost control of the island. over the extremists who were terrorizing the 4 49 Bde (4/5 Mahratta, 6/5 Mahratta and 5/6 countryside and roving about in bands lusting after he sun shone brightly that October morning as C and D Companies disembarked from the Landing Ships Tank at Batavia, the rest of the Battalion having arrived the previous day.

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Rajputana Rifles) – Surabaya (East). These then were the likely flash points.

The lull before the storm The Battalion moved by train to Bandoeng, a major hill station about a hundred miles inland to the east. The men were favourably impressed by the country which in many parts was so like their own. The hillsides were terraced almost to their summits with vivid green rice fields. The stations were placarded with anti-Dutch posters and the people, though not openly hostile, were obviously resentful of the passage of the troops. We moved into the former Dutch barracks with a surrounding wall. The men were well content with their accommodation, although it was insufficient for the whole Battalion. Some of us, therefore, were sent out to protect the Dutch residential areas in company or platoon detachments. In order to keep this narrative within reasonable bounds, I must now restrict my comments, in general to the activities of C Company. We were billeted in the Juliana Ziekenhuis (hospital) adjacent to the Pasteur Institute complex and a large quinine factory, our task being to patrol the area by day and by night with a view to preventing mayhem caused by rampokkers (raiders) armed with parangs, who would break into the up-market Dutch-owned houses, killing or wounding the occupants, destroying the furnishings and looting whatever they could carry away.

send the Gurkhas quickly, the rampokkers have come, my dogs have been killed and I am under the bed.” Inevitably the ‘quick reaction’ section would arrive after the birds had flown. A change of tactics was clearly called for. Night patrols were replaced by a platoon’s worth of twoman ambushes deployed over a wide area, moving out stealthily after dark into previously reconnoitred positions in the shrubberies of selected homes. The results were spectacular. The rampokkers were picked off with stenguns at close range and the buzz soon got around. The warning notices on every gatepost along the boulevards, proclaiming Awas Anjing (beware of the dog) were replaced by their owners with Awas Goorka!

The storm clouds darken 3/10 GR were heavily engaged in fighting off the marauding hordes hell bent on overrunning the RAPWI camps (Released Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) in the Ambarawa area, already bulging with Dutch and Eurasian refugees, while the news from Surabaya was very bad indeed. 49 Brigade

In the early hours of the morning a call would come from a frantic Dutchman saying “Please

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(some 4,000 troops) were widely dispersed in a heavily built up area, many of them in isolated company and platoon posts. The whole town seemed to rise up in arms against them, a fanatical mob over 140,000 strong, 20,000 of them Japanese trained, whipped up to an uncontrollable frenzy and armed to the teeth. The bestial scenes that followed in the name of freedom rivalled the vilest moments of the French Revolution. The troops stood their ground bravely but the casualties were appalling, the Brigade Commander (Mallaby) being among the dead. The Rajputana Rifles suffered more killed and wounded in three weeks than during the whole of their time in Burma. The storm clouds were rolling westwards towards Bandoeng. We were already too thin on the ground throughout Java, with no reserves. In response to an urgent appeal from the Theatre Commander, back came a signal from Mountbatten: “No reinforcements available. Re-arm the Japanese and take them under command”. It was an Alice in Wonderland situation. Bandoeng garrison was increased within a week by 1,500 armed Japanese, much to the relief of Brigadier Mac, already short of one battalion (3/10th).

The Dutch East Indies

to clear them out. The Bn IO (Gus Ashby) joined me in the leading armoured car, a left hand drive MarmonHarrington from the Dutch stockpile, with Gurkha driver. CHM Hastabahadur Gurung manned the Vickers MMG mounted through a hole in the roof of the vehicle. We were followed closely by an escort of 20 Gurkhas in two Japanese trucks with Japanese drivers. We took a tremendous risk, but it paid off. The element of I was allocated 100 Japanese, formed into an ad hoc surprise prevailed as we burst through the barricades, the whole force penetrating the defences before the company, with instructions to weld my composite force into a battle group in the face of the increasing enemy were able to react. There followed a fierce exchange of fire and grenades were thrown from the threat. No fraternisation, was the order of the day! top floors, resulting in two killed and three wounded This was easy as far as the Burma veterans were on our side. Hastabahadur then stood up in full view of concerned, but for the large number of young reinforcements it was a different matter – they were the enemy and emptied a belt of long-sustained fire at a group of 15 Indonesians preparing to counter-attack. already impressed by the apparent efficiency and He killed 12 and escaped unscathed. The remainder discipline of our new ‘allies’. Control was exercised surrendered. It was all over within an hour and through an interpreter, Captain Hiro Namazawa, a Hastabahadur was awarded the IDSM. diminutive artillery officer with glasses. His looks belied him: when he cracked the whip his men jumped to it. His English was rudimentary, although Bandoeng was now on “red alert” with both battalions fully committed. The town was divided by the main his comprehension was good and he enforced my railway line which ran east-west, the southern half instructions to the letter. being described by the Dutch as the Native Quarter, consisting mainly of Indonesians and Chinese, Things were hotting up in the C Company area just then, the enemy having occupied the quinine factory in the northern half (our side) being the European platoon strength, erecting road blocks along Kininaweg residential area which included two hotels and a number of department stores. (Quinine Road) within the factory walls. I was ordered

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PORTUGUESE TIMOR

Our axis of advance was to be Slachthuis Weg (Abattoir Road), with the FUP to the north of the railway embankment and the Start Line the railway line itself (now not in use). We moved forward (160 strong) in complete silence, the Japanese “discipline” being remarked upon later by my GOs. At H minus 5, Capt Namazawa, who was also the FFO, with his radio headset clamped firmly over his cloth cap, spluttering with excitement and forgetting that this British officer did not understand Japanese exclaimed, “Anone Arimaska! The Cannon has fired!” As the shells whined over our heads and crashed down accurately on the selected targets, the injunction not to fraternise with the Japanese was momentarily forgotten.

To keep matters simple, the success signal following Phase 1 was to be a live Japanese head sticking out of each of a line of windows in the nearest block of Despite our earlier efforts on behalf of the RAPWI to flats visible to me, whereupon C Coy would take over. evacuate the Eurasians and Dutch still living in the southern sector, many of them had refused to leave The two light tanks rumbled down the street to the left, machine-gunning indiscriminately anything that their homes for the secure camps to the north. By now, of course, there were over a hundred of them moved and silencing a strong bunker position 400 held hostage and we were ordered to rescue them. yards ahead with its six-pounder gun. Everything The task overall was given to the 3/3rd, with my Coy went according to plan, out popped the Japanese heads and C Coy went through (Phase 2). There Group under command. The CO (Arthur Greenway) followed some fierce close quarter fighting and heavy gave me my objective the Zuider Zee, an area of Indonesian casualties, our own losses being two killed semi high-rise flats to the east of the southern sector, where many of the hostages were known to and seven wounded (Gurkhas); two killed and five be held. I marked my town plan accordingly, having wounded (Japanese). 95 hostages were rescued, the consulted my Eurasian sleuth who knew the specific remainder, sadly, being killed in the cross fire. buildings. I was to operate independently, with two Japanese tanks in direct support together with two Epilogue Japanese 150 mm howitzers, the gun position being a I left Bandoeng on a month’s leave in the UK in March mile further back near “Chhattari Ghar”, an umbrella- 1946. When I returned to the Battalion to take over like house well known to us all. In order to achieve Second-in-Command, they had already moved down surprise, D Day was to be December 25th! to Krandji and Klenda near Batavia. The worst was over, mopping up operations being the order of the I gave out my orders on Christmas Eve, the “O” Group day. It had been a tough year for 3/5 RGR, after the including Capt Namazawa and two other Japanese exhausting Burma campaign and we had suffered officers, with specific instructions as to the artillery over 50 casualties including a BO and GO numbered fire plan and the targets (known strongholds away among the dead. Nevertheless, morale remained from the flats). We would attack in two phases, high, thanks to the outstanding leadership of GPVS Phase 1 being a frontal attack by the Japanese! (Geoffrey Peter Vere Sanders). H hr: 0530 hrs (dawn). Gil Hickey

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hen considering a battlefield tour in India one is spoiled for choice. Long before the arrival of the British other conquerors marched the length and breadth of the sub-continent. Ashoka the Great (304–232 BC), who ruled almost the whole of India from Afghanistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east and south as far as Tamil Nadu, captured modern Orissa (where Cuttack is) and is said to have killed 100,000 men in the process. It was Ashoka that promoted Buddhism across South East Asia and it is the lions of Ashoka that replaced the British crown on Indian army badges of rank post-independence. Babur, the first of the great Moghuls and a descendent of Timur (Tamerlane), was the governor of Ferghana, in modern Uzbekistan, until forced out when he formed a mercenary army and defeated the Lodi dynasty of Central India and the Rajput Confederacy of Rajputana. It was his defeat of the Rajputs at the Battle of Khanwa in 1537 that led to an influx of Rajputs into Nepal, fleeing forced conversion to Islam, who became the ancestors of many of the rulers of Nepali statelets, including Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–1775), Rajah of Gorkha and the founder of modern Nepal. Afghans, Persians, Arabs, mercenary soldiers, adventurers, traders all saw India as an immensely rich country, as indeed it was, and the locations of many of their battles and those between kingdoms within India can, with a bit of imagination, still be visited today. The great advantage of battlefield touring in India is that not very much changes. Roads have been built but many follow the ancient thoroughfares, and railways have generally been able to avoid much damage to the countryside. Temples, tombs and forts, once built, are not knocked down and while they might inevitably deteriorate, at the very least the ruins are still there. Crop planting does not vary greatly, and what is a rice paddy today was probably also a rice paddy two or three hundred years ago. Arthur Wellesley, later the first Duke of Wellington, arrived in India as a colonel commanding a battalion

BATTLEFIELD TOURS IN INDIA

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

in 1797, and left as a major general and military governor of Mysore in 1805. It was in India that he learned how to keep an army in the field in a fourth world country where difficult terrain, appalling weather and prevalent diseases all had to be dealt with. Wellesley fought in the Fourth Mysore and the Second Maratha Wars, and the battlefields are easily identified today. In 1799 Wellesley commanded the reserve brigade at the assault and capture of Seringapatam, when the ruler of Mysore, Tippu Sultan, was killed. The walls of the city are still intact and while the breach created by the British artillery has been repaired it is easily identifiable. The little temple where the British put the siege artillery still stands on the west bank of the River Cauvery although there has been a modern ashram built around it. Above the breach in the walls is a monument to the regiments that took part in the assault, and here is confusion, for the list of East India Company regiments inscribed on the monument includes ‘1st Bn 10th Gurkha Rifles’, but we know that the first

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The Battle of Assaye, 23 September 1803

recruitment of Gurkhas was in 1815, and the 10th Gurkha Rifles dates from 1902, so how can they have been at the capture of Seringapatam in 1799? The reason is that the 10th Gurkha Rifles were formed in 1902 by amalgamation of the 8th and 10th Madras and the Kubo Valley Military Police but retained the battle honours of its predecessors. 10th Madras Native Infantry fought at Seringapatam, but the memorial was not erected until 1907, by which time 10th Gurkhas had absorbed the battle honours of 10th Madras, hence 10th Gurkhas rather than 10th Madras. But! Curiouser and curiouser, 10th Gurkhas gave up the honours of its Madras forebearers in 1903 and so should not be mentioned on the memorial at all! When 10th Gurkhas petitioned for the return of those lost battle honours in 1988, and was granted them, there was some confusion around the brigade, but there was nothing illegal or dubious about it, and had the regiments been British rather than Madrassi and then Gurkha no one would have remarked upon it. The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, formed in 1992,

claims to be England’s senior infantry regiment of the line dating back 450 years, and indeed is second in seniority in the Army List only to the Royal Regiment of Scotland (formed 2004). The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment is an amalgamation of 12 regiments, which have been absorbed over the years, and takes the honours of all those regiments. This is rather like entering a shepherds’ pie in the Bath and West Wilts show, on the grounds that part of it was once a sheep, but it is what the British Army does and is perfectly legitimate, even if somewhat far-fetched. One of the advantages of following Wellesley’s wars in India is that his battles all took place well away from the tourist areas. The hotels are therefore basic, but clean, the plumbing makes funny noises in the night and the electricity frequently goes off, but the beer is cold and the food superb. In his old age Wellington said that his most difficult battle was that of Assaye, on 23 September 1803 – and also a 10th Gurkha battle honour thanks to 10th Madras. When I first went to

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unrepaired until last year and the track up which Wellesley came to enter the main defences from the rear is unchanged. The locals claim that a tiger and her cubs lives within the main fort, but on many visits I have never seen her, nor any sign of her!

The battles of the Anglo Nepal war were mainly in the terai, but Kalunga, in October and November 1814, is near Dehra Dun in India. It was the first major battle of the war and readers will recall that this was where a Gurkha force of around 600 commanded by Balbahadur Thapa (a Chettri Thapa) was surrounded by a 5000 strong column under General Rollo Gillespie, The memorial to Balbahadur at Kalunga who was killed on the first day. The Gurkhas were ensconced in an earthen fort on top of a high hill, Assaye, in 2000, the headmaster of the school there and to this day there is no road up to it. After two told me that I was the first Englishman he had unsuccessful attempts to assault, the British cut seen since independence! Perhaps one of the most off the water and laid siege to the fort. The Gurkhas stunning battle locations anywhere is the double held out for a month, but eventually, refusing offers fortresses of Gawilghur, assaulted and captured by to surrender with the honours of war, with mounting Wellesley on 15 December 1803, in the last major casualties, out of ammunition and with stocks of food action of the Second Maratha War. Located in and water exhausted Balbahadur led the survivors on Maharashtra miles from anywhere, the platform on which Colonel Stevenson’s elephant-drawn guns were a last ditch charge through the British lines. Seventy placed is still there, the breach he created remained made it, and got away to enlist in the Sikh army of

Watercolour painting of the 1st Nasiri Battalion (later 1st Gurkha Rifles), 1834

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Ranjit Singh. Long before the British connection many Gurkhas joined the Sikh armies, hence the Nepali for a solider is ‘Lahuri’ because you went to Lahore to enlist. It was after this battle that the British did something that they had never done before, and to the best of my knowledge have never done since: they erected two memorials, side by side, one in memory of the British dead and the other ‘in memory of our gallant adversary’. The memorials are still there. In Cuttack there is nothing that directly links to the forerunner of our regiment, although the thirteenth century Barabati Fort might have housed us at some stage. It was taken over by the British in 1803 and

for some time used as a prison for recalcitrant local nobility, but might well also have been used as a barracks. Today only the main gate and part of the walls remain. Also in Cuttack is a rather scruffy museum to Subhas Chandra Bose, ‘Netaji’, the thoroughly unpleasant founder of the so-called Indian National Army formed from Indian prisoners in Japanese hands which aimed to assist the Japanese to drive the British out of India. No Gurkhas joined and many suffered appalling treatment for refusing to do so, including one battalion’s Gurkha Major (then Subadar Major) being beheaded. The INA of two small divisions was only put into action once when many deserted back to the British or refused to leave their assembly area.

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The first action by battalions that were composed entirely by Gurkhas was at the siege of Bhurtpore, in Rajastan, from December 1825 to January 1826. The final and successful assault was at the north east corner, when the Nasiri Gurkha Battalion (later 1st Gurkha Rifles) assaulted the Jagina Gate and the main breach, while the Sirmoor Gurkha Battalion (later 2nd Gurkha Rifles) took the lesser breach. The walls of the town still stand and the battle sites, including the siege lines, can easily be followed. The same two battalions took part in the battles of Aliwal (28 January 1846) and Sobraon (10 February 1846) just south of the River Sutlej and not far from the present Pakistan border, during the First Sikh War, and while there has been some building since, the battlefields can be traversed, and there is an Anglo Sikh memorial to both Sikh wars.

bushes, whereas now it is forested thus reducing the visibility in both directions. Lower down, the position of the guns commanded by Captain Kaye (ancestor of the late Major Johnny Kaye, 2 GR, with this author a member of the Brigade polo team) placed to bombard the Kashmir gate is now in a walled off garden but can be viewed by those adept at scaling walls.

The Sirmoor battalion took part in the assault on the Kabul gate, of which only a remnant is left, which was not supposed to be attacked until three other columns had entered the city and were approaching the Kabul gate from the interior. The column of which the Sirmoor battalion was part attacked too early and were repulsed, but the Kumaon Local Battalion of Gurkhas (later 3rd Gurkha Rifles) were successful in attacking the Kashmir Gate, which survives albeit that the outside ditch has been filled in. The first Victoria Cross awarded to a Gurkha regiment was Most of the Indian Mutiny sites remain, many won by Lieutenant John Tytler (1825–1880) of the 66th cared for by the Archaeological Survey of India, an Bengal Native infantry at Charpura in Madya Pradesh organisation rather more efficient than the Indian government. Although the sites are easily visited one on 10 February 1858. The original 66th had mutinied in 1857 and were disarmed, its number being given to has to be slightly careful as in recent years Indian nationalists have come to refer to it as ‘the first war the 1st Nasiri Battalion of Gurkhas, later 1st Gurkha Rifles. Charpura was a small village then and has not of independence’ when of course it was nothing of changed very much. It is relatively easy to work out the sort. The sight of British faces at mutiny sites how 500 Gurkhas on foot, led by Tytler on his horse, can attract motor scooter born journalists, eager defeated a much larger rebel force. The Rangpur to create an incident. I always say we are studying Light Infantry, then an Indian manned battalion but Moghul architecture (of which there is much) and later 6th Gurkha Rifles, remained loyal and spent the they then tend to go away. mutiny garrisoning the North East Frontier. The final capture of Lucknow, in March 1858, was achieved by Most studies of Gurkha involvement in the mutiny a force under Sir Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) and tends to concentrate on the Sirmoor Battalion (later included a brigade of 9,000 Gurkhas of the Nepal the 2nd Gurkha Rifles), which took part in the attack army commanded by Maharaja Jung Bahadur Rana and capture of Delhi Ridge, and held on there until in person. Both of the reliefs of Lucknow and the the assault on Delhi itself. Hindu Rao’s house, the eventual recapture can be followed in great detail as headquarters of the Sirmoor Battalion, is still there and is now a hospital but the original parts are easily most of the buildings occupied by the rebels are still there, as is the Residency and La Martiniere College identified, as is the well which then produced clear spring water allowing the Sirmoor Battalion to escape in whose grounds is the grave of William Raikes Hodson, founder of Hodson’s Horse and killed at the the depredations of cholera, although sadly now assault on the Residency. It was the Indian Mutiny choked with rubbish. The telegraph tower where the survivors of the mutiny of the Delhi garrison gathered that brought Gurkhas to the attention of the British as more than just another martial race, and that is still stands. The major difference between 1857 and why it is important in our history as well as being the now is that then the slope from the walled city up to the ridge was bare except for scrub and a few stunted reason for the lale that RGR wears on its uniforms.

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Sikh and British Officers of Hodson’s Horse, 1858

The opportunities for battlefield tourism in India are almost limitless, and much of the bureaucracy of getting there is now much reduced. A visa for India can be got on line, thus obviating the trek to the Strand and half a day standing in line. While Indian immigration at Indira Gandhi airport Delhi still rivals that at Moscow Domodedovo for confusion and time spent standing in queues, once in country the cost of living is cheap compared to that in UK (or in Moscow, come to that). Getting to and from battlefields is inevitably slow, thanks to appalling traffic and bad roads. The distance from Delhi to Meerut, where the mutiny broke out in May 1857, is less than fifty miles but it still takes half a day to get there. There is now a partially completed motorway running from Delhi to Agra, which does help somewhat, although I well recall the sight of a camel coming the wrong way up it. English is one of the official languages of India and even in remote areas where there is little English, Nepali is

from the same root as Hindi and so one can make oneself understood without too much difficulty. One is quite safe from the Moghuls’ Revenge, Delhi Belly or whatever one wants to call it, provided one sticks to local food, which is delicious. Indian gin is excellent, as is the local beer, although Indian whisky is best avoided unless one is unconcerned by the likelihood of permanent blindness and insanity. I have been going to India regularly for many years and on every visit have always found something new, and while BA is no longer my favourite airline (that is Qatar), you can haggle at the BA check in desk at Delhi and get an upgrade to business class to UK remarkably cheaply. At present all my planned battlefield tours to India have been cancelled, due to Black Death II, but once the plague has passed that extraordinary and intriguing country will be open once more. Gordon Corrigan

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A PASSAGE FROM INDIA

find it difficult to believe that it is well over a century ago since my mother, Kathleen, arrived with my father at his bungalow in Turkaulia to start their married life together. She was only nineteen then and he was considerably older and more experienced. Although she had already been in India for five years, she had spent most of her time in Kerala with her married sister, before travelling north after a wedding party, where she met and fell in love with my father, Ferrers.

the state were crude: dusty, dirty and full of potholes. They had had a long ride on horseback and my mother was looking forward to washing off the filth and grime of the journey. Slipping out of her clothes and into her dressing gown she made her way to the bathhouse, situated to the side of the main bungalow, for a refreshing shower. Once inside, she disrobed and felt her way into the darkness of the interior in search of a faucet. There was no electricity installed at that time. Out of the gloom above her head came a deep disembodied voice.

Turkaulia is in Bihar, a State that borders Nepal in the North East of India and was therefore some distance “Would you like water now, Memsahib?” from the coast and a far cry from the beaches of Kerala that she was A bucket attached to a shower hose used to. Most of the roads pipe was then filled with water. I can’t around remember whether she told me she N E PA L had stayed or fled the scene before verifying these facts. However, by Turkaulia the time I was born and aware of B I H A R my surroundings a few years later, there B ANGLADES H must have been some other kind of shower arrangement in place that was less traumatic. NDIA Helen sitting on her father’s knee with the family

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Helen watching the elephants

I was born in my Uncle George’s house in Muzaffarpur, about 60 miles from Turkaulia, on April 27 1922, three years after the shower incident and two years after the arrival of my elder brother, Geoffrey. It is, obviously, a long time ago and therefore difficult to remember details with any fluency. I have, however, been able to dig out some memories, namely our daily routines, a few colourful incidents and some moments of excitement. “All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”, as Eric Morecombe once said.

above where my mother was sitting. Once spotted it was quickly dealt with by one of the household staff.

The rest of the morning was spent on my education. Initially, learning the English language because, up to the age of four, I knew more Hindi than English, and later the educational basics: reading and writing; times tables; the countries of the world and their capitals etc. We were home schooled by my mother who must have been pretty good at it because, even after all these years, I can still recite most of what I learnt. (For example: Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Sussex, Essex, Kent My daily schedule as a child was to rise about 7 am, have a quick wash and then join the rest of the family etc). We then had a substantial lunch followed by the obligatory siesta (one hour minimum), during for a ride in the cool of the early morning. Showers which time we were under strict instructions not to (mostly non traumatic) were had on our return, before the family congregated for breakfast around disturb the adults. General play under the watchful eye of our Christian ayah, Elizabeth, was next on a large circular table on the veranda. Porridge was the agenda and included sandcastle building in a the staple diet and as much as you could eat from the large basket of fresh fruit and vegetables. These large sandpit we had at the side of the house as were gathered from our garden and delivered by the a particular favourite. Tea, and then, as the heat mali (gardener) for the day’s meals. On one particular dissipated, a long walk followed by supper and then morning I came out to see a large krait (India’s most a reasonably early bedtime. Mother or Daddy would read the next exciting chapter of King Solomon’s venomous snake) sun bathing on the roller blind

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Edmond, Helen on her polo pony, and Gil

Mines or some other novel by Rider Haggard. The last thing before bedtime prayers, a goodnight kiss and lights out was the routine search of dark corners and a final prodding of the thatched roof to dislodge any dangerous creepy crawlies that had been trying to find respite from the heat of the day. The bungalow was a huge old planter’s residence situated in the middle of a large grass compound, and we could often be seen galloping over the meadows that ran alongside the bungalow in the company of my father’s chaprasis (trusted attendants), Issur Bahadur and Fattah Mohamad. My father, like the rest of the family, was very fond of animals. We had dogs, birds, ponies, otters, a mongoose and even a blue bull. I loved them all but top of the list was my ex-polo pony, Wendy. When riding out with the other children on their ponies, I towered over them. We didn’t formally entertain much but my parents kept open house and visitors were continually dropping in on us to take potluck. Kobarry, our head

man, was very efficient and always seemed to be able to organise extra meals when called upon. When we were allowed to stay up for a special dinner, Kobarry was the conductor. He would bring the meat dish round, indicating with the thumb carrying the plate, the portion allocated to you. If you made a bid for an alternative and, to your mind, a larger and Gil and Helen (centre) flanked by their siblings

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A family outing

juicier morsel, the thumb would clamp down on the chop so you couldn’t remove it from the plate. The biggest and best bits he guarded for my father and the honoured guest. On my sixth birthday we had a party. Various cousins and friends who lived within a reasonable distance were invited to the event. Two of the children who came were the notorious Hickey boys, Gilbert and his brother Edmond. They were well known to be difficult to control and full of pranks and mischief. When I heard they were coming, I remember telling my brother that we must hide our best toys. Gil’s ayah once famously complained to his father when detailed to look after him: “yah hathiyon ka kam hai!” (It’s elephant’s work!) My father was the Senior Circuit Officer for the Bettiah Raj, directly employed by the Rani family to perform a number of functions during the year. These functions ranged from moving around the villages in the area settling landlord and tenant

issues and disputes, to ensuring the area’s wells were purified against typhoid and looking after the widow Rani’s four elephants. Wagons were sent on ahead with the household staff to establish a camp made up of two large tents, and in front of them a large pit was dug for the communal fire. While my father worked, my brother and I would join with the local children, playing bicycle polo and hockey with whatever makeshift sticks we could get hold of and exploring the area with my mother. There were always strict rules we had to adhere to: never walk round in bare feet; always wear your topi (hat) in the sun; don’t touch any animal you don’t know etc. In many of the villages we passed through rabies was common, and a number of the local dogs were suffering from the disease. Once I remember my father putting me up on a wall as a rabid dog rushed past us looking agitated. He explained a dog with rabies moves straight ahead and if you stay out of his eye line you were safe. You didn’t want to get bitten as the antidote was most unpleasant. It entailed a

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painful series of injections in the stomach, something that both Gil and his brother had to endure when their parents suspected they had been in close contact with a rabid dog. ‘Mad’ elephants were another challenge for my father. Periodically bull elephants would be in musth, when reproductive hormones increased and their behaviour became highly aggressive. I remember many times he had to motor in his Ford Model T to Motihari, the nearest local town, to pick up chains to fasten to the front legs of an elephant displaying signs of musth or, more terrifyingly, one that was rampaging through villages in the area. I always thought how brave my father was to tackle these situations. These were just some of the challenges he had to deal with on his rounds. However, whenever possible, the day would end with the whole group gathered around the fire pit. My father would organise for a radio which could receive news from Britain. The sound of Big Ben ringing in the Indian night was greatly appreciated by everyone.

A shared responsibility

In the late 1960s, when Gil was Military Attaché in Kathmandu, we had the opportunity to visit our childhood haunts again. Many from our Indian households were still alive and travelled a long way to meet us. We both found it a very moving experience but times had radically changed since we had been there last. The war had had its dramatic effect on the world, India had been carved up in 1947 When I left India at the age of eight to pursue an when it gained independence, and many of those in education at a boarding school in England, I hadn’t our local communities that had been good friends imagined that I wouldn’t see India or my parents with each other were now enemies. The sixties were again for nine years. On my return in the late 1930s at the age of seventeen, a lot was different, not least also now in full swing and the young were travelling to India for an eastern spiritual awakening and because war was in the air. Since I had been away further change was on its way. the old bungalow had been completely flattened in the 1934 earthquake and a new and more modern My Indian experience was a Bihar one and although one built in its place. I spent the few months that short, was intense and unique. It was the joy and I was there playing tennis, riding, going to parties happiness of the Indian people that I shall remember and enjoying all my India had to offer. When I left most and the profound effect those eight years had Turkaulia for the last time on my return journey to England, it was Kobarry who chaperoned me on the on the rest of my life. three day journey from Muzaffarpur to Bombay to Helen Hickey catch the liner home. Many of our Christmases were spent in Triveni on the India/Nepal border, where families from all over Bihar came together. Big duck shoots were organised, gymkhanas, polo matches and children’s parties, where I recall seeing Charlie Chaplain films for the first time.

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GANDHI AND THE ADMIRAL’S DAUGHTER

hen the SS Rajputana sailed from Bombay for England, in August 1931, among the passengers were Mahatma Gandhi’s delegation for the second Round Table Conference in London. Also onboard was a young Lieutenant, Norman BaillieStewart1 of the Seaforth Highlanders. He described later how the Indian entourage included “Miss Slade, the daughter of Admiral Slade and Gandhi’s ardent English disciple. She had gone completely native, dressing in Hindu clothes and ministering to the Mahatma’s most intimate needs, including bathing his feet. The spectacle of Miss Slade, scurrying up and down the deck with goats’ milk and dates for Gandhi, angered me.”

Gandhi, at the time, was the Empire’s chief rebel. The first Round Table Conference the year before was not attended by leaders of the Indian National Congress. Many of them were in jail after Gandhi initiated the Civil Disobedience movement. Consequently, the outcomes were minimal although the British government, faced with growing disobedience in India, realized the Indian National Congress needed to be part of deciding the future of constitutional government in India. That Madeleine Slade was selected to accompany Gandhi on this historic trip is significant because she had been with him barely five years and she was the only non-Indian. Yet since arriving at the Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad, Gujarat in November 1925, she had gone from being one of Gandhi’s many devoted disciples to being his most trusted and closest. She was 33 when she walked off the P & O liner in Bombay; tall, authoritative, unmarried and, in her own words, determined “to serve the cause of oppressed India through fearless truth and nonviolence.” Upon meeting Gandhi she wrote “I was conscious of nothing but a sense of light. I fell on my knees. Hands gently raised me up, and a voice said, “You shall be my daughter.” She soon Indianised herself, wore a khadi salwar and kameez, learnt to spin, Gandhi and Mirabehn, 1938

1 Within two years of returning from his regiment in India he was to be charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

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speak Hindustani and lived in a one-room hut close to the Gandhis on one side and the Sabarmati river on the other. The ashram today is a museum and her former hut is named Mira Kutir in her honour. She accepted the name Gandhi gave her, Mira, after the medieval Rajput princess who renounced everything for God. My relationship to Madeleine Slade is on my father’s side. His mother was a Carr-Saunders and so was Madeleine’s mother, who married a Slade. We share the same lineage to Madeleine’s grandfather James Carr-Saunders who is my great-great grandfather. Madeleine had lived in India before. Her father was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Station in 1908 and she spent two years in Bombay. It was not an experience which kindled her interest in the country or the cause she later served with such devotion. Nor would she ever have thought that one day she would retire to live in Austria on an Indian government pension to which the official document categorized her status as “Political Freedom Fighter”. For her service in the cause of Indian independence she was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award for “exceptional and distinguished service”. Yet, until 1920 when she met Romain Rolland, the French author and Nobel Laureate, she had no interest in Gandhi or in the cause for which he was becoming known. Educated from the age of eight by a governess, she spent much of her time on her grandfather’s estate near Dorking, Surrey. Her father, Admiral Sir Edmond Slade, and mother were frequently abroad on naval postings. One notable highlight of Slade’s career came in 1913 when he negotiated in Tehran the purchase of a 51% stake in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, today’s BP, on behalf of the British government. The significant timing was securing control of the oilfields following a decision to convert the Royal Navy from coal to oil barely a year before war broke out.

14, her one passion was Beethoven, “It was more than music to me; it was the communication of the spirit”. She was obsessive by nature and Beethoven possessed her. During the First World War she was so irritated by the over-patriotic boycott of German composers that she stubbornly set out as a concertagent to bring Beethoven’s music back to provincial and London audiences. After the war she made a pilgrimage to Beethoven’s grave in Vienna. When she heard of Romain Rolland’s book Vie de Beethoven she knew she must journey to Lac Leman, Switzerland to meet him. After they had talked Beethoven, Rolland “mentioned a small book he had just written called Mahatma Gandhi. I looked blank. I hadn’t heard about Gandhi. ‘He is another Christ’, he said.” As soon as she had read the book, she knew she had a ‘call’ to go to Gandhi and join his cause. For the next year she set herself a vigorous training programme for life in an Indian ashram. She taught herself to spin raw cotton fibre into white cloth; became a vegetarian, gave up alcohol, disciplined herself to sit cross-legged, sleep on the floor and learnt Urdu. In June 1925 she wrote to Gandhi asking whether she could join his commune, Sabarmati ashram, and enclosed samples of cotton she had spun. On 24 July he replied “You are welcome whenever you choose to come. Only please remember that the life at the Ashram is not rosy. It is strenuous. Bodily labour is given by every inmate. The climate of the country is also not a small consideration. I mention these things not to frighten you but merely to warn you.”

Madeleline made India her home for the next 34 years of which 23 years were devoted in personal service to Gandhi. She chose not to return to England for personal visits, even when her father died in 1928, and her mother three years later. Her only sibling, Rhona, married a District Officer in the Indian It was the Romain Rolland connection which changed Civil Service. Madeleine’s life. Until then, and since the age of

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Madeleine Slade (‘Mirabehn’) on the SS Rajputana with Gandhi

Her relationship with Gandhi was as unique as it was complex. They shared many similar attributes; tough in character, stubborn, and close to nature although seemingly diametrically opposed to their emphasis on spirituality, silence and solitude as essentials for the ideal life. They soon become close. Shortly after her arrival Gandhi left on a trip. She recalled later, “This was my first separation from Bapu after reaching the Ashram, and it caused me terrible pain.” In his letter to her at the time he wrote, “You have been constantly in my thoughts. This three days’ separation is good discipline.” Many are the sources, contemporary and since, who infer there was more to the relationship than shared beliefs in a common cause. There is little doubt Madeleine was totally fixated with Gandhi to the point of obsession. She was at her happiest

by his side and always longed to be near him. This reached an intensity he sought to lessen and wrote to her in March 1927, “The parting today was sad, because I saw that I pained you. You must not cling to me in this body. The spirit without the body is ever with you.” Eventually it became too much for him, or both of them perhaps, and he found it necessary to send her to other states in India as she was becoming all-consuming in her worship of him. His justification was to give her more experience and to spread his message. Yet she still accompanied him frequently including his khadi tour of the Himalayas in 1929. Gandhi was, in many ways, a simple and direct man. His letters show that he was as afraid of and as puzzled by his own attachment to Mirabehn as she was about hers to him.

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Mirabehn with Gandhi in England, 1931

She was the only European woman who ever came so close to him: tongues wagged all over England and India from the moment the closeness of their relationship became apparent. There was even a crude limerick doing the rounds in the 1930s which an elderly family relative recounted to me that went:

There once was a man called Gandhi Who woke in the night feeling randy. He called for his maid and said, “Send me Miss Slade Or a goat if she isn’t handy” The attitude personified that of Lieutenant BaillieStewart on the SS Rajputana. Few people could have foreseen in the next decade the British leave and Gandhi dead less than a year after independence. In the course of their time together, Gandhi wrote 650 letters to his Mira. All of them ending ‘Love Bapu’. There is nothing unique in that: he signed off many of his letters in a similar way. After Gandhi’s assassination, Madeleine published a selection of Bapu’s Letters to Mira (1924–1948)’, and what is

interesting – and still not researched – are the parts she omitted as well as whole letters. Copies of the entire collection were given to me by a lady in Vienna who took it upon herself to look after Madeleine’s personal effects when she died there in 1982. The letters Madeleine wrote to her parents, as well as ones she wrote to Gandhi, are not to be found. She recorded in her diary that she wrote to her parents once a week, a collection which could amount to some 250 letters covering her formative years with Gandhi. And assuming she wrote to him more frequently as he to her, that could be some 700 letters of her inner-most thoughts. Allegedly they were destroyed after his death by his family. As Gandhi increasingly devoted all his time and energy to an intensive preparation for the coming national struggle, the constant presence of the daughter of a knighted admiral, and former Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Station, became unsettling and embarrassing to the Raj. She acted on many occasions as Gandhi’s personal courier, carrying letters or verbal messages to the

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Viceroy and other British officials. Her usefulness as a personal messenger stemmed less from political sophistication than from the Mahatma’s awareness that his admiral’s daughter was a godsend in communicating with the British establishment.

stir. She returned to India in November 1934 having raised global awareness of the cause for Indian independence and about Gandhiji’s ideas.

Mirabehn actively participated in the Quit India movement in 1942. She was sent by Gandhi to Orissa to help in preparing the people to offer Which did not keep her out of jail. When the Civil non-violent resistance to a possible Japanese Disobedience Movement resumed in 1932–33, the invasion on the Eastern coast. Then in August that Government came down heavily with repressive measures. Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned, the year, Gandhi, Mahadev Desai his faithful and longserving secretary, and Mirabehn were arrested and Congress Working Party declared illegal and all its members put behind bars. Mirabehn took up the task imprisoned in the Aga Khan Palace in Poona. Five of collecting information about the freedom struggle days later Mahadev Desai passed away. Then in a final blow to Gandhi, his wife Kasturba passed away whilst from all over the country and sending it to foreign still in confinement. He, along with Mirabehn, were countries in weekly reports. Her activities soon released in May after nearly two years in prison. attracted the attention of the intelligence agency. She was duly arrested, tried and sentenced to three Mirabehn was not with Gandhi the day he was months in the Bombay female jail in Arthur Road. Upon discharge she was served notice by the British assassinated on 30 January 1948. She had spent the month earlier with him in Birla House, Delhi, before authorities to quit Bombay and never return again. She defied the order and was arrested a month later returning to the second ashram she had established in the north since her release from captivity. It was at on the platform as the train entered the station. Pashulok just 26 miles from Dehradun. She declined Her trial lasted a week and she was sentenced to all entreaties to attend his funeral or the immersion one year’s imprisonment. Her health declined with of his ashes at the confluence of the Ganga-Yamuna frequent bouts of malaria. rivers at Allahabad. Instead, she recalled his words to her in a letter at the time of her mother’s death – After her release she returned to ministering to “There is no meaning in having the last look. The spirit Gandhi’s needs. Yet increasingly she felt his work which you love is always with you.” was being deliberately misrepresented in the West. She decided to go to England and counter the hostile It was a mark of the esteem with which the leaders British propaganda. News of her departure from India for London was widely publicized and she found of India held Mirabehn that she was later given part of Gandhi’s ashes in a little copper urn. She immersed herself competing for news-worthiness with the Prince of Wales himself. She lived and moved mostly them in the Ganga at Rishikesh close to her ashram. among working class people in England, and through her lectures, presented to the British public the true Her remaining years in India is another story, as is her time living in the hills near the birthplace of picture of the happenings in India. She met with Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary, General Smuts, Lord Beethoven where she retired in virtual solitude. Clement Atlee and Sir Winston Churchill who told her Her manuscript on the life and works of Beethoven “An Indian nation does not exist as a nation”, referring remains unpublished. She was looked after to to the religious divisions and the way the country had the end by Datt, her devoted Indian bearer. It was Datt who carried her ashes to India and immersed always been divided into small states in the past. them in the Ganga at Rishikesh at the same spot as Gandhi’s. From London she proceeded to America and in bare sandalled feet met Mrs Roosevelt at the Charles Blackmore White House. Her presence in America caused a

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Captain Hari Ahluwalia (left) and Phu Dorjee on the summit of Mount Everest, 29 May 1965 and a commemorative stamp of the Indian Everest Expedition

HARI I first met Hari many years ago in Delhi, having been introduced at long range by Lt Colonel SS Singh – ‘SS’ to his friends – then commanding the Indian Army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Kashmir. Hari, too, became a friend and, thereafter, on any business trip I made to Delhi a meal together, with Bholi, his wife, and others was mandatory. A big man, in every sense of the word and now aged 83, Hari still works, writes, and serves as an inspiration to many, not only in India but across the world. In this piece, written in Delhi on my retirement trip in January 1995, you may see why he has long been, is, and always will be, a hero of mine.

early 30 years ago, on 29 May 1965, Captain Hari Ahluwalia of the Indian Army stood on the summit of Everest, thus becoming the first Indian and 21st recorded person to do so. At 29 he was young for a summiteer of the world’s highest peak, conventional wisdom of the time having it that the prime age and maturity for this feat was plus or minus 35 years of age. As he remarks laconically, however, doing it

early has given him time to do a great many other things since. I’ll say. His first book, Higher than Everest, was published in 1973, five years after he left the Army. For 27 years he has worked at a Ministry in Delhi; he has written or produced in pictures 12 more books; with Bholi he has been on several expeditions, including one to Ladakh in India’s difficult north-west and, just last

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year, they spent two and a half months exploring a major portion of the ancient Silk Road. It took five years from concept to actuality to mount that one; the Chinese were reluctant to grant the necessary permits until Deng Pufan, son of a more famous Deng, weighed in with some help. And the logistics were awesome, beginning with the airlift of vehicles, stores and personnel to Tashkent before the expedition proper could begin. Subsequently, 20 scholars, drivers, mechanics, film crew, Hari and Bholi covered thousands of kilometres on a journey primarily conceived to rediscover ancient cultural links and to make the kind of direct, people to people contact that existed between traders, travellers and town folk along the famous route. This group of modern travellers visited places whose names ring with romance and ancient history: Samarkand, Bukhara, Kashgar, the Gobi and Taklamaken deserts, Duhuang and its newly discovered Buddhist caves, Xian and its terra cotta army, Chengdu and even Lhasa, before exiting via the road to Kathmandu and back to Delhi. © Indian Spinal Injuries Centre

Major Ahluwalia (centre) in his Army days

Major Hari Pal Singh Ahluwali

It is huge fun to be with Hari – and tiring. His mind is never still: he has opinions to offer if he has considered a subject; he has humour; he has projects and plans swirling in his head or actually in process, that leave lesser mortals floundering in the wake of his enormous energy. His latest project which will surely be the most enduring, is the building and running of the $40,000,000 Indian Spinal Injury Centre in New Delhi, the biggest in the country and one of the most modern in the world. To this non-profit making facility will be brought the seriously injured for diagnosis, emergency treatment, surgery and the whole complex gamut of rehabilitation: physical, psycho-social, occupational and sexual. Family rehabilitation will also take place, to prepare close relatives for the enormous change in circumstances occasioned by paraplegia, quadriplegia, or the lesser effects of spinal injuries, incapacity and the associated trauma. To everyone’s credit, the intention is that 30% or so of patients will be those simply unable to afford it, who would

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The Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, New Delhi

otherwise be even more seriously disadvantaged. Of the $40 million needed, $25 million has so far been raised; the hospital has taken shape to the extent that the first outpatients will begin treatment and therapy in February; and the full 60 in-patient facilities will open in September. The Centre has plans to take its skills elsewhere in India, to provide training for other less well-equipped hospitals and teams, to cost the upgrading of those places and make recommendations to the Indian Government so that paraplegia and quadriplegia are less dreaded than they are today. Quite a project.

To supervise all this as Managing Trustee, Hari is about to leave his job at the Ministry and will work without pay for the Trust which has been set up to administer the Centre. He will always have other interests – filling less than 16 hours a day is anathema to him – but the Centre will receive his main focus. And who better? For Hari himself has not walked in 29 years, nor will he ever do so. You see, in September 1965, four months after climbing Everest, he was shot and wounded in Kashmir and has been a paraplegic ever since. Now this astonishing man will devote the rest of his life to his fellow sufferers, using all his energy, all his clout and all his vision on their behalf. In my book, it’s Hari who stands higher than Everest! Jack Keen

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POODLE-FAKING ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD

hen I joined the 2nd Battalion all the other officers had previously served in the Indian Army and there was often talk in the Mess of the opportunities for travel around India during annual leave. It was apparent that officers were encouraged to do enterprising things on leave and that did not include “poodle-faking” in Calcutta or other similar dens of iniquity. UK leave was only granted after seven years’ service, meanwhile there were endless opportunities to go exploring or climbing in beautiful and remote areas. There was much talk of the stunning Vale of Kashmir, often the start and finish points for trekking in the surrounding mountains. All this talk of the Shalimar Gardens and houseboats on the Dal Lake lay dormant in my mind until one day a casual word brought it all into sharp focus. So why not put together a group to travel to Srinagar,

spend a few days on a houseboat, trek in the Kashmir Mountains and tie this all in with a trip to Ladakh, part of the State of Jammu Kashmir but really on the western end of Buddhism’s Tibetan Plateau. The people of Kashmir itself are about 75% Muslim although the state found itself part of Hindu India, and some of the mountain areas are still in dispute with Pakistan, one of the sad reminders of Partition. It would also enable us to interact with three very different religions at close quarters. It was a new area for me but I had a good contact in Delhi, with whom I had worked before and who put together a package for my unusual group of 10 ladies, including Cynthia, and only one other man to keep me company. My neighbour Donna Sadkha and three more of her feisty journo friends had decided to join us and I wondered if I knew what I was getting myself into.

David and the ladies breakfasting on the houseboat roof, Nageen Lake, Srinagar

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Mr Bulbul the flower seller in his shikara

David was a delightful chap and worked with Cynthia as the accountant of Silver Chain. We flew into Srinagar in the Vale of Kashmir which was absolutely beautiful, complete with distant mountains soon to be snow capped, we were taken directly to our two houseboats on Nageen Lake, which is smaller than Dal Lake but connected to it. Houseboats, it is believed, were introduced into Kashmir by the British who were not allowed to buy land, so came up with the novel idea of building luxurious houseboats, many of which rarely moved from their moorings on the banks of either of the two main lakes, to use as a holiday refuge from the hot weather in the plains. Our two houseboats were sheer delight, plenty of space, generous bedrooms with elegant beds and hangings, beautiful carpets everywhere and marvellous rooftop gardens all to ourselves. Wonderful local meals were prepared for us and a wide range of alcoholic drinks were available, even in this mainly Muslim state.

and consummate salesmen. Many of the shikaras displayed a placard with the owner’s name and our two favourites were competing sellers, Mr Marvellous and Mr Bulbul, whose shikaras were absolutely laden with the most stunning collection of fresh flowers and fruit. “Buy my lovely red roses for your lady and she will love you for ever”, or “No, no. Buy my fresh pink pomegranates for your Lady and she will be kind to you tonight”. They were probably brothers and in it together. There could be no excuse for not buying Cynthia flowers everyday (perhaps with a few pomegranates thrown in), making up for all those missed events like the birth of our sons and all those other birthdays when I had been away on Ops or an Army Course or perhaps had just forgotten (perish the thought), so many black marks for which to atone if I am to go to Heaven. We actually had a large patch of lotus flowering in the lake right beside our new Muslim-run residence.

Small shikaras, paddled from the stern, leisurely made their way around the lake, some fishing, some collecting lotus leaves and others selling their many different wares to whomsoever showed the slightest interest and many who didn’t. They were charming

“Om Mane Padme Hum” is a much used Buddhist mantra, which I have heard many times in Nepal, meaning roughly, “the jewel in the heart of the lotus” which reveres the lotus for its ability to rise from the mud and produce a beautiful flower,

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The Expedition’s Kashmiri pony-men

Descending to the Srinagar-Leh Road

suggesting, perhaps, that man can do so too if he tries hard enough. I’ve always found Buddhism to be a gentle religion, though it is perhaps more a belief with a pathway for a ‘right life’ than a religion. This was surely a good omen for us, even in a country where the Muslim majority was not at peace with the ruling Hindu minority. Years later in Buddhist Myanmar, where the Buddhists are not at peace with the Muslims, on amazing Inle Lake in the Shan Hills, Cynthia and I saw the fibres in the lotus stalks being processed into thread finer and stronger than silk, but that is another story.

Chinar trees and the distant snow-clad mountains, all unimaginably peaceful, so unusual in India. I loved the haunting call of the Muezzin summoning the faithful to dawn prayers as it travelled as clear as a bell across the lake, but I also loved being able to turn over and go back to sleep, knowing the call was not for me, I had lived in Malaya for nine years where it had been part of my life. The call across Nageen Lake was only surpassed when Cynthia and I lived in a lodging house garret directly opposite the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and where the Muezzin was surely hiding under our bed.

I’ve always been interested in the great Mughal builders and Srinagar is home to two of the most beautiful Persian style gardens built by them, both located on the shores of Dal Lake. Shalimar Bagh, the better known, was built in the early 1600s by Emperor Jahangir for his wife Nur Jahan (Light of the World, how lovely) and smaller Nishat Bagh (my favourite) was built by Asif Khan, father in law of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal. We visited both in a leisurely manner in three shikaras giving us ample time to absorb the beauty of the lake, the small island, centrally placed, with its crown of

Pahalgam was to be our trek start point and our Sirdar introduced me to our head pony-man and his team and a likely looking lot of cut throats they appeared to be, no smiling Pokhara porters or docile yaks as we used in the Khumbu, in Kashmir. The gear was loaded on the ponies, always leaving three spare for us to take turns in riding if we wished. The route led us beside a lovely small river with waterfalls, through sweet smelling pine woods and as we got the hang of things even the pony-men started to smile, while the cook’s team amazed us at every meal. So things were going well except that one of

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Donna’s independent journo friends couldn’t tolerate our relatively slow pace and kept getting way ahead. She didn’t heed my warning that she might easily go the wrong way and be lost forever, so I hatched a plot with our sirdar who warned her that the surrounding mountains were full of badmash who would just love to capture and rob (and even worse) a white woman and with a graphic drawing of his finger across his throat indicated her inevitable end. Just one glance at the villainous looking pony-men made this unlikely story seem very believable and we had no more trouble with the lady. We walked in these idyllic conditions for about a week with lots of ups and downs but no serious climbs, finding beautiful campsites by the river. We then started to climb more noticeably as we had to

Lamayuru Monastery (3,510 m), near Leh

cross quite a high range, before descending to the Srinagar to Leh road to meet up with our bus to take us to isolated Ladakh, behind the Himalaya and on the Tibetan Plateau. The weather started to break up as we approached the pass through the range and it started to snow quite heavily. As we stood at the head of the pass looking at the track winding below, by some quirk of the wind, the snow was falling upwards, a new experience for us all. We made our way down to the road with some difficulty and there was our battered bus. We bade farewell to our pony-men who, suitably impressed with our bakshish smiled happily, revealing as wicked a collection of teeth as you are likely to see anywhere. Our sirdar joined us as our mentor for the second half of our journey.

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The road to Leh, the capital of Ladakh, is controlled by the Indian Army as it passes near to the ”Line of Control” as this unsettled border with Pakistan is called. It crosses three significantly high passes as it twists and turns on itself gradually climbing onto the western end of the Tibetan plateau. For long stretches it is one way only and every vehicle has to wait, perhaps several hours, for the Down or the Up Convoy to pass before being allowed to start what may fairly be described as a perilous journey, I counted 22 successive hairpin bends in one sector. My friend David hadn’t warned me he suffered from vertigo, indeed perhaps until he came on this trip he didn’t know, but now he was really struggling. At one point we came round a horrible bend to find the road was being resurfaced by a gang of very dark workmen from Gujarat in the plains of India. They had fires going

under several 44-gallon drums of tar that they were melting and spreading on the road before scattering stones. The combination of the acrid, dense black smoke and the flames, with the gang, silhouetted as they moved in and out of view, was surely like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. We had no choice but to wait until allowed to pass so we all got out to take a walk away from the smoke. I walked with David trying to convince him it was safe and that dozens of vehicles used the road on a daily basis, unfortunately I glanced over the edge and there below us was a bus like ours in the valley with its wheels in the air, David saw it too, just what I didn’t need at that moment. After a substantial delay we were allowed to pass and the workmen gave us a friendly wave and a flash of pearly white teeth. David said he was not coming back this way and I had to get him out.

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We were not really very far East of Skardu (or Shangri La as it was sometimes called) in Baltistan where I had previously taken Cynthia and a group when we travelled up the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan, after a visit to the Regiment’s pre-Partition depot in Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was later found and killed, on through Gilgit and Hunza to the Chinese border. In Ladakh too the country is dry and rugged but with the occasional lovely green valley, often with water led from afar in ancient man-made waterways hewed out across steep rock faces, how did they do it? We stopped to visit dramatic Lamayura perched on an outcrop at some 3,500 m, one of the oldest Bon monasteries in Ladakh, formerly home to about 400 monks it now houses only 150, which is still a lot of monks, just think of all that chanting. As we stood in the main courtyard, scene of its famous masked dance festival, we could hear the women singing as they worked in the monastery fields below. The paintings in the principal rooms of this very holy place are astonishing and perched, as it is, on a bare mountain crag it must be one of the world’s most impressive sights.

We soon arrived safely in Leh and I breathed a sigh of relief, although I now had to face up to the problem of how to get David out. By air was the only answer, so I thought I had better get on with it. Enquiries indicated there was a backlog of passengers trying to get a seat on one of the very few flights out of Leh as winter was approaching and the road over the high passes, especially the Zoji La, at 3,525 m the highest of the three, which we had just crossed, might soon be closed. I noticed a back gate to the Airport Terminal building guarded by a sentry, I explained to him I had been a soldier too and after a few more words some money passed hands with a promise of some more if, just if, he could find someone to produce a ticket to Srinagar. They say money talks and indeed I got a very relieved David a ticket (I guess my new soldier friend split the money with his accomplice) and he flew back to languish in houseboat luxury until our return about a week later. I felt quite bad about it, I’d never taken part in bribery before and I learnt that a Frenchman who had been bumped off his top place on the wait list had heard

Ladakhi Ladies selling vegetables in Leh – the true home of the Top Hat

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‘Baldy’ the bus edging past the Up Convoy

a rumour and was looking for a Gurkha Officer to assault. I kept a low profile in Leh, well as far as you can when you are in charge of ten bolshie Australian ladies who thought it was all a great joke – but none of whom risked being beaten up by a justifiably angry Frenchman if found. Ladakh is virtually treeless but the mighty Indus, which we had followed for much of our sometimes hair-raising journey in Pakistan, flows close to Leh through the valley and is a lifeline for the vital agricultural production. We travelled to the fabulous twelve storey Thikse Gompa, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is a smaller replica of the Potala Palace in Lhasa and then the equally impressive Shey Gompa, one could but marvel at the construction of these amazing buildings, with their wonderful paintings and endless statues of Buddha in this remote region. One lunch time we were walking to a local restaurant for a light meal of heavy-duty Tibetan momos when one of the girls said, “look at those people doing their washing in the drain”. “Ugh”, they all thought, but as we got closer the girls started to recognise their own undies and other

items, some already laid out on nearby rocks to dry! I had a quiet giggle as more items were recognised giving me quite a different slant on some of my lady trekkers. My undies looked vey drab by comparison, but I didn’t care. Perhaps they fondly imagined their dhobi was being taken care of in some kind of Tibetan washing machine possibly stirred by a novice monk. The weather forecast predicted further early snow; the three high passes are often snowed in cutting the Leh to Srinagar road for months, so we decided we would leave promptly the next day. As we were loading some of our gear one of the girls said why don’t they have treads on their tyres in Kashmir like we do. I took a look and she was right, they were all quite bald, I wished she hadn’t noticed until we had got back to Srinagar. As we were preparing to leave three young English backpackers came up and asked if we could give them a lift in our battered bus, now inevitably renamed Baldy, as they were so far down the wait-list they had no chance of a flight. Our insurance policy forbade us from picking up hitch hikers, but what could one say to three pretty young

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girls, all with lovely smiles, stranded on the western end of the Tibetan Plateau with more winter snow approaching, surely nothing but “hop in”, so they did and I now had thirteen women to get home safely and only my trusty Sirdar and our fearless driver to assist me. Talk about a sucker for punishment! We headed off and all was going well, in the vicinity of Kargil we again safely passed through an Indian Army Artillery Regiment deployed in gun positions on either side of the road. Tension between India and Pakistan was still running high with frequent skirmishes on the Siachen Glacier, at about 5,400 m the highest point of conflict in the world. The Up Convoy had just cleared the start of the long one way part of this heart stopping road, so we sailed through with our Baldy as the lead vehicle of the Down Convoy, morale was high as my ladies enjoyed the magnificent views and tried not to look down into the river alarmingly far below. We came round a corner to be confronted by an Army truck, remnant of the Up Convoy broken down on the inside of the road, leaving us, all holding our breath, to teeter past on the outside, which our driver was doing successfully as we bumped along the first couple of the trucks side canopy rails until our roof rack got caught in one of them and refused to budge.

controlled manner we could do it, although it took a while. All the girls managed wonderfully though it was an extremely dangerous situation with a 350 m or more drop into the river below, I was very proud of them and even my four journos had obeyed orders for a change, imagine the headlines if they had gone over the edge. While they all took a breather the sirdar gathered up some locals from the following vehicles and as our driver moved the bus slowly forward the men gently rocked it so the roof rack disengaged and rocked it again as our empty bus scraped past each of the remaining canopy rails, they had to be careful not to rock the bus too far! I didn’t think the girls would have enjoyed being in the bus during this dodgy exercise and if it had been rocked just a bit too far it would have been curtains for a lot of pretty faces. I thought the driver deserved a medal for the way he handled it throughout, but perhaps he had done it before and that was why Baldy was so was battered. I have to say I was glad David missed the fun.

With thanks all round and lots of smiles we set off confident we were on the home straight until we heard a loud noise and came round the corner to be confronted by landslide still cascading across the road with boulders bounding into the river and dust rising everywhere. As it started to settle a group of six road workers, armed only with shovels and crowbars We were stuck on the very edge of a hideous appeared, obviously almost as startled as we were. precipice, all too obvious to my thirteen ladies. I Their foreman explained to the sirdar and others from moved them quietly to the landward side of the bus our following vehicles that they were widening the and got out of the front door and asked the sirdar road and the blasting was meant to have occurred to step out with me while the driver remained at the after the Down Convoy had passed giving them time wheel. I decided the only answer was to get them to clear the road before dark, obviously something out one at a time before we tried to move the bus. Unfortunately the bus door was hinged on the forward had gone very wrong! They also lamented that the bulldozer hadn’t arrived yet, as we were a long way edge so as each came out I had to hold her hand from anywhere in both directions, I didn’t ask from and facing inwards of course, we moved sideways whence it was coming, the prospect of meeting a away from the door so that the sirdar could push bulldozer on this road was somewhat daunting. I the door shut, then I could again hold the individual’s didn’t encourage the girls to think what might have hand as she inched past the door, moving towards happened if we had been just a few minutes earlier, the front wheel and then, holding the underside of maybe the previous incident with the truck had been the wheel arch, on towards the sirdar’s waiting hand a blessing in disguise or had the delay caused the and off the crumbling edge onto the road proper. I problem? However, we were all on the wrong side of a asked them not to look down as they executed this landslide and turning the whole convoy round on this tricky manoeuvre. Fortunately, I have a good head narrow road and scraping past the broken-down truck for heights and knew if we did this in a carefully

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Inside Lamayuru Monastery

beside her. Anna, originally from Germany, had lived in Perth for many years and, like Cynthia, was a nurse. She told me she had a poor head for heights and was still shaking after the last event. I got her talking and we discovered that while I had grown up in the Blitz in London she had done the same in Berlin and we were soon comparing and laughing about our wartime experiences, fortunately she had escaped Berlin’s final trauma, soon she was fine, funny how these things happen. She was a delightful lady and later she often came round for coffee. We reached our two lovely houseboats on idyllic Nageen Lake a little before dark and celebrated our safe arrival in suitably alcoholic style. There was room on board for the three young English girls who had shaped up well during our exciting ride and who were appointed honorary Aussies and put on our account, with some stories to tell when they eventually got home. We decided not to tell David what fun he had missed but during the course of the evening he realised the journey had been something rather special.

again and then going back to Leh wasn’t an option. So Later, Cynthia and I sat in armchairs on the upper we clearly had a problem and not many daylight hours deck with an Indian brandy each, looking at the moon shining over the distant, now snowclad, peaks in which to sort it, so we had better get on with it. enjoying the silence. Knowing full well more snow We formed the men in the convoy into teams to start might soon close the high passes I breathed a sigh of relief. I wondered what was it about the Himalaya and rolling the bigger boulders over the edge and indeed indeed mountains in general that mesmerised me so, some of the ladies peering over the edge enjoyed watching them bouncing down to the river, meanwhile starting way back in the Alps when I was at Sandhurst others dealt with the smaller rocks and the workmen and much later Kinabalu and Merapi in Java. Why used their shovels and crowbars to good effect. Men couldn’t Cynthia and I spend the rest of our days just from all the vehicles behind us helped willingly, if only living luxuriously on a Kashmiri houseboat, far away from our frenetic world, with the haunting call of the because it was quite apparent that no vehicle could muezzin summoning the faithful to morning prayer move until we did. Soon it was safe enough to get across the dawn stillness of the lake, knowing we were my team out of the bus and lead them across the exempt, and then jousting daily with Mr Marvellous remaining rubble onto the road with the suggestion that they might like to walk a little way just to stretch and Mr Bulbul, their shikaras tied up alongside, as they offered us bargain prices for their fresh flowers and their legs and get their breath back and recover fruit, hopefully with a few pomegranates thrown in? from the second terrifying experience in 20 minutes. Well, I guess I thought about it but I hardly need say it Our driver earned a bar to his previous medal as he skilfully drove the empty bus, leaning at a crazy angle, didn’t happen, but I did wonder if perhaps I should stop taking groups away on these dodgy trips – that didn’t across the part-cleared, man-induced landslide. happen either, at least not for several more years. The rest of the journey was uneventful although I Neil Anderson noticed one of my ladies looking distressed so I sat

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A Jungle River in North East India

THE BEST JOB IN INDIA

he best job in India, as only the cognoscenti know, is – not in government, the army, the railways, as box wallah or maharajah – but a career in tea. And the best place in tea – not in the Nilgiris, although pleasant enough, nor in hilly Darjeeling, nor the plains of the Dooars – but Assam with its plentiful shikar and unspoilt mahseer rivers.

My father, James (Jimmy) Beven, began his career in tea by responding to an advert in Engineer Magazine seeking an assistant engineer to look after the machinery used to manufacture tea. At the time he was still doing his National Service in the Royal Navy torpedo development centre at the Admiralty Research Laboratory at Teddington. He had applied half in jest never expecting a reply, but much to his surprise got the job, embarking by ship for India as a young man in the early 1950’s. Although a skilled engineer he came from a

relatively humble background. His father had been the maintenance engineer at Watts Naval Training School in North Elmham, Norfolk. My father had been a teenager during the War. Even then he enjoyed shikar, roaming the Norfolk fields with a muzzle loading gun, bagging rabbit and pheasant for the pot, and fishing for eels and pike in the River Wensum. His first Assistant Engineer post was in Chandighat, Silchar, close to the border of what was then East Pakistan. Shortly after his arrival a piece of machinery in the tea factory broke; fixing it required the manufacture of a cast, something that usually necessitated repair in far-away Calcutta. My father was confident that he could fix it. An unbelieving manager told him there was a bottle of whiskey in it if he could; he did. It was in Silchar, I think, that he also had to confront a rogue elephant that had killed a number of workers on the estate. My father bought or borrowed an

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wallahs, sweepers, malis, a dhobi wallah and an ex-Indian Army Gurkha who was our chowkidar. My mother, because of her innate kindness and medical proficiency, was a much-loved major-domo of a large household. Unsurprisingly, our first language was the basic Hindi of the tea plantation workers, Over the years Dad climbed the slow promotion most of whom were transplanted tribals from Orissa ladder from Assistant Engineer to Assistant Manager State, who had been relocated by the British in the to Manager of his own tea estate. He also moved nineteenth century to pick tea. estates, steadily heading to better hunting grounds in north east Assam. Beyond the estate was wild, hilly I can still remember my father’s daily routine. He jungle country, then just delineated as North East would drive off in his jeep before 7 am to visit the Frontier Agency (NEFA). factory and tea plantations, reappearing before 9 for a substantial breakfast. In the cool weather this would Along the way he married our mother, Jean (nee sometimes be served on the lawn, with convoys of Filshill), who was then Deputy Matron of the Burma bearers bringing porridge, rumble tumble (scrambled Oil Refinery Hospital at Digboi. It was in this hospital egg) and toast on trays. He would then return to work, that my brother and I were born. Shortly after my returning at midday for lunch. A large glass of nimbu arrival in November 1962, the Chinese invaded India; pani always awaited him. There was then a siesta along with many other British residents my mother until 2 pm, after which he returned to work. At 5 pm and I were evacuated by air from Calcutta back to he would return to my mother’s legendary afternoon the UK; we spent a year living with friends in Norfolk. teas: scones, cheese sticks, cucumber sandwiches, My father stayed to look after the tea plantation; so gypsy creams, a Victoria cake. He would then potter close did the Chinese come to it he remembered hearing the sound of artillery on the front lines. It was not the Indian Army’s finest hour but, just as suddenly as they had attacked, the Chinese withdrew although they still hold vast tracts of Ladakh that they claim as their own. elephant gun and shot it; he cannot have been more than 22 years old. As a young child I can remember a hollowed-out elephant foot used as a dustbin next to the lathes in his workshop. There was also a large tusk, sections of which still serve as bookends.

For most of my childhood, before I was sent to boarding school in Sussex, we lived in a large bungalow on a hill overlooking the Dehing river. On one side was the tea factory, whose claxon sounded at the start and end of the day’s work. Beyond it were the tea plantations shimmering in heat haze, their shade trees full of birds, the sound of cicadas deafening in the afternoons. Beyond the tea was jungle that climbed shallow hills into the mountains of Nagaland. At weekends, on bazaar days, Naga men and women, naked except for loin cloths, walked out of the jungle carrying dokos of vegetables and other jungle delicacies to sell. The bungalow came with a large garden and a panoply of servants: a cook, ayahs, bearers, pani

My parents

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The Editor (right) with his brother and friend (The WW2 Dodge Command Car behind)

in his workshop until it was time to dress for dinner (always); the latter a full-blown affair preceded by a pink gin and followed by at least three courses served at table in the dining room. There were often visitors to entertain as well as weekly visits to the Club, which served as a mess, nursery, sports club and cinema. Shikar was plentiful; returning home for holidays as teenagers we joined the managers and assistant managers shooting green pigeon as they returned to roost in the evening. A line of guns would wait for these beautiful birds flying fast and low in small flocks across the tea bushes. Or there would be trips into the jungle after the higher-flying Imperial pigeon or a much-prized jungli murghi. On my thirteenth birthday I got a BSA .177 air rifle and we would venture out in my father’s converted WW2 Dodge Command Car whose front window could be raised up, allowing me to shoot doves gritting on the tarmac roads at dawn. These were later served up in soups or terrines in the evening.

My father’s real passion was fishing, especially for mahseer, a fish that Rudyard Kipling described as “beside whom the Tarpon is a Herring and he who catches him can say he is a fisherman.” He built his own aluminium canoe and for many years had his own boatmen, who accompanied him on long trips into the jungle, leaving the house before dawn and returning late at night. Usually, these trips were up the Tirap river, which was on the boundary of NEFA and looked similar to the painting of the river at the start of this article. My brother and I awaited his return: a good day meant the back of the Dodge would be awash with fish, mostly mahseer. Once he came back with an otter that had refused to relinquish a fish my father had already caught (it lived in our fishpond for a week before its plaintive cries led to its release). Our staff too would wait patiently in the cookhouse to divvy up the catch: mahseer was not good eating, at least to Western palates, but was a welcome addition to their curries. My father would have a tot

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My fathers’ boatmen: Suktu and Himu (holding the mahseer) (The Editor from an early age showing his predilection for a career in a Rifle Regiment)

My mother counting all present on one our camping expeditions (Our ayah, Miriam, in attendance of my brother and I)

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Men of tea (my father third from left, to his right is Superintendent J. P. F. Furst, ex Assam Regiment, who assisted 6 GR’s 175th anniversary expedition to Kohima and Imphal)

of rum on our veranda with the boatmen before they responsible for a labour force of over 1,000, their families, a factory and annual production which even went home with their share of the catch. then was over £1M annually, a small hospital, even an elephant (at Bogapani) whose daily duty was to push Tea planters only got home leave every three years; a railway waggon of tea chests up a siding from the leave in the intervening years had to be taken in factory to the main railway line. On pay days a bus full country. This meant major camping expeditions on of workers, armed with bows and arrows, used to go good fishing rivers with a sizeable proportion of to the district town to draw money from the bank to our household staff relocating with us to live under pay the estate staff. canvas. My father would spend the days fishing; my mother would read and write letters: a canoe being My father did not have an unremarkable life; he was dispatched daily downstream to drop off and pick one of the very last British tea planters to have the up mail at the roadhead. My brother and I – an ayah privilege to live and work in India. He lived a lifestyle in attendance on each of us – would spend the day that was frankly unimaginable in the UK; his passion playing on the sandbanks of the river. One year we went to the Manas National Park on the boundary of for shooting and fishing were well catered to. His India and Bhutan; Dad fishing both sides of the border, knowledge of fishing for mahseer was immense. He had many friends in tea who he remained in touch the mahseer being unaware of national boundaries. with long after retiring. Within a few hours of news Often in Assam we would share our jungle home of his death reaching India there were over 100 with elephant catchers, the mahouts who would go out to catch and then tame wild elephants. We were comments on social media remembering him fondly. welcome in their camps as Dad was generous with When a manager of a tea estate dies it is a tradition gifts of tea, an expensive luxury to them. that the gong in his old tea factory is rung to inform all the estate staff that one of their own has passed away. My father spent over thirty years as a tea planter Through friends I asked if this could happen on the day in Assam, leaving in 1983 for a short tenure as a tea of my father’s funeral. On that day I was duly informed planter in the Kericho Highlands in Kenya before by WhatsApp that the gong at Bogapani had been rung. he retired to Norfolk. During the years in Assam he worked on tea estates at Chandighat, Ledo, Namdang, Rick Beven Bogapani and Margherita. As manager he was

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SEEKING A HAT FELT GURKHA

Author leading Attestation Parade at British Gurkhas Pokhara, 1989

sk what is the symbol of the Brigade of Gurkhas and the answer will probably be the kukri. But a kukri can be easily acquired and is sometimes used by other troops. It is the Hat Felt Gurkha, issued, not bought, and unlike any other British army head dress, has been unique to us for more than a hundred years. It has a style and romance of its own. It was a long time into my service before I acquired mine and it has never been worn in public. It is unfinished business. Commissioned into the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a week or so at Church Crookham and straight to Belize for the 1988 tour. Tropical kit issued, kukri acquired, but no Hat Felt Gurkha yet. A few days at Airport camp and an interview with Gurkha Major Chintabahadur Saheb. He cautioned this overawed young officer to remember that among Gurkhas there were still “the good, the bad and the ugly.” A night out in Belize City and a brush with the RMP: being dressed down for having sleeves rolled up. It was a mosquito thing. Then on to Holdfast Camp and D Company under Patrick Gouldsbury.

Patrick was remote and our contact was largely confined to basketball which, for him, was very much a contact sport. There were some 7 RHA officers and a cavalry subaltern in the mess. The gunners were celebrating their re-naming as 7 PARA (all capitals!) and were being more “para” than the paras. Their drinking games were enforced by chloroquineeating “punishments”. There were no other 6 GR British Officers to play with – it was good for the Nepali. As company officer I spent my time on jungle patrol or exercise under the eyes of company 2 i/c Gumansing Saheb and in the benevolent care of platoon commander Naresh Saheb, my all-thingsGurkha guruji. The only head dress was the beret with its bestin-the-army cap badge and the jungle hat with its Roman numeral VI patch. Not a Hat Felt Gurkha in sight. Later, a move to Salamanca Camp to C Company with Paddy Grant who had succeeded Jeremy Brade. Along with Mark Benton, we formed the Officers’ Mess in that remote spot of the former empire. A fine

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bulwark against the marauding Guatemalan host. Entertainment consisted of trying, unsuccessfully, to tune the satellite TV. We also tried, unsuccessfully, not to tread on the biblical carpet of little frogs that appeared on the paths when it rained. It rained a lot.

most suitable basha-wood denuding the surrounding jungle of supplies. Perhaps I was just slow.

At the end of the tour it was time for the language course: back through Crookham and on to TDBG. Hong Kong stunned this Englishman abroad who was looking forward to meeting more Rifle Regiment A week manning the Observation Post on Hunting subalterns on the course. But no, they were engineer Caye with a section of men. The mission, to record the ships going to the city of Puerto Barrios. Perhaps and signals captains and a delightful Ulster-born warrant officer PTI. The only other TDBG mess some intelligence analyst really did examine our inhabitant was an Argyll on attachment to the depot log sheets to identify a build-up of Guatemalan and we were honoured to be looked after by the materiel in readiness for territorial acquisition. Or perhaps the sheets just went into a cabinet. We had mess chief, the WWII veteran muleteer known simply the services of a Royal Engineer lance corporal who as “No.1”. drove our assault boat. ‘Moral courage’ lectures fresh No Hats Felt Gurkha to be seen on the language in the mind, I upset the boatman by insisting on kit inspection parades and the wearing of correct dress course. We did play a lot of croquet in the late rather than swimming shorts. There was a stand-off and then we came to an accommodation. He wore what he liked. The only use for the boat was to take us on jollies to the nearby cayes and to provide a fishing platform. We lunched on conch stew and dined on grilled barracuda. One of the few ships we observed in fact arrived at the next-door island. It was an old coaster and we went over to find it had been re-purposed as a party boat for fifty El Salvadoreans. They had come overland via Honduras to the Caribbean for a few days’ respite from the horrors of civil war. They played volleyball, drank plenty of beer, smoked big cigars and possessed a huge cube of ice. The giant block had been swung off the ship by derrick and was kept like a religious artefact in its own tabernacle – a big tarp – in the shade of the palms. It didn’t seem to melt very much given the 80 degree heat and provided all the refrigeration and beercooling required for their stay. Back to the jungle for more patrols. Another ‘moral courage’ issue with a pot-smoking Mayan soldier of the Belize Defence Force. We came to an accommodation. He smoked what he liked (but out of sight). There were no Hats Felt Gurkha but there was a deep kukri-wound constructing an A-frame basha. How quickly Gurkha riflemen harvest the

Author on Duty Trek

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afternoon shadows of Ti Mo Shan. The depot CO was quite the hoop-game devotee and required us language students to provide his opposition. We tried not to giggle. A Nepal trek followed and a bizarre episode. It was two days east of Palpa Area Welfare Centre and we crossed the Kali river in a hollowed-out log canoe. Toiling up the valley-side my lance corporal guide and the porters became extremely agitated. Enquiries established that they were very worried about passing through the next village whose inhabitants were widely reputed to be most hostile. The hostility was manifest in the tradition of poisoning strangers on certain carefully calculated dates. My trek-mates insisted that we were indeed strangers and that, yes, calculations showed that a poisoning was due today. Their fear was genuine and contagious. I didn’t disbelieve them but the practicalities meant we had to pass through or fail to complete the trek and its welfare tasks. I cajoled them to press on with an agreement that there would be no talk, no eye contact, no acceptance of offerings, nothing touched and no deviation from the path. We went through at a near run, eyes front, dokos creaking and necks straining, mess tins jangling. We all made it back to Pokhara alive. It was quite un-nerving but a helpful cultural insight. The Platoon Commander’s Battle Course came next and then perhaps it was time to re-join the regiment and acquire the hat. But orders sent me straight back to Nepal for the privilege of serving as Recruit Conducting Officer for the 1989 intake. It entailed a couple of months at Pokhara in a glorious sinecure as commander of the recruit cadre during final selection. Capable and experienced QGOs and NCOs really ran the show and the RCO did not have a formal role in the testing process. In scenes my grandparents would have recognised from their evenings at the Tollygunge Club in 1930s Calcutta, our evenings were spent drinking brandy and soda while playing whist on the mess patio and putting “chilli sherry” on our supper as the alpen-glow turned Machhapuchhare orange.

The job did, however, require a crash course in Gurkha drill for the RCO commanding the attestation parade which included a march past. It was the culmination of the annual recruiting effort, and while the QGOs and Pokhara 2 i/c (our own Doug Maclean) were togged in No.6 dress and Hats Felt Gurkha, I was still in lightweights, regimental shirt and beret. No HFG but it was excellent for the Nepali. Then back to HK, Cassino Lines and regimental service. OC 10 platoon, D Company, under David Bredin. Struggling, seemingly for weeks, to work out who was actually in my platoon, who was in camp and who was on Nepal leave. Of the battalion’s twelve rifle platoons, for a time, I was the only British Platoon Commander. But I was well supported by an admirable, old-school Platoon Sergeant, Kembahadur Pun (1601, a notable khud racer). I was given an orderly. Operational tours of the border (and Wanchai), internal security training delivered by a travelling Northern Ireland training team fixated by the idea that unhappy locals might throw fridges on us from high-rise flats. White goods raining down seemed improbable. But then, I had never patrolled under the Divis flats and an Electrolux from the 20th floor would spoil your day. Playing rioters for an IS exercise gave an unexpected insight to the men’s lives. In civvies, we confronted a line of shield-toting riflemen from another company and, to add realism, I told my men to start shouting slogans. Immediately the chants went up: “Dashain ma chuti hunnu parcha!” [At Dashera there should be leave!] and “NAAFI ma teruni hunnu parcha!” [There should be girls (allowed) in the NAAFI!] What it said about the common lot of the junior, but adult, Gurkha soldiers made me uncomfortable but such matters were beyond a saano saheb. Separating fighting gangs in Vietnamese boatpeople camps; cataloguing the mess silver in a hot storeroom. Riding motorbikes, drinking too much Tiger and setting fire to my hands in Fanling’s “Better ‘ole”. An embarrassing “interview” with the

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CO followed that episode. Adventure training on Ping Chau island and, of course, the inaugural young officers’ Nepali song contest. C/Sgt Santosh Gurung (Naresh’s brother) providing backing vocals accompanied by the regimental nautch band; Colonel Duncan playing Simon Cowell to GM Lalbahabur Saheb’s Louis Walsh in this proto-X-Factor event. The common experiences, surely, of the HK-based young Gurkha officer.

nearly two years, I took myself to the regimental stores and demanded my HFG. No storeman defies the QM and the prized head gear was passed across the counter. I don’t recall signing for it.

