The 8th Gorkha Rifles is a Gorkha regiment of the Indian Army. It was raised in 1824 as part of the British East India Company and later transferred to the British Indian Army after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The regiment served in World War I and World War II, before being one of the six (of ten) Gurkha regiments transferred to the Indian Army after independence in 1947. Since then it has served in a number of conflicts including the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971. Today the 8th Gorkha Rifles is one of the most celebrated regiments of the Indian Army, having received numerous citations for bravery in the field of battle, and even producing one of the two field marshals of India, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, of the Indian Army.
History
Formation and early campaigns
The 16th Sylhet Local Battalion, a unit of the British East India Company that was formed in 1824, can be traced as the regiment's ancestor. The first designation change came in 1826 when the unit was redesignated the 11th Sylhet Local Battalion. In 1861, it became part of the Bengal Native Infantry and was briefly designated the 48th (Sylhet) Light Infantry, before its numerical designation was changed to the 44th. A number of minor name changes occurred until 1886 when the Goorkha title was adopted and the regiment became the 44th Regiment of Goorkha (Light) Infantry. In 1891, the regiment's title was adjusted to 44th Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment of Bengal Infantry. The designation of the 8th Gurkha Rifles was adopted in 1903, but it remained a single battalion regiment until 1907, the regiment gained a second battalion, subsuming the 43rd Gurkhas, which had been briefly redesignated as the 7th Gurkha Rifles.
Military assignments commenced as soon after the raising of the regiment when the first battalion formed the spearhead for operations in the First Anglo–Burmese War of 1824–1825. The services of the regiment were to be requisitioned again when the British went to war with Bhutan in 1864. Two battalion columns of the regiment sallied forth, shoulder to shoulder to crush the Bhutanese revolts and the stronghold of Devnageri. The first Victoria Cross (VC), awarded to Richard Ridgeway, came to the regiment as a result of an action on 22 November 1879, in its first ever operational mission when its units were summoned to deal with Nagaland Rebels. This was the first time that a regular army unit was ever been employed in the Naga hills.
The regiment's second Victoria Cross was awarded to Charles Grant, for his actions on the during the Manipur Expedition on the North-East Frontier on 27 March 1891 whilst attached to the 2nd Battalion. Following the disaster at Manipur, Grant volunteered to attempt the relief of the British who were being held captive with a force of 80 Gurkhas. Inspiring his men with his example of personal daring and resource, the lieutenant captured Thobal, near Manipur, from a force of 800 Manipuris on 30 March 1891. For the next ten days Grant and his small force held Thobal, before on 9 April 1891, having run out of food and having almost no ammunition left, they were forced to abandon the position. In his report following the incident, Lieutenant Grant recommended every member of his party be awarded the Indian Order of Merit, which was at that time the highest award a native member of the British Indian Army could be awarded. This recommendation was later accepted and all of Grant's men were also rewarded with six months pay and allowances.
The Younghusband Expedition of 1904 was another operation that brought a VC to the regiment, awarded to John Duncan Grant—no relation to Charles Grant—for his actions during the British expedition to Tibet. Braving the high altitude climes of Tibet, the expeditionary force successfully stormed the Tibetan fortress of Gyantse at 18,000 feet.
World War I
World War I (1914–1918) testified to the enigmatic valour and heroism of the regiment during the course of combat service in Italy, France, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and Egypt. During the fighting in France, the 2nd/8th distinguished itself by fighting virtually to the last man during the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915, hurling themselves time after time against the weight of German defences. Having mustered almost eight hundred men to begin with, by the end of the day they had a frontage of just one officer and forty-nine men.
The regiment won 14 battle honours during this period: La Bassee, Festubert, Givenchy, Neauve Chapelle, Aubers, France and Flanders 1914–15; Egypt, Megiddo, Sharon, Palestine, Tigris, Kut-at-Amara, Baghdad, Mesopotamia 1916–18.