The Path To Victory I: Starting Points

The Path To Victory I: Starting Points

Introduction

 

We have entered another year. A year that I hope will bring freedom and peace to the world.’

 

On 4 January 1945 Captain G. K. Marshall, from his bunk in Singapore’s Changi Prison, scribbled these words into his diary. Along with thousands of other Allied soldiers, including those of three Gurkha battalions, Marshall had been captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. He was one casualty in a war that had claimed millions.

On each new year of the war, people around the globe echoed Marshall’s hope that this would be the year that brought peace. Fortunately, 1945 would finally see the realisation of that peace – but the final push towards it would be a bloody one.

To mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War, the Gurkha Museum will be releasing a series of online articles under the banner The Path to Victory. These articles will be released to coincide with the 80th anniversaries of the climactic battles of the war that Gurkhas participated in, following their advances between January and August 1945.

 

Starting Positions

 

By the end of the Second World War there were 43 Gurkha battalions in the British Indian Army, spread across ten regiments. The Gurkhas had been in action since 1941, and had fought in North Africa, Italy and the Middle and Far East. But where were they in January 1945?

For the men of the 43rd Independent Gurkha Infantry Brigade, 1945 began with them taking over the front line at the Senio River in Italy. They had been at rest after six months of difficult fighting, having forced their way across ridges, rivers and valleys against considerable resistance.

They would spend the next several months rotating through the line at the Senio, where they would frequently skirmish with German raiding parties. Although the Gurkhas did not find these small clashes particularly taxing, they knew that if Italy was to be finally liberated then they would have to storm the formidable German defences in front of them.

 

Gurkhas in action in Italy, 1944. The building atop the ridge was typical of the kind of positions British troops in Italy would have to assault.

 

 

Further east, the Gurkhas of the 4th Indian Division began the new year in Greece, where they were on peacekeeping duties. At the end of 1944, German forces had suddenly withdrawn from the country after several years of occupation. In the subsequent power vacuum communist Greek resistance groups attempted to seize the country, resulting in the outbreak of armed civil conflict.

However, it was in the Far East theatre that the Gurkhas made their largest contribution to the war effort. By 1945 there were 23 Gurkha battalions fighting against the Japanese. They had fought on the backfoot through the Japanese conquest of Burma, taken the fight back to the Japanese in the Arakan, and played their part in the grinding battles of Imphal-Kohima.

 

 

Men of the 3rd Battalion, 10th Gurkha Rifles after the attack on Scraggy Hill, near Imphal, 1944. 3/10GR’s battle for Scraggy was one of their costliest fights of the war.

 

At the onset of 1945, many Gurkha units in General William ‘Bill’ Slim’s 14th Army were resting or line holding, awaiting the renewed offensives to retake Burma. From January to August Gurkhas would be at the forefront of the advance, facing Japanese troops that fought with increasing determination as the tide of the war turned against them.

To make sure you do not miss new articles in the Path to Victory series, keep an eye on the History & Collections section of the Gurkha Museum website or our social media pages. The Path to Victory will continue in early-February, where the action will begin with the crossing of the Irrawaddy River in Burma.

© The Gurkha Museum Trust Winchester - Registered Charity Number 1169920 (formerly 272426)