But still no occasion to wear it. And sadly there never was. Life went on at Cassino Lines, time passed and personnel matters led me to an attachment with a gore paltan. And, in a coincidental reversal of the traditional direction (Collet and Bredin, per et But still missing the hat. My orderly’s first task was to fils), I went off to 1st Bn the Devonshire and Dorset make my webbing more “jungle-y”, that completed, I Regiment to be Operations Officer in the mechanised instructed him to acquire me a Hat Felt Gurkha from infantry role. I never really said farewell to 6 GR, just the regimental stores. This was clearly not the right packed my HFG and other things into an MFO box, slipped away from Cassino Lines, boarded the Cathay approach, because he was rebuffed. “Stores is for 747 to Gatwick and went down the Infantry’s front storin’” as any squaddie knows. I did not pursue it. drive, the A303, to Bulford. All it needed was the right ceremonial occasion, the I had a wonderful time with that excellent west hat would be required and would be mine. Sitting country regiment. Many more adventures and the on a court martial at Fort Stanley to try a naughty terrifying experience of planning and leading a Duke of Edinburgh’s Lance Corporal did not provide mechanised brigade road move from Tidworth to the occasion. But I did contrive to wear the wrong Thetford. I hadn’t even done Junior Division Staff uniform (No.6 dress, not No.4) and, rather unsportingly I thought, the court’s president, an ancient College. 400 vehicles, in packets, up the M3 and round the M25. The regiment boasted a disproportionate major, complained to the CO. Another awkward number of generals including John Wilsey, the soon“interview” and suitable punishment followed. We to-be C-in-C Land Forces. He tried to persuade me jailed the Lance Corporal. to become a career officer with the D and Ds. I was tempted, but I couldn’t do it. I was 6 GR and my time HK life: training, the border, endless basketball was up; newly married and with a place to train as a and volleyball. A “vigorous” officers’ football match BBC journalist. against 7 GR, an elbow in the face in a goal line melee. I don’t bear grudges. Running, the heat, a But what of the unworn hat? At first I had little battalion deployment to Lantau by landing craft, nostalgia, I was a BBC wallah newly commissioned helicopter drills. A nest of poisonous kraits at into the 1st Bn TLME (The Liberal Metropolitan Elite). Pak Fu Shan on the border from where we could Quietly proud of my service but military credentials see Shenzen growing by the week. BMX bikes and catching IIs with a stick and kukri. Translating for the were not fashionable at Broadcasting House and Special Investigation Branch after Dhaniram saheb’s there was no need for my regimental stuff. Mess kit, service dress, cross belt and cap all sold on but I death; an experimental battalion move by Mass kept my beret, stable belt and HFG. Transit Railway in the small hours of the morning. A chilly night march and the CO issuing a rum ration One day, soon after re-badging to the BBC, I was to all ranks. But no hat felt Gurkha. taking a pint with my father and a family friend who was Sotheby’s top arms and militaria expert. He had It was time to take matters in hand. A direct a wonderful and historically important personal approach to the splendid QM, Alan Hobbs. No problem he said. And, just like that, it was done. After collection of weapons and accoutrements which had

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James Herbert and a Rifleman from 10 Platoon, D Company, on anti-‘Aye Aye’ patrol on BMX bikes, Pak Fu Shan, HK / China border, 1989

captivated me as a boy. Space in our flat was limited and so on the spot I offered him my HFG for his collection. He was delighted and I was proud that he was delighted. Over the years nostalgia grew. I started to attend regimental association functions and Cuttack Lunches and began more deeply to appreciate my good fortune at having been commissioned into the 6th QEO Gurkha Rifles. It was surely a short career, but I had been a part of that wonderful regiment. But my pride in wearing my regimental blazer was matched by my regret at never having worn my HFG and giving it away.

Last year the custodian of my hat passed away. Fearing that his collection would be broken up and the hat lost forever, my letter of condolence to his widow also politely requested the hat’s return. Surprisingly quickly a large box arrived and, after 30 years, I was reunited with the elusive felt hat, dusty and a bit moth-eaten. Now the challenge arises to find a suitable function at which to wear it properly for the first time. The Cenotaph Remembrance Parade would be a good start. And when that is done, I will have concluded my long-ago short service commission with 6 GR. James Herbert

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A TALE OF TWO 6TH GURKHA SEVENS

hen I finally joined the First Battalion in January 1969 in Gallipoli Barracks, one of the things that I enjoyed most was the sport. The football was excellent and I learnt to play both basketball and volley ball plus we had both tennis and squash courts. Although the Gurkhas didn’t play Rugby, there was an Army team in Sek Kong then called 48 Brigade, but later called the Flying Kukris after the RAF helicopters moved up to Sek Kong. I particularly enjoyed our post amalgamation season of the winter of 1969-70 playing in Sek Kong alongside Brian O’Bree and, although we didn’t win any trophies, it was great fun and for me was my first introduction to playing Rugby alongside a Fijian, Sergeant Happy Nanova. During 1970 Noel Thomas took over as our Education Officer and he came with quite a rugby reputation having played for one of the UK’s leading clubs, London Welsh, and had even had a trial for England! Late in the year Noel proposed that 6 GR should put

a team into the Hong Kong Army Rugby 7-a-side competition. In discussion we were all pretty sceptical; Gurkha units didn’t play rugby and we knew very little about ‘Sevens’. Equally, there were only three or four of us who played rugby at all. Noel explained that sevens had been a feature of his London Welsh Club and that he would give us some training if we could find the players. So, with Noel, Brian, Nick McIver our Doctor and myself as a start, we co-opted Tim Whitehead, not a rugby player but a good athlete, plus Gopal, also not a rugby player, but a good football and basketball player and Peter Curley, our REME Fitter Corporal, who was also a good athlete. Noel had us training at lunchtimes; running up and down the football fields in tramlines to cover the field and always backing up the person with the ball; being prepared to run backwards as a team if necessary until we saw the opening and many other things that we had not considered before. Noel certainly taught us a lot and it was fun. We had a real problem however, as although we had

Noel Thomas and Brian O’Bree with winning HQ Coy football team

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seven players, the rules required us to have a reserve for the competition at Stanley Fort. This was solved by persuading Corporal Jasbahadur in B Company to join us for the day. He was big for a Gurkha and a keen weightlifter, but while very supportive, had no intention of playing and stayed in his regimental blazer on the touchline.

years previously. We were part of 5 Airborne Brigade, who, as you would expect had a keenly fought inter unit sports competition. This involved a number of sports including basketball and volleyball, where, as you might expect 6 GR wiped the board. We held our own in football so were doing very well in the overall championship. One chink in our armour was that rugby was also part of the competition.

The day went really well. We won our first three matches and got through to the final, basically as a So, one day there was a knock on my office door result of Noel’s training as we were better disciplined and in walked one Ian Thomas, coincidentally Noel’s son, then a Captain in 6 GR and than our opponents and were able today a distinguished retired to follow the gameplan that Brigadier. Ian explained that Noel had coached us in. it had been agreed that There was one lovely as a Gurkha unit we were moment when Gopal allowed to play 7-a-side had run over the try line Rugby rather than the full holding the ball but was 15-a-side. However, for our not sure what to do next. next game, against 1 PARA, The coaching clearly had he explained that we were not covered this part of the short of players and would I game, but he quickly got the play? After unsuccessfully trying message to touch the ball to squirm out of it I reluctantly down. Sadly, in the final when we agreed; it was after all only seven met the first team of the Stanley minutes each way. I asked to play my Battalion, I think the Royal Welch old position of scrum half about which I Fusiliers, we were unable to complete could remember a few things, despite the the dream and finished as runners disadvantage that this put me in the thick up as you can see from the shield in HKARFU the photograph. We thought that we Runner’s Up Plaque of it. I never believed that there was rank on the sports field so I asked the rest of had done extremely well, even giving a good account of ourselves in the final and were very the team to use my first name rather than the more proud of our small shields. Sadly, we failed to take a normal address of “colonel”. The game was tough going, but enjoyable until one of our team addressed photograph of the historic occasion. me as colonel in the hearing of the opposition. There For me, the real heroes of the day were Noel and the was a pregnant pause as the opposition’s eyes non-rugby players who had so gallantly volunteered widened, realising that the Commanding Officer was playing against them … what an opportunity. After for a sport that can be very physical; a clear indication of the wonderful camaraderie that we had that I got hammered at every turn and tackle. The remaining minutes passed very slowly. Sadly, we in the Regiment at the time. lost the game, but with some honour. To be honest For the sequel, please fast forward 28 years with the though, I really enjoyed the experience but it took a little time for my bruises to disappear. I decided that Battalion in Church Crookham in UK. By this time, I it was definitely time to hang up my rugby boots. was in the very privileged and interesting position of Commanding Officer. I was still playing a bit of Duncan Briggs football but had last played rugby at Staff College 10

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35TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 6 GR RUGBY 7s STREAK

Jon Titley

t was mid-afternoon on Sunday 6th April 1986 as 20,000 spectators were enjoying the ambience of the stadium, cold San Miguel, and the lull before the final of the Rugby Sevens.

In the stands were a group of 6 GR officers including Adrian Griffith, George Lys, Paddy Grant, Dougie Maclean, Charles Blackmore and Jon Titley, the latter being retired and the founder of the Brunei Pirates Rugby Club.

t The Hong Kong Sevens’ firs the ore bef just ed pen streak hap of finals in 1986: Jonathan Titley ow fell a and es Rifl kha the 6th Gur r officer stripped down to thei th leng the ran and ts desert boo of of the pitch, carrying the flag b. Clu by Rug tes Pira Brunei’s the and e, mad was ory And so hist st Sevens has seen streakers mo e.” sinc years ever

Undoubtedly it was the effects of San Miguel which sparked the idea that it would be a good “craic” to streak. It had not happened before in Hong Kong, even though streaking was in vogue following Erika Roe’s Twickenham debut four years before. Blackmore: “Titters, how about a streak?” Titley (beer in hand, Aussie slouch hat askew): “Don’t be daft. I’m a retired officer.” Blackmore: “But if you are half the man my father said you are then you’d do it” (they had been fond drinking companions). Titley (not easily led): “Oh all right then.”

Post Extract from South China Morning 2016 ril 6 Ap e, azin mag

The Streakers: Blackmore (closest), Titley to his left side

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Without further prompting, and with that flush of innocent bravado, down the stand we went and onto the grass on the side of the pitch. Dougie Maclean had been persuaded, or maybe he was volunteered as the junior subaltern present, to take our discarded clothes and run around the outside of the ground to RV on the far side.

helmet as though making a military appreciation of the ground and enemy forces.

Blissfully unaware of the crowd, and “streakers” apart from pith helmets on heads and desert boots on our feet, we set off diagonally across the pitch. The feeling of behaving like irresponsible children, something we were both good at, grew into laughter and glee as we heard the applause from the crowd grow stronger and stronger. By then we were at the 22 and all was going well.

Immaculate as ever, Drum Major Tilbahadur, having recognized Titley Saheb even in sartorial undress, transferred his mace to his left hand and whipped up a smart salute as we dashed past. Jon acknowledged with an appropriate eyes left given at the double with pith helmet over his vitals.

Two uniformed Royal Hong Kong Police Constables were briefly glimpsed giving chase, until they suddenly were stopped in their tracks by a loud shout in Cantonese from a British RHKP Inspector. Jon later discovered that this friendly “Bomban” was a friend of his who had recognized him. “Mateship” at its best!

“Oh bloody hell then, let’s do it!” and he whipped off the flag so again we could carry it high between us as we started to gather speed past the Pipes and Drums.

By now it seemed the entire stadium were on their feet and cheering – apart from two in the crowd. Brigadier Ray Pett (seated) to Lt Col John Anderson (seated nearby): “John, do you recognize either of those chaps?” Anderson: “No, I can’t say I do and not from here anyway.” Pett: “Well they must belong to your Regiment as they have just been saluted by the Drum Major.”

As we approached the half-way line, there, from the left side of the stadium, smartly marching onto the pitch, came the Pipes and Drums, 6th QEO Gurkha Rifles to play in the interlude before the Final.

We knew none of this until Brigade Headquarters rang the Adjutant, Nick Gordon Creed, early the next morning and asked if he had a Captain Blackmore in the battalion. Nick denied all knowledge on Jon froze. He snatched at the flag, pulled it out of my the grounds that, the Blackmore he knew was a hand, and wrapped it around himself like a sarong. Royal Green Jacket. He left out the bit about being on secondment. “I’m not going any further” he shouted above the din of the cheering crowd. Fortunately, Dougie Maclean was at the RV as the two streakers arrived breathless and thirsty. They “It’s a taboo for a British officer to be seen naked by quickly dressed and disappeared into the crowd. a Gurkha. I’m going back” he said looking to where They were last heard of that day hitching a lift in the we had come from. back of a 4-tonner with the Pipes and Drums singing “Jhyam Jhyam Pareli”, before being dropped off in the “Titters”, I replied, now with my pith helmet on my Wanchai to “continue the movement.” lower abdomen, “You can’t go back, our clothes are over there.” I jutted my chin in the direction of the A light-hearted moment of Regimental history had far end. been made. Jon paused, looked around, and adjusted his pith

Jon Titley and Charles Blackmore

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THE EMPEROR AND THE SARUS CRANES

saw the Sarus Cranes from the new eight-lane expressway that links Agra to Delhi. They were standing together in a dried paddy field next to the road. There were two birds: husband and wife both almost six feet tall, with morning suit grey plumage, white tails and their distinctive crimson faces and necks that looked as if they had pulled a highwayman’s mask over their heads.

Seeing the cranes was a reminder that the Taj was also a monument of a lifelong love affair: between the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal Begum. Like the Sarus Cranes, Mumtaz had accompanied her husband everywhere, even on his frequent military campaigns against the Mahrattas in the Deccan. She died giving birth to their fourteenth child on one such expedition. The cranes breeding plumage was a sign of the onset of the monsoon. At Agra the Yumana River had been in full flow after the recent heavy rains. The Yumana, like the Sarus Crane, is also considered sacred by Hindus. I had admired the monument’s reflection in its flow: a fitting confluence of Muslim and Hindu beliefs.

Minature depicting Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal Begum. Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Sarus Cranes pair for life and couples are almost always seen together. Despite a steep decline in their numbers they are protected by public sentiment and affection in rural India, rather like storks in Europe. Indian folklore abounds with stories of the birds’ faithfulness to each other. It is widely believed that if one bird dies the other will starve itself to death. In Gujarat, newlywed couples are taken to see the birds to inspire fidelity. I had been to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

Four hundred years ago, the Moghul Emperor Jahangir, a gifted amateur ornithologist, had studied the nesting habits of the Sarus Crane, making careful notes that he recorded in his memoirs. I’d like to think that his son, the future Emperor Shah Jahan, was sitting beside his father as he conducted his studies, noting the fidelity of the cranes and absorbing the natural history of undying conjugal love. Rick Beven

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THREE BOOKS ON BRITISH INDIA

he first Mackinlay to set foot in India arrived in 1852 on his own sailing ship, the King Alfred, which according to the log was less stylish than it sounds. Since then our family have had a continuous presence on the sub-continent, mainly in Calcutta and I was born on the North West Frontier in the BMH Quetta. Many readers will have similar connections. Most of us grew up speaking a cod version of Urdu with sunlit memories of lush gardens, big verandas and the comfortable security of living in the nicer part of town. I still love India. My Urdu is somewhat eroded and the blank spaces are filled with Nepali words. In the last five years these bright memories have become darkened along with the whole story of our colonial past in India. Although a recent YouGov poll found that 59% of the population still felt that the British Empire was something to be proud of, 19% – mostly young people, were actively ashamed of it. At present the young are winning the argument; our past is under attack, statues are being defaced, in Parliament Square Winston Churchill has been graffitied as a racist, university lecturers who equivocate on the subject are going down like ninepins and the media is searching hard for yet more evidence of British misdeeds in India.

days. Tharoor’s message is absolute; throughout their presence in India the British acted cynically and rapaciously at all times. There was no white man’s burden, it was an entirely exploitative relationship which left India in a far worse condition in every sense than when the British first anchored off the Gujarat coast in 1608. The British, he maintains, held India solely for their own benefit and during the centuries that followed funded their overseas footprint from their depredation of India. Far from uniting India they left it more divided than ever and India’s political problems today are a direct consequence of British rule. Although British and Indian critics have dismantled many of Tharoor’s arguments, as a polemic attack it succeeded, the mud has stuck, the Inglorious Empire version of our history is now widely cited by academics and BBC commentators. Sashi has made us think there is indeed more to say about the conduct of the British Raj than the Jewel in the Crown version of our relationship. East India Company officials did behave in a rapacious fashion, especially in the 1700s when there was a very limited sense of their having a civil responsibility for the population. Much of Tharoor’s book however is argued in absolute terms and the personalities he uses to typify the British are familiar demons: Clive, Curzon, Dyer and so on. They are presented as Bollywood villains and there is no attempt to understand the British in India as cognitive beings or to explain their actions in the context of the 18th Century – as opposed to the 21st Century.

The shrillest of these attacks have been led by Sashi Tharoor who, when I knew him, was a civil servant in the UN Secretariat wearing sharp suits and speaking with a posh English accent. Now that he is the Lok Sabha member for Thiruvanathapuran, Tharoor has taken on a home spun look and has a pretty confrontational line of nationalist rhetoric, mostly aimed at the British. In 2015 his attack on the colonial In a contemporary door stopper of a book (700 British at the Oxford Union went viral which prompted pages) Ferdinand Mount provides another version him to rush out his book, apparently written in 12 of British India. Mount is not afraid to engage with

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the bad behaviour of East India Company officials, however his style is less inflammatory and the reader is gradually drawn into a more balanced and personal account through the lives of the Low family. They came from Fife and Mount is himself directly related to them. Robert Low was the first to leave the family home on Clatto Hill to seek his fortune. He joined the 1st Battalion of the Madras Native infantry in 1771. He was followed by his sons and grandsons and the story of the British in India is told through their family letters and records. The Lows were successful. As staff officers they witnessed at first hand the East India Company campaigns of subjugation as well as the negotiating ploys of rulers and generals. It was a dangerous time and many of their contemporaries lie buried in graveyards across India. Commanding native infantry in the 1770s required guts and a flare for communication. The sepoys of John Company battalions only marched towards the enemy guns if their officers led from the front. And when the dust of battle settled military commanders, such as Robert and later John, had to think and act as diplomats, negotiating in a courtly version of Urdu to secure the most favourable treaty. The Laws were also district officers: as such they were required to be “hard active men in boots and breeches, who lived in the saddle, worked all day, ate and slept where they could, had no family and a few belongings that could be slung onto the back of a camel.” The Company’s initial strategy for holding territory by the sword was exploitative and successive Lows became agents of that policy; Tharoor insists they were all looters and villains, whereas in Mount’s version the Lows were developed as credible characters, who despite being the reluctant instruments of John Company, had courage and integrity. The significance of Mount’s story is that the Lows represented a class who were more complicated than Bollywood villains and cannot be convincingly judged by the

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2020 standards of a youthful minority who twitter and shout in the streets. William Dalrymple’s book The Anarchy arrived on the bookstands during the troubled winter of 2019 when we were searching for reliable experts to tell us about our imperial past. His title The Anarchy refers to the same period as Mount’s book – the end of the Mughal Empire and the military campaign to subjugate the sub-continent. In stark contrast to Shashi Tharoor’s twelve-day compilation, The Anarchy took more than six years to research and write. Dalrymple lives in India and his previous books on this period were written with the benefit of a long experience of the

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The Relief of Lucknow, 1857 by Thomas Jones Barker

country and its people. For this book he translated unpublished material from the Mughal court as well as making some spectacular discoveries in the Rajasthan Research Institute and the National Archives of India. The result is that the Mughal and Nabob leaders in his narrative are presented with an intimacy which is reinforced by his choice of Mughal miniature paintings. These illustrate rulers and emperors dancing, riding to war or relaxing with their women. The British and French characters are also drawn in detail, nevertheless Dalrymple’s inherent sympathy is for the subjugated races. As the title suggests this is an account of a regime collapse and the struggle among local power-holders and the British to seize the space left by the charmless and puritanical Emperor – Aurangzeb. Dalrymple is fixated by the gross nature of the East

India Company, a trail blazing private stock company founded in 1599. In the succeeding centuries it grew into a state within the British Empire, successfully evading parliamentary control before it fell apart 250 years later. He explains the evolutionary processes which took place: how it grew from a trading company to become an army of conquest; how its officials changed from being cautious diplomats to rapacious looters; how this private company became a war machine that even Parliament could not control; above all how – having secured territory – the Company moved from unlicensed rapacity to a form of husbandry. During the anarchy there were no heroes: British, French, Mughals, Rohillas, Marathas and Nawabs – they all behaved atrociously. In corporate terms the East India Company was wildly successful and Dalrymple’s text is peppered

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with 18th and 19th century profit figures that translate into today’s money as hundreds of millions and later billions of pounds Stirling. Their ruthless trading behaviour was epitomised in the nature of Robert Clive. Clive grew up on a small family estate in Shropshire and from the start was a pugnacious and unruly child who fought his way through several schools and then without completing his education joined the Company as an accountant. Dalrymple describes him as a street fighter, violent, ruthless and quick to size up an opponent and then at the right moment deliver a blow that turned things to his favour. In 1746 while still an accountant he escaped from the French at Madras by taking charge of a group of straggling sepoys and leading them with great skill in local skirmishes. Once recognised as an effective military commander he rose swiftly through the ranks of the Company’s military force. The worst excesses of the East India Company took place during his tenure as Governor General. By now the Company was holding a sizeable territory and their district administrators were authorised to tax the population. After military actions it was normal for John Company soldiers and mainly the officers to loot the opposition and their territory. During this period of intense predation and lawlessness there was also a prolonged drought. These conditions caused a disastrous famine and the numbers of dead and dying were too vast to hide. The news reached London with reports of Company officials grain-hoarding and profiteering from the situation while around them thousands perished. London was horrified and Clive was pilloried by the press; cartoonists demonised him as Lord Vulture. On his return to England he was called to defend himself in Parliament. But Clive, by now one of the richest men in Europe, succeeded in defeating the motion after a compelling two-hour speech in the house. The company had become too big to fail, too many members of parliament were now themselves investors, the East India Company’s survival was also the nation’s.

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Dalrymple’s narrative ends thirty years later in 1803 with the recall of the then Governor General Richard Wellesley, who had spent a great deal of money in the conquest of the remaining territories, assisted by his brother Arthur. The era which provided our generation’s glowing images of British India from Kipling to the Jewel in the Crown came later, by which time John Company had disappeared except in memory. Dalrymple is seldom judgemental, nevertheless he manages to arouse our condemnation by presenting awful accounts of treachery, pillaging and slaughter not just by the British, but by all the parties involved. Throughout he is concerned only with the key figures and there is not much effort to engage with the characters at the front lines, the British officials, the native officers and the rank and file. Nor does he provide any insight on how successfully they worked together, especially when their collective grit won the day. He does describe the occasions when John Company battalions snatched victory from certain defeat and he does point to a unique quality that the British led forces had – which it appears their opponents had not. It was not a matter of superior field artillery or adopting the modern tactics of European armies – it was more about standing together and facing the enemy. Human history has been defined by empires. Two thousand years later the bad behaviour of the Romans has been airbrushed from their popular image and in time who can say what will be the accepted version of the British. Right now with the benefit of these three books, we can listen calmly to the youthful noises in the street and follow the advice of Times columnist Mathew Parris who says: be proud of the good we did and be ashamed of our wrongs. John Mackinlay

BOOK REVIEWS

THE BRAVE SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH Lieutenant Colonel Denis O’Leary OBE MC* Brown Dog Books The Brave Shall Inherit the Earth is the motto of the Rajputana Rifles, the oldest rifle regiment in the pre-World War 2 Indian Army. It is a fitting epitaph to this remarkable young officer who commanded the mortar platoon in 3/6th Rajputana Rifles during the 14th Army’s invasion of Burma in 1944. Denis O’Leary OBE MC came from a family of soldiers in the pre-war Indian Army; his father was also RajRif. Just out of officer training, a practising Catholic, handsome, athletic, twenty years old, Denis joined 3/6th Rajputana Rifles on the eve of Field Marshal Slim’s invasion of Burma in 1944. This book is a story of his Platoon and Battalion in that Homeric engagement. It is also a book about the close friendship and camaraderie formed between a British Officer and his Rajput and Punjabi ‘Mussalman’ soldiers in that campaign. There is none of the customary hatred of the enemy in this book; the first dead Japanese that Denis

comes across in the jungle hills of Manipur haunts him for the rest of his life. He comments that “We had been fortunate in our introduction to war. It had been a gradual process.” Luckily Denis learnt quickly and by the time he came to his Kurukshetra – a decisive battle to hold Pear Hill against suicidal Japanese attacks during the Irrawaddy crossings – his metal had been tested and forged. During this battle, in which he won his first MC, he was badly wounded by shrapnel from an artillery shell and evacuated back to India for the rest of the war, only re-joining his beloved battalion in preIndependence Burma, which this account also covers. Denis O’Leary was life-long soldier, he is a modest historian, he writes simply but eloquently. I know of no book so hauntingly beautiful about something so savage as war: Patrick Davis’ A Child at Arms is the nearest comparator that I know. Rick Beven

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6TH QUEEN ELIZABETH’S OWN GURKHA RIFLES Regimental Association Income and expenditure account for the 12 months ended 30 September 2020

12 months to 12 months to 30 September 2020 30 September 2019 £ £

Income Income from Assets

605.00

Investment Income

208.00

Subscriptions

212.11

4,260.18 3,935.00

Sales 55.00 Cuttack Lunch Donations

2,805.00

5,750.00

55.00 170.22

Other 320.00 Total receipts

7,652.29

10,723.22

Expenditure Reunion Piper ED pay

100

AGM Room Hire

718.00

633.50

Reunion Lunch Payment

661.50

648.00

2,723.47

5,432.40

Cuttack Lunch (2 x lunches)

O’Bree Presentation Badge

60.00

O’Bree Presentation

776.00

Memorial service – Winchester Cathedral

150.00

GBA annual subscription

390.00

6 GR Journal – production

1,400.00

985.78

2,118.12

Allmand Service

100.00

6 GR Journal – mailing ISA fee (ex VAT)

1,200.00

Hon Secretary expenses

74.58

Note: Total Journal Costs in 2020 = £5,635.78. Paid for by the Association = £2,385.78, and by the Regimental Trust = £3,250.00

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Z (Continued)

12 months to 12 months to 30 September 2020 30 September 2019 £ £

Donation to Medicina Coy 1 RGR

100.00

Wreaths 120.00 Domain name

50.63

Subs refund

60.00

Total Expenditure Excess of Expenditure over Income

7,919.38 -267.09

13,182.60 - £2,459.38

1,683.76

1,850.85

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

5,864.81

5,845.65

Assets retained for Charity’s own use

7,548.57

7,696.50

Liabilities Total Net Assets

£0.00 £0.00 7,548.57

7,696.50

The accounts of the Association were produced by Mr MFH Adler, ISA (6 GRRT Secretary and 6 GRRA Treasurer) We were soldiers once… and young. Hon Captain Kulbahadur Gurung MM presents Colonel Neil Anderson with his 6 GR 200 Commemorative Badge, Pokhara 2017

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The 4th Battalion led by Lt Col Ross-Hurst marches into Abbottabad for the final time, 22 January 1947

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6th Gurkhas The Journal Issue 101

Articles inside

It’s You He Doesn’t Know

Book Reviews

The Honorary Captain and the BBC

At War’s End

Remembrance Day Pokhara

Remembrance Day HK

6 GRRA Nepal AGM

Gurkha Museum

The Gurkha Welfare Trust

RGR Newsletter

Remembrance Day UK

The Chairman

Regimental Memorial Project

The President