First World War

The Gurkha’s involvement with the British military is 184 years old. The beginning of the First World War would become the first real entry in military combat for the Gurkhas that would take them to the battlefields of France, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Salonika, Egypt and Palestine. This would also be the beginning of a different kind of battle for the Gurkhas in foreign lands in unknown circumstances and unfamiliar terrains.

Over 16,000 Nepalese Troops were subsequently deployed on operations on the North West Frontier and as Garrison Battalions in India to replace troops of the British Indian Army who had gone to fight overseas. A battalion of the 8th Gurkhas greatly distinguished itself as Loos, fighting to the last, and in the words of the Indian Corps Commander, "found its Valhalla". The 6th Gurkhas gained immortal fame at Gallipoli during the capture from the Turks of the feature later known as "Gurkha Bluff".  At Sari Bair they were the only troops in the whole campaign to reach and hold the crest line and look down on the Straits, which was the ultimate objective.  To quote from Field Marshal Sir William Slim's introduction to the second volume of the 6th Gurkhas' history: “I first met the 6th Gurkha Rifles in 1915 in Gallipoli.  There I was so struck by their bearing in one of the most desperate battles in history that I resolved, should the opportunity come, to try to serve with them.  Four years later it came, and I spent many of the happiest, and from a military point of view the most valuable, years of my life in the Regiment".

There was little respite after the First World War, with fighting in the Third Afghan War in 1919 followed by numerous campaigns on the North-West Frontier, particularly in Waziristan.  Four Nepalese Army Regiments also took part in operations on the North-West Frontier during the Third Afghan War.  

Second World War

In the Second World War there were no fewer than 40 Gurkha Battalions in British Service, as well as parachute, garrison and training units.  There were 112,000 men.  Side by side with British and Commonwealth troops Gurkhas fought in Syria, the Western Desert, Italy and Greece, from North Malaya to Singapore and from the Siamese Border back through Burma to Imphal and then forward to Rangoon. In addition to the enormous manpower made available there were many personal gestures on the part of the Minister and Court of Nepal.  Large sums of money for the purchase of weapons and equipment, including many for the provision of fighter aircraft during the Battle of Britain, were presented as gifts from Nepal.  Considerable sums of money were also donated to the Lord Mayor of London during the Blitz for the relief of victims in the Dockland area.  An equally generous response was made to a variety of appeals for aid - all this from a country, which was then and still is by western standards, desperately poor. 

The spirit of this friendship can best be illustrated by the reply made to the Prime Minister of Nepal to the British Minister in Kathmandu after the fall of France in 1940.  When Britain stood alone, permission was sought to recruit an additional twenty battalions for the Gurkha Brigade and for Gurkha troops to be allowed to serve in any part of the world.  This was readily granted by the Prime Minister who remarked, "Does a friend desert a friend in time of need?  If you win, we win with you.  If you lose we lose with you".  The whole of the Nepalese Army was again placed at the disposal of the British Crown.  Eight Nepalese Regiments were sent to India for internal security duties and for operations on the North-West Frontier.  Later a Nepalese Brigade was sent to Burma and fought with particular distinction at the Battle of Imphal.

The 1st battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles at the helm of the task force in Kosovo alongside British paratroopers was collectively known as the ‘elite’ of the British armed forces. On June 12 1999, Operation Joint Guardian swung into action. On the ground, the Gurkhas were given the signal to move out and a detachment of the 1 st RGR (Royal Gurkha Rifles) became the first NATO troops to cross the border into Kosovo to secure the heights against possible snipers. Two minutes later, Brigadier Adrian Freer, commander of the 5 th airborne brigade was driven over the border flanked by a contingent of 800 heavily armed Gurkhas and finally relieving the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. The Gurkhas have always been in the forefront of battles since their inception and their dedication and faith is unquestionable.

In this epic history of unsurpassable bravery, the Gurkhas have won 26 Victoria Crosses amongst themselves, most than any other regiments in the British Army.

1890-1913

In the early months of 1890 the Madrassi officers and men of the ‘old’ Regiment were dispersed from Secunderabad in south central India, some to pension or redundancy, Meanwhile, far across the Bay of Bengal, the men of the Kubo Valley Military Police Battalion were brought down from their isolated posts in the jungle hills of Upper Burma, to the unfamiliar splendor of the former Royal Palace in Mandalay, now being used as a British barracks.

After attestation, re-equipment and the posting-in of additional officers, the reorganized Regiment was officially brought back onto the strength of the Madras Army with effect from 1 st may, and that date is still celebrated as the Regimental Birthday.

More men were needed, but the raising of many new Gurkha units in the 1880s had caused a shortage of recruits from the traditional areas west of Kathmandu. In the short term several companies of Assamese were employed; in the long term the Regiment turned willingly to East Nepal. A few Eastern Gurkhas had long been enlisted buy the older Gurkha regiments. Many had volunteered into the Kubo Valley Military Police Battalion when it was formed in 1887, and they had proved their fighting qualities. An initial recruiting party sent to Darjeeling had no difficultly in coming back with 300 fine young men from East Nepal

The reorganized Regiment was back on active service as early as January 1891,and in the Chin Hills Campaign of 1892-93 it had a chance to show its mettle: three British Officers were awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and most significantly Havildar Haraksing Gurung won the Regiment’s first ever Indian Order of Merit- the highest award then available to Gurkhas. These were the first of over a thousand awards for gallantry of distinguished service earned by the Regiment in the last hundred years.

In 1891 the Regiment was posted to Maymyo for the first time, and six years later that delightful and popular hill station became its official permanent home. Although the Regiment saw no fighting between 1894 and 1914, it often served away from Maymyo in near active service conditions, manning isolated posts in Upper Burma or near the Chinese border.

In 1901 the Regiment’s title finally became ‘10 th Gurkha Rifles’, the number ‘Ten’ being retained because of its historic origins. The Indian Army Lists of the period continue to show the Tenth as the most senior of the Gurkha regiments, and the eighth most senior unit in the entire Indian Army. However, in 1903, to emphasize its future with the Gurkha Brigade, the Regiment voluntarily ceased to carry its old Honors and Distinctions, thus playing down the connections with the pre-1890 period. On a more positive note.1 st Battalion formed a lasting friendship with The Royal Scots in Burma in the 1890s.The distinguished old Lowland regiment trained 1 st Battalion’s pipers, as they later did those of 2 nd Battalion in India in 1909-10.

In 1902 the Regiment divided into two to form a new 2 nd Battalion, which in 1907 was redesignated as 7 th Gurkha Rifles (now Duke Edinburgh’s Own).

In 1908 the Regiment again split in two to permit the formation of a new 2 nd Battalion in India, which was to remain in existence until 1968. In 1911 2 nd Battalion took part in the great Delhi Durbar when the Indian princes came in all their glittering splendor to pay their homage to the newly crowned King-Emperor George v and his Queen-Empress Mary.

In 1913-14 2 nd Battalion carried out internal security duties in Dacca, then returned to its new station of Takdah near Darjeeling. 1 st Battalion was in Maymyo, preparing to celebrate in 1915 its first 25 years as a Gurkha unit. Amid the measured elegance of cantonment life and the annual round of routine training, few foresaw the approaching trauma of world war.

1939-1948

In that greatest of struggles, the Second World War, the Regiment reached the summit of its achievement so far, and made its most important contribution to the success of British arms. These pages can tell of only a few of the more notable episodes.

The Regiment doubled in size in 1940-41 with the formation of the 3 rd and 4 th Battalions. These wartime units achieved battlefield successes of the first order, in eloquent proof of the quality and maturity of the Regiment as a whole. Success in all Battalions was due in part to the excellent training and sense of Regimental spirit imbued at the new 10 th Gurkha Rifles Regimental centre created at Alhilal, north of the Punjab. This fine camp, built in a secluded Himalayan valley, was the first real home the Regiment had had since quitting Maymyo.

1 st Battalion served on the North West Frontier in 1940-41, before moving to Burma in 1942 in time to take part in the epic fighting retreat northwards to the Indian border. It was to remain on the Burma front with scarcely a break until final victory in 1945, taking the first formal surrender of Japanese troops in that theatre, and being acclaimed as the best battalion in the veteran 17 th Indian Division.

2 nd Battalion was the first into action overseas, serving in Iraq, Syria and Persia in 1941.In 1944 it went to Italy with 43 rd Gurkha Lorried Infantry Brigade and fought its way up the Adriatic coast, forcing the enemy relentlessly northwards from defensive line after defensive line, until ‘V.E. Day’ in 1945.In 1947 the Battalion (and also the Regimental Centre) helped combat the terrible communal strife that accompanied Indian Independence.

3 rd Battalion served in Burma from 1942, including (with 1 st and 4 th Battalions) the momentous battles around Imphal, and particularly distinguished itself in the Shenam Pass in the summer of 1944.when the war ended it was on board ship, poised for amphibious landings to retake Malaya. The Battalion then moved to Java, taking the surrender of Japanese troops, saving threatened Dutch internees and fighting local insurgents who attempted to exploit the vacuum of power.

4 th Battalion also served in Burma, from November 1943 to the end of the war with Japan. Talingon was the greatest of its many battles, and its fast and furious successes in the drive south in 1944-45 earned it the nickname ‘the non-stop Gurkhas’ from The Times newspaper. At the end of the war it was singled out for the presentation of 20 th Indian Division’s Dagger banner. It saw service in French Indo-China and Cambodia after the Japanese surrender.

The Regiment’s four Battalions spent more time in action and won more gallantry awards than any other regiment in the Indian Army. Inevitably the cost too was high: 10 th Gurkha Rifles’casualties (over 1000 dead and nearly 2000 wounded) were exceeded in the Indian Army only by those of 5 th Royal Gurkha Rifles, In 1946 Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Tuker KCIE CB DSO OBE, one of the Gurkha Brigade’s most distinguished and successful officers, wrote thus in thanks for the presentation of a captured Japanese sword:

‘In 1938 I remember prophesying to a friend that if there was another war the 10 th Gurkhas would make its name. I think that the brilliant success of your Regiment in this war is really the most satisfactory feature in the Gurkha Brigade’s exploits, and it is an achievement on which I personally wish now to take the opportunity of congratulating you all. This Japanese sword will always remind me of the entry of the 10 th Gurkhas into the bright fame that the Regiment has for so long deserved, and which I have felt so certain lay in store for you.’

When 3 rd and 4 th Battalions were disbanded at Alhilal in 1947 an era was coming to an end. On 1 st January 1948 the British Empire in India Passed into history, and the remaining two battalions of 10 th Gurkha Rifles were transferred to the British Army, to come at last under the direct orders of the Crown it had served so long.