To The Gloucestershire Regiment belongs the unique honour of being the only British line infantry regiment to be awarded the US Presidential Unit Citation, presented to units of the armed forces of the United States of America and its allies for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy. The ‘Glorious Glosters’ were honoured in this way following their gallant last stand at the Battle of the Imjin River on 25 April 1951 during the Korean War. Many of the men were conscripts or reservists but, as was noted at the time, they lived up to the precepts of a proud history and the effect was felt throughout the whole of the British Army. According to the official communiqué ‘the Chinese attacked on every side, screaming, blowing bugles, ringing bells and clashing cymbals. But the Gloucesters held them and fought back, not giving an inch of ground.’ Of those men of Gloucestershire who tried to break out and reach the safety of 29 Brigade’s lines, only 5 officers and 41 men made it, while 19 officers and 505 men went into Chinese captivity and two years of hardship and deprivation; of those 34 died.
But the stand made by the Gloucesters on the Imjin had not been in vain. The impetus of the Chinese advance had been halted and the brief respite allowed US reinforcements to be rushed into the defensive area to steady the line. For his gallant behaviour during and after the battle the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel James Carne, was awarded the Victoria Cross. On the battalion’s return home in 1953 the survivors paraded through Gloucester before taking part in a service of thanksgiving in the cathedral where a memorial window to the Gloucesters’ role in the Korean War was unveiled in 1997. Also on display in the cathedral is the Carne Cross, a 25cm high stone Celtic cross which Carne carved, using a nail, while in solitary confinement. In 2010 it was chosen to represent Gloucestershire as part of the BBC’s A History of the World project with the British Museum.
The return of the ‘Glorious Glosters’. At Southampton docks a tender brings ashore 150 British prisoners of war recently released from Korean captivity. Amongst them is Lieutenant Colonel J. P. Carne, VC. Standing on the right is Mrs A. E. Colburn, of Lambourne, waiting on the quayside with her children.
The action in Korea was not the first time the Gloucesters had faced such overwhelming odds. During the Battle of Alexandria, fought in Egypt on 21 March 1801, the 28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment bore the brunt of the initial French assault when they were simultaneously attacked by French cavalry from the rear. To meet this fresh challenge the rear ranks simply turned around to face the enemy and both attacks were repelled. To commemorate this unique feat the regiment was permitted to wear a small replica regimental badge on the back of their headdress, a fitting tribute to a regiment which enjoyed the nickname of ‘The Slashers’ – a reference to an unfortunate incident in Canada in 1764 when a Montreal merchant fell foul of some Gloucestershire soldiers and had part of his right ear cut off during the subsequent melee.
Formed in Portsmouth in 1694 by Colonel John Gibson, the original regiment became the 28th Foot in 1751 and was given the territorial designation North Gloucestershire in 1782. During the Napoleonic Wars the regiment served in the Peninsula campaign as well as in the last hundred days which culminated in the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The former battle was commemorated in 1875 in a famous painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler: it shows the 28th in action, having formed a square in a field of rye and ‘bracing itself for one massive, final charge of terrifying Polish Lancers and cuirassier veterans led by Marshal Ney’. The regiment also fought in the Crimean War and saw action at the battles of the Alma, Inkerman and Sevastopol. For much of that conflict the regiment was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bentinck of the Coldstream Guards, who was later a general and a Groom-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria.
The second component of the regiment was no less distinguished. The 61st Foot was raised in 1756 as the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Foot (The Buffs) and was given the designation South Gloucestershire in 1782. Its first Colonel was Major General Granville Elliott, who had served with distinction in Europe in the army of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. During the war against Napoleonic France it served in the Peninsula and remained there till the end of the war, sharing in the victories of Talavera, Busaco, Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo; at the siege of the forts of San Vincente, St Cajetano, and La Merced, outside Salamanca; at the Battle of Salamanca and at Burgos, the Pyrenees, the Nivelle, Nive Bayonne, Orthes, Tarbes and Toulouse. Its first battle honour, though, was earned at the Battle of Maida on 4 July 1806 where a small British force under Major General Sir John Stuart defeated a larger French army in Calabria and in so doing prevented a planned invasion of Sicily. Praising the work of the 61st, the British Minister at Palermo observed that the victory was evidence of ‘the superiority of British courage and discipline over an arrogant and cruel enemy’. Such high standards remained with the regiment right to the end. At the final battle of Toulouse, fought on 10 April 1814, the casualties amounted to 20 officers and 161 men killed and wounded. Among the dead was the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Coghlan, and the regiment was left in command of the adjutant, Lieutenant Bace. From the great number of red-coated dead on the field, the 61st gained a proud nickname – ‘The Flowers of Toulouse’.
British soldiers of the 1st Battalion The Gloucestershire Regiment after fighting their way out of a Communist encirclement, pictured on their Bren gun carrier on 9 May 1951.
Under the reforms of 1881 the two regiments amalgamated as The Gloucestershire Regiment with two Regular and three Volunteer battalions. The headquarters and depot for the new regiment were situated at Horsfield in Bristol but were relocated after the Second World War to Robinswood Barracks in Gloucester. Both sites have been long since demolished and redeveloped. In 1980 the regimental archives and museum opened in the historic Old Custom House, a handsome building from 1845 that once housed the Collector of Customs and his staff. It was a fitting place to commemorate the regiment as, by long-standing tradition, it drew its recruits from the county of Gloucestershire and from the surrounding area, including Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, Tewkesbury and from the Forest of Dean and Bristol.
During the First World War the Gloucesters raised twenty-five battalions, sixteen of which saw active service, and the regiment was awarded seventy-two battle honours. Two battalions, the 2nd and the 9th, fought in Salonika as part of the forgotten army which found itself in action against Bulgarian forces in this little-remembered campