Raised at Subathu in 1815, 1 Gorkha Rifles holds the only Param Vir Chakra won on UN service, awarded to Capt G.S. Salaria in the Congo in 1961.
Two Sections at Elisabethville
On 5 December 1961 Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria of 3/1 Gorkha Rifles went up against a Katangese roadblock in Elisabethville with two sections of Gorkhas and two Swedish armoured personnel carriers. The battalion was in the Congo on United Nations duty. Its main attack that day, by Charlie Company under Major Govind Sharma, was aimed at a block on the road between Katanga command headquarters and the airfield. Salaria's task lay alongside it, and he judged that the position in front of him was a subsidiary block and ambush that could reinforce the main one.
His Param Vir Chakra citation puts the enemy at about 90 men with two armoured cars. Other accounts give the gendarmes a larger number and give Salaria a different count of men, so the citation is the safest figure. A rocket launcher team knocked out the armoured cars. Salaria then led a charge with bayonets, khukris and grenades. He was hit twice in the neck by automatic fire and collapsed from loss of blood. He died of his wounds the same day, aged 26.
The gendarmes broke and ran, leaving their dead and wounded behind. The citation credits the action with preventing the encirclement of UN headquarters in Elisabethville. Salaria, born on 29 November 1935 and commissioned on 9 June 1957, is the only soldier to have received the Param Vir Chakra for action on a UN peacekeeping operation. Bharat Rakshak records it as the regiment's only PVC.
Raised at Subathu
The regiment dates itself to the Gurkha War. In April 1815 General David Ochterlony's troops were fighting Amar Singh Thapa's army at the fort of Malaun, in the hills of what is now Himachal Pradesh. On 24 April, at Subathu, the East India Company formed men of Thapa's army into the First Nusseree Battalion. Ochterlony was impressed enough by the defence that when the fort gave up in May he let Thapa march out with his arms, colours, two guns and personal property.
The name Malaun in the regiment's later title refers to that fort. The first battle honour came at Bharatpur in 1826, and it was the first awarded to a Gurkha unit. Aliwal and Sobraon followed in the First Anglo-Sikh War. In 1850 the battalion became the 66th Goorkha Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, replacing a regiment of that number which had mutinied. It became the 1st Goorkha Regiment in 1861, the 1st King George's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment) in 1910, and took the Indian spelling of Gorkha in 1950. Its soldiers have mainly been Magars and Gurungs.
Tytler at Choorpoorah
The regiment's first Victoria Cross went to Lieutenant John Adam Tytler of the 66th. On 10 February 1858, during the Indian Rebellion, two companies of the 66th under Captain Ross advanced on the rebel right flank at Choorpoorah under heavy gunfire. The citation in the London Gazette of 24 August 1858 says Tytler "dashed on horseback ahead of all, and alone, up to the enemy's guns". He fought hand to hand until they were taken, and was shot through the left arm and wounded in the chest by a spear. The Gurkha Museum records this as the first VC won by an officer of a Goorkha regiment. A second followed in Malaya, where Captain George Nicolas Channer won it in the Perak War of 1875, the regiment's first overseas deployment.
Jitra, Kampar and Singapore
In the First World War the 1st Battalion reached the Western Front in December 1914 with the Sirhind Brigade and fought at Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, St Julien, Festubert and Loos. It then went to Mesopotamia for the attempts to relieve Kut, and finished the war in Palestine, with the honours Megiddo and Sharon.
The Second World War split the regiment. The 2nd Battalion was in Malaya with 28th Brigade in 1941, fought at Jitra and Kampar, and was cut up at the Slim River on 7 January 1942. Its survivors were among those taken prisoner when Singapore fell on 15 February. The Burma fighting brought Shenam Pass, Bishenpur and Ukhrul. After Japan's surrender the 1st and 3rd Battalions were sent to southern Indochina with 20th Indian Division and stayed until May 1946.
Kalidhar and Darsana
The regiment was one of six Gurkha regiments allotted to India under the 1947 Tripartite Agreement. The 3rd Battalion was re-raised in 1959, the 4th in 1963 and the 5th in 1965. Its two post-Independence battle honours are Kalidhar, where the 1st Battalion kept the Akhnur-Naushera road open in 1965, and Darsana, from the 1971 war in East Pakistan.
Bharat Rakshak lists the regiment's awards since Independence as one Param Vir Chakra, seven Maha Vir Chakras, 16 Vir Chakras, one Kirti Chakra, three Shaurya Chakras, one Yudh Seva Medal and 22 Sena Medals. A 6th Battalion was raised at Subathu on 1 April 2016.
At a glance
- Raised: 24 April 1815, at Subathu, as the First Nusseree Battalion
- Regimental centre: Subathu, Himachal Pradesh
- Motto: Kayar Hunu Bhanda Marnu Ramro (better to die than be a coward)
- War cry: Ayo Gorkhali