Raised at Abbottabad in 1858, 5 Gorkha Rifles (FF) won VCs at Basha East and Bishenpur and made the Indian Army's first heliborne assault at Sylhet in 1971.
Sylhet by Helicopter
On 7 December 1971 Mi-4 helicopters of the Indian Air Force began lifting 4/5 Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force) into Mirpara, on the edge of Sylhet in East Pakistan. Lt Gen Sagat Singh had ordered the move on intelligence that a Pakistani brigade was pulling out of the town. Group Captain Chandan Singh, reconnoitring in an Alouette that morning, came under fire near the airport. The landing went ahead the same day. It was the Indian Army's first heliborne operation.
The battalion was already understrength. It had fought at Atgram on the night of 20/21 November, where it destroyed a company of a Pakistani Punjab battalion by infiltration and khukri attack, and at Gazipur on 4/5 December. Those two actions cost it 7 officers, 3 JCOs and 92 other ranks killed or wounded, which left it at between 50 and 60 percent of its fighting strength.
It held at Sylhet for nine days without a link-up. The Maha Vir Chakra citation of the commanding officer, Lt Col Arun Bhimrao Harolikar, records a series of coordinated counter-attacks, repulsed until the brigade arrived, and says the stand "broke the enemy's will to resist". Outlook's account of the surrender has some 450 Gorkhas receiving the Sylhet garrison of 7,000 under three brigadiers. Rifleman Dil Bahadur Chhetri, who was reported to have killed eight Pakistani soldiers with his khukri at Atgram, also received the MVC. Sylhet is a battle honour of the regiment.
The Hazara Goorkha Battalion
Major H.F.M. Boisragon raised the regiment at Abbottabad on 22 May 1858. It served in the Punjab Frontier Force, which is the source of the title it still carries, and of the nickname Piffers. It became the 5th Gurkha Regiment in 1861 and received the Royal title in 1921, which it gave up in 1950.
Its first battle honour came at Peiwar Kotal in the Second Afghan War, where Captain John Cook won the Victoria Cross in December 1878. In the same war Kishanbir Nagarkoti won the Indian Order of Merit three times, and in the Hazara fighting of 1888 he won it a fourth time. The regiment went to Gallipoli and Mesopotamia in the First World War. Its honours include Krithia, Sari Bair and Khan Baghdadi.
Basha East and Mortar Bluff
The 2nd Battalion won three Victoria Crosses in Burma. Between 24 and 27 May 1943, in the Chin Hills, Havildar Gaje Ghale led a platoon of young soldiers in the third assault on Basha East Hill along a narrow, exposed ridge. Seriously wounded by a grenade, he kept leading hand-to-hand assaults until the hill was taken, and went to the aid post only when an officer ordered him to.
In June 1944 the battalion was at Bishenpur with 17th Indian Division, on the approaches to Imphal. The Japanese took two positions, Water Piquet and Mortar Bluff. Mortar Bluff fell after a defence by men under Subedar Netrabahadur Thapa, who received a posthumous VC. On 26 June C Company was sent to retake both. The attack was pinned on a false crest by a machine gun and a 37mm gun. Naik Agansing Rai charged the machine gun and killed three of its four crew, then led his section against the 37mm gun, losing three men and killing three of the crew himself. At Water Piquet he went forward alone with grenade and Thompson gun and killed all four men in a bunker that was still holding up the attack. He later served as Subedar Major with his battalion in the Congo, and died in Kathmandu in May 2000.
The regiment's fourth VC of that war came in Italy. On 10 November 1944 Rifleman Thaman Gurung, a scout with a fighting patrol on Monte San Bartolo, went forward alone under fire so that the forward section could reach the summit. He later crossed the skyline again to cover its withdrawal, and was killed. The London Gazette records that the information the patrol brought back helped the whole feature to be captured three days later.
Hyderabad, Zoji La, Jaffna
After Independence, Naik Nar Bahadur Thapa of 5/5 received the Ashoka Chakra for Operation Polo in Hyderabad in 1948. The regiment took part in the capture of Zoji La the same year, and the honours Zoji La and Kargil date from that war. In Sri Lanka, Lt Col Inder Bal Singh Bawa, commanding 4/5 at Jaffna in 1987, received a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra. Bharat Rakshak counts one MVC and two Vir Chakras for the regiment from those operations.
At a glance
- Raised: 22 May 1858, at Abbottabad, as the 25th Punjab Infantry (Hazara Goorkha Battalion)
- Regimental centre: 58 Gorkha Training Centre, Shillong, Meghalaya
- Motto: Shaurya Evam Nistha (courage and determination)
- War cry: Ayo Gorkhali