A group of men from 2nd Battalion The South Wales Borderers at Southampton prior to leaving England for the D-Day landing on 6 June 1944. They were the only unit of Welsh soldiers to land on D-Day.
One of the best known and most impressive scenes in the history of war films is the moment in Stanley Baker’s hugely successful movie 1964 Zulu (which the Welsh actor produced and in which he also starred) when redcoated soldiers start to sing ‘Men of Harlech’ during their defence of Rorke’s Drift. This notable incident followed the disastrous defeat of a British army under Lord Chelmsford at Isandlwana during the Zulu War of 1879 and in the eyes of the British public the brave stand went some way to restoring British military honour. As the men break into this well-known Welsh song of martial defiance, the meaning is clear: these are Welsh soldiers steadying their nerves as they face the overwhelming odds of the opposing Zulu army and hoping to match the battle chants of the massed impis. It is a great cinematic moment and it is rightly celebrated but the odds are that it never happened in the way it is portrayed in the film. According to Professor Saul David, the most recent historian of the battle, of the 113 infantrymen present at the mission station at Rorke’s Drift in Natal on 22/23 January 1879, only twenty-seven had been born in Wales and of these sixteen were born in Monmouthshire, then an English county. Their senior NCO, Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne, was a Sussex man and Private Henry Hook, erroneously portrayed in the film as a drinker, came from Gloucestershire. They were all soldiers of B Company, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment which only became The South Wales Borderers two years later.
A group of men from 2nd Battalion The South Wales Borderers at Southampton prior to leaving England for the D-Day landing on 6 June 1944. They were the only unit of Welsh soldiers to land on D-Day.
There were other historical inconsistencies but the fact remains that the film gave such a powerful portrayal of a small number of red-coated soldiers facing a heroic enemy that Zulu has become an icon of Welsh courage in battle. All told, the 2/24th won eleven Victoria Crosses that day, including two awarded posthumously to Lieutenant Nevil Coghill and Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill for their gallant attempt to save the Colours during the Battle of Isandlwana. The Colours are now preserved in the Havard Chapel in Brecon Cathedral in recognition of the fact that, despite its original English territorial affiliation, the 24th Regiment had an existing connection with Wales. Before leaving for South Africa its depot had been established at Brecon to take advantage of the recruiting possibilities in the industrialised areas of the heads of the South Wales valleys. The barracks were built on the Watton in several stages during the nineteenth century and are still in use as the administrative headquarters of the army in Wales. Also on the site is the regimental museum which houses the Zulu Room commemorating the 24th’s role at Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana.
Brecon is still a garrison town: located on its eastern edge is Dering Lines, a military complex that has been completely rebuilt in recent years and is very different from the hutted camp in which many Welsh soldiers trained during the two world wars of the last century. Now it forms part of the Infantry Battle School where the British Army trains its junior officers and non-commissioned officers in battlefield tactics. Just a few miles further west is the Sennybridge Army Camp and Training Area, one of the largest ranges and training centres in the UK. Many thousands of service personnel use these facilities each year, training on the rugged Brecon Beacons; among them are candidates for the elite Special Air Service regiment (SAS).
Sergeant J. Roberts, 1st Battalion The South Wales Borderers, being presented with the Military Medal for ‘Gallantry in defence of No. 11 Camp Picquet, Kach Camp Waziristan in May 1937’.
Colour Party 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers parading at Brecon Beacons Barracks on 1 April 1934 prior to the laying up of the Colours in Brecon Cathedral.
Seven Victoria Cross holders of the South Wales Borderers at Brecon in 1898 for the unveiling of the Zulu War memorial: Private Robert Jones VC, Private A. H. Hook VC, Private William Jones VC, Private David Bell VC, Colonel E. S. Browne VC, Private Frederick Hitch VC, Private John Williams VC.
The South Wales Borderers was raised in 1689 as Dering’s Regiment of Foot, its founder being a supporter of the House of Orange, Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden, near Pluckley in Kent. It saw action in most of the campaigns fought by the British Army in the eighteenth century but had the misfortune to be part of General Sir John Burgoyne’s army that surrendered to American forces at Saratoga in 1777. By then it had become the 24th Foot and in 1782 it was given a territorial association with Warwickshire, although for some time its depot was in Manchester. One of the most unusual awards of the Victoria Cross occurred when the 24th was based in Burma and a party of seventeen men was sent to the Andaman Islands in May 1867 to investigate the disappearance of an earlier group, thought to have been killed by cannibals. They, too, were attacked by natives on landing and five men were put ashore from the steamer Assam Valley to rescue them during a raging storm. All were saved and the men involved – Privates David Bell, James Cooper, William Griffiths, Thomas Murphy and Assistant-Surgeon Campbell Mellis - were awarded the VC for extraordinary courage in the face of great danger.
Following the reforms of 1881 the 24th was renamed The South Wales Borderers, becoming the county regiment of Brecknockshire, Cardiganshire, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire with two Regular battalions and two Militia battalions - 3rd Battalion, formerly the Royal South Wales Borderers Militia (Royal Radnor and Brecknock Rifles) and 4th Battalion, formerly the Royal Montgomery and Merioneth Rifles Militia. During the First World War the regiment raised nineteen Territorial or Service battalions composed largely of men from its home recruiting counties in South Wales.
Among them was a group of leading Welsh rugby union players. The best known was Charlie Pritchard of Newport who won thirteen caps and was a member of the Welsh XV that beat the New Zealand All Blacks in 1905. He was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 while serving with 12th South Wales Borderers. The other wartime international players were Jack Jenkins from Caerphilly, who had been capped by Wales against South Africa in 1906, David Phillips Jones of Pontypool, who scored a try in his only game against Ireland in 1907, and Walter Martin of Newport, who was capped twice in 1912, against Ireland and France. Another notable Welshman in the regiment was the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis who went on to become one of the founders of the Welsh Nationalist Party (Plaid Cymru) in 1925.
Members of 1st Battalion The South Wales Borderers who went to France in August 1914 and came home with the Battalion in 1919: Sergeant A. E. Ravenhill MM, CSM G. Saunders MM, Sergeant G. Gibbs MM with bar, Captain C. A. Baker MC, RSM J. Shirley MC.
Amalgamation parade of The South Wales Borderers and The Welsh Regiment to form The Royal Regiment of Wales at Cardiff Castle in June 1969.
In the period between the two world wars the 1st Battalion served in Hong Kong and India while the 2nd Battalion also saw service in India and in 1936 was involved in quelling the Arab Revolt in Palestine. At the outbreak of war in 1939 the 1st Battalion was still in India and two years later took part in the Allied operation to oust the government in Iraq to prevent the country’s oil supplies falling into German hands. In the following year it served in North Africa and sustained horrific casualties: during an attempted breakout from Tobruk only four officers and a hundred men survived and the battalion ceased to exist. To the 2nd Battalion fell the honour of being the only Welsh formation to take part in the D-Day landings in June 1944 and it ended its war in Hamburg. Another battalion – 6th South Wales Borderers – fought in Burma as part of the Fourteenth ‘Forgotten’ Army. It began its war as a Territorial battalion based at Glanusk Park near Crickhowell and was originally retrained in armoured warfare before reverting to infantry for service in Burma. One of its officers was Alun Lewis, the poet and short story writer from Cwmaman, near Aberdare in Glamorganshire. A pacifist before the war, he joined up in the Royal Engineers in 1940 before being commissioned in 6th South Wales Borderers. If the war hastened Lewis’s development as a writer - during that period he produced four volumes containing twenty-five stories and ninety-five poems, including the well-known elegy ‘All Day It Has Rained’ - it also hastened his death. Lewis died in an unexplained accident with a revolver while visiting a forward position near Chittagong on 5 March 1944.
After the war the 2nd Battalion was disbanded and on 11 June 1969 1st South Wales Borderers amalgamated with 1st Welch Regiment to form The Royal Regiment of Wales with its headquarters at Maindy Barracks in Cardiff. A further change came in 2006 when the regiment amalgamated with The Royal Welch Fusiliers to form the 2nd Battalion of The Royal Welsh Regiment. Four years later the new regiment was reduced in size when the 2nd Battalion was ordered to merge with the 1st Battalion, taking with it the history and traditions of The South Wales Borderers.
Carried on the Regimental Colour
Blenheim, Ramilles, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Egypt, Cape of Good Hope 1806, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthes, Peninsular, Chillianwala, Goojerat, Punjaub, South Africa 1877–89, Burma 1885–87, South Africa 1900–02
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Mons, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, 18, Ypres 1914, 17, 18, Langemarck 1914,17, Gheluvelt, Nonne Bosschen, Givenchy 1914, Aubers, Loos, Somme 1916, 18, Bazentin, Pozières, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, Arras 1917, 18, Scarpe 1917, Messines 1917, 18, Pilckem, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St. Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Lys, Estaires, Hazebrouck, Bailleul, Kemmel, Béthune, Scherpenberg, Drocourt-Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Havrincourt, Èpéhy, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Courtrai, Selle, Valenciennes, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Doiran 1917, 18, Macedonia 1915–18, Helles, Landing at Helles, Krithia, Suvla, Sari Bair, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915–16, Egypt 1916, Tigris 1916, Kut el Amara 1917, Baghdad, Mesopotamia 1916–18, Tsingtao
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Norway 1940, Normandy Landing, Sully, Caen, Falaise, Risle Crossing, Le Havre, Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, Scheldt, Zetten, Arnhem 1945, North-West Europe 1944–45, Gazala, North Africa 1942, North Arakan, Mayu Tunnels, Pinwe, Shweli, Myitson, Burma 1944–45
Private (later Sergeant) David Bell, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Andaman Islands, 1867
Private James Cooper, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Andaman Islands, 1867
Assistant Surgeon (later Lieutenant Colonel) Campbell Mellis Douglas, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Andaman Islands, 1867
Private William Griffiths, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Andaman Islands, 1867
Private Thomas Murphy, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Andaman Islands, 1867
Lieutenant Edric Frederick Gifford, The Lord Gifford, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, First Ashanti Expedition, 1874
Corporal (later Sergeant) William Wilson Allen, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Lieutenant (later Major) Gonville Bromhead, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Lieutenant (later Brigadier) Edward Stevenson Browne, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Lieutenant Nevill Josiah Aylmer Coghill, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Private Frederick Hitch, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Private (later Sergeant) Alfred Henry Hook, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Private Robert Jones, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Private William Jones, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Private (later Sergeant) John Williams, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, Zulu War, 1879
Temporary Captain Angus Buchanan, 4th Battalion, First World War, 1916
Private James Henry Fynn, 4th Battalion, First World War, 1916
Company Sergeant Major Ivor Rees, 11th Battalion, First World War, 1917
Sergeant Albert White, 2nd Battalion, First World War, 1917
Temporary Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Burges, The Gloucestershire Regiment, Commanding 7th South Wales Borderers, First World War, 1918
Acting Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Graham Johnson, The South Wales Borderers, attached 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment, 1918
Company Sergeant Major John (Jack) Henry Williams, 10th Battalion, First World War, 1918
