The Gorkhas in Two World Wars

In the two World Wars the Gurkha Brigade suffered 43,000 casualties, and to date it has won 26 Victoria Crosses – 13 by Gurkhas and 13 by British Officers. This short chronicle is of necessity brief and factual.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

At the outbreak of the First World War the whole of the Nepalese Army was placed at the disposal of the British Crown. 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.Some one hundred thousand Gurkhas enlisted in regiments of the Gurkha Brigade. They fought and died in France and Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Gallipoli, Palestine and Salonika. A battalion of the 8th Gurkhas greatly distinguished itself at 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”.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

well as parachute, garrison and training units. In all this totalled some 112,000 men. Side by sid. In the Second World War there were no fewer than forty Gurkha battalions in British service, ase 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 again 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 money 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 20 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.
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