Royal Berkshire Regiment
The Royal Berkshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1959. The regiment was created in 1881, as the Princess Charlotte of Wales's , by the amalgamation of the 49th Regiment of Foot and the 66th Regiment of Foot. In 1921, it was renamed the Royal Berkshire Regiment .
The regiment saw active service in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. On 9 June 1959, the Royal Berkshire Regiment was amalgamated with the Wiltshire Regiment to form the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment which was again amalgamated, on 27 July 1994, with the Gloucestershire Regiment to create the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment. Like its predecessor regiment, however, this was on 1 February 2007 merged with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, the Royal Green Jackets and The Light Infantry to form a new large regiment, The Rifles.
History
Formation and antecedents
The Berkshire Regiment was formed as part of the reforms carried out by Edward Cardwell and Hugh Childers, Secretaries of State for War in the late nineteenth century. The first stage, under Cardwell in 1873, introduced a "localisation scheme". This saw the United Kingdom divided into "Brigade Districts" consisting of a county or counties. Each district was assigned two regular infantry battalions, one of which would be on foreign service while the other was on home service. The home-based battalion was to provide drafts to the battalion on foreign duty as required. County militia regiments were also to be linked with the regular battalions, with all sharing a single depot in the brigade district. It was announced that a depot was to be built at Reading, Berkshire, which would serve a district comprising the County of Berkshire. The two line battalions which were to be linked were the 49th and 66th Regiments of Foot, along with the Royal Berkshire Militia. On 1 July 1881, the reforms were completed under Childers, with the formation of The Princess Charlotte of Wales's , consisting of the following battalions:- 1st Battalion . The regiment had been raised in 1743, and had been granted the title "Princess Charlotte of Wales's" in 1816.
- 2nd Battalion. The regiment had been raised in 1758.
- 3rd Battalion
- 1st Volunteer Battalion.
The 1st Battalion formed part of the garrison of the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda from 1893 through 1895. On 19 March 1896 the regiment, under Major Massard, was called in by the Penzance Borough Police and Cornwall County Constabulary to help quell disorder during the Newlyn riots. They arrived by train in Penzance at around 4pm and took temporary barracks in the town. Two hours later their assistance was requested by the Superintendent in charge and they assisted police in occupying the pier at Newlyn long enough to see in the arrival of HMS Ferret.
The 1st Battalion was posted at Gibraltar from February 1900 to November 1902, when they joined the 2nd battalion in Egypt. The 2nd Battalion was posted to South Africa in February 1898 and stayed there throughout the Second Boer War, leaving for Egypt in November 1902.
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve; the regiment now had one Reserve and one Territorial battalion.
The First World War
The regiment, in common with the rest of the British Army, saw a huge expansion during the First World War and many service battalions, for war service only, were created from volunteers for Kitchener's New Armies. Most battalions would see active service in the trenches of the Western Front in Belgium and France.Regular Army
The 1st Battalion was a Regular Army unit and was serving with the 6th Brigade, part of the 2nd Division and served with the British Expeditionary Force when it was sent to Belgium in 1914. They fought in the Battle of Mons, the Marne and the First Battle of Ypres, where the old regular British army was virtually wiped out and could have been said to have found its grave there. In 1915 during the Battle of Loos, 2nd Lieutenant Alexander Buller Turner of the 3rd Battalion, attached to the 1st, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. In 1916 Lance corporal James Welch, also of the 1st Battalion, was awarded the Victoria Cross as well.The 2nd Battalion was also a Regular Army unit and was serving in India on the outbreak of war and was recalled to Britain, where, with other Regular units also stationed abroad, it helped form the 25th Brigade and was attached to the 8th Division. They came to the Western Front in late 1914 and served there for the rest of the war.
Territorial Force
The Territorial Force saw a considerable expansion and raised the 1/4th, 2/4th and 3/4th battalions. The 1/4th Battalion was part of the South Midland Brigade of the South Midland Division. In 1915 it was designated the 145th Brigade, 48th Division. They served on the Western Front until 1917 when they were transferred to Italy.The 2/4th Battalion was formed at Reading, Berkshire, as a duplicate of the 1/4th Battalion and served in the 184th Brigade, part of the 61st Division and, like the majority of the British Army, served on the Western Front during the war.
The 3/4th Battalion was raised in 1915 as a 3rd-Line duplicate of the 1/4th Battalion. The 3/4th remained in Britain for the war supplying drafts and replacements to the other Territorial Force battalions.
Kitchener's Army
The regiment also raised many service battalions during the war, specifically for war service only. The 5th Battalion was part of the First New Army, part of Kitchener's Army, and joined the 35th Brigade attached to the 12th Division. They saw their first action in 1915 at Loos. Then, in 1916, the battalion fought at the Battle of Albert and Pozières in 1917. In 1918 the 5th Battalion was transferred to the 36th Brigade, still with 12th Division.The 6th Battalion was formed as part of Kitchener's Second New Army and joined the 53rd Brigade, 18th Division and fought at the 1916 Albert battle, Delville Wood and the Battle of Thiepval Ridge. Then, in early 1918, the 6th Battalion was disbanded in France due to a manpower shortage where all infantry brigades were reduced from four to three infantry battalions to make up for the shortage and the men of the disbanded 6th were sent to the 1st, 2nd and 5th battalions.
The 7th and 8th battalions were both formed in September 1914 as part of Kitchener's Third New Army and both joined the 26th Division. The 7th Battalion joined the 78th Brigade and moved to Salonika to fight the Bulgarian Army on the Macedonian front in the battles of Horseshoe Hill and Doiran in 1917 and ended the war in Macedonia. The 8th Battalion transferred in 1916 to the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, a Regular Army formation, where they fought in many of the terrible slaughterhouse battles of the war such as the Battle of Aubers Ridge Loos and Passchendaele, the epitome of trench slaughter. They ended the war in Le Cateau, France. During the Battle of Loos, the 8th Battalion attacked Hulluch village and a platoon managed to fight its way into the village, capturing two German field guns and a number of machine guns. 2nd Lieutenant Lawrence was awarded the Military Cross for his exploits.
The 9th Battalion was originally a service battalion of Kitchener's Fourth New Army formed in 1914 until 1915 when it became the 37th Training Reserve Battalion and supplied the service battalions overseas with replacements.
The 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th battalions were all formed in 1916, serving in France and were transferred to the Labour Corps and remained there for the rest of the war.
After the war
Throughout the war, the regiment lost 6,688 men killed and many thousands more wounded. After the Great War, as it was and still is known, was over the 3rd Battalion was disembodied and all the service battalions were disbanded as well as the Territorial Force which was reformed in 1920 as the Territorial Army. Miles Dempsey served with the regiment after being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1915, where he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery. He would serve with distinction in the Second World War in France, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and North-Western Europe and became the Commander of the British Second Army from D-Day onwards. In 1921 the titles switched to become the Royal Berkshire Regiment .The Second World War
The Second World War also saw an expansion for the regiment but not quite to the extent of the Great War. However, casualties were still heavy and the Royal Berkshire Regiment lost 1067 men killed including 974 other ranks and 93 officers killed in action with many hundreds more wounded.Regular Army
The 1st Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Miles Dempsey, was still assigned to the 6th Infantry Brigade in the 2nd Infantry Division, part of the British Expeditionary Force that was sent to France in 1939 after war was declared. They took part in the Battle of France in 1940 and were evacuated during the Battle of Dunkirk.However, the 2nd Division, 1st Royal Berkshires included, was sent to India in 1942, after the Imperial Japanese Army conquered much of Burma in early 1942. The battalion and division became part of the Fourteenth Army under the command of Lieutenant General William "Bill" Slim. The battalion fought in the Arakan Campaign in late 1942 until June 1943 and later were destined to play a crucial role in the Battle of Kohima the following year, with B Company leading the battalion in relieving the 4th Royal West Kents during the siege. The often savage fighting in Kohima, nicknamed Stalingrad of the East, turned the tide of the campaign in Burma. Entering the Battle around 20 April 1944, the 1st Royal Berkshires continued to fight the Japanese for a further three weeks in horrendous conditions, and suffered just over 50% casualties. From 15 April 1944 to 24 June 1944 the battalion had 52 killed, 290 wounded and 15 missing from an initial fighting strength of 691. The battalion continued to fight in the Burma Campaign, seeing action in the Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay until being withdrawn to India in April 1945.
File:The British Reoccupation of Burma, 1945 SE5417.jpg|thumb|right|Lieutenant General Sir Montagu Stopford, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the British 12th Army, inspects a guard of honour mounted by men of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Berkshire Regiment, during the formal ceremony in Rangoon where General Heitarō Kimura and his staff handed over their swords to staff officers of the 12th Army.
As in the First World War, the 2nd Battalion was stationed in India at the outbreak of war and remained there for the duration. From the outbreak of war until August 1940, the battalion served with the 6th Indian Infantry Brigade. In January 1943 the battalion was assigned to 98th Indian Infantry Brigade, part of 19th Indian Infantry Division and, like the 1st Battalion, also served in the Burma Campaign under the command of Fourteenth Army. A memorial plaque stands at the entrance to a pagoda near the top of Mandalay Hill. It was erected in honour of the men of the 2nd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment who fought and died there and reads;
The battalion continued to fight the Japanese until the war against Japan ended on Victory over Japan Day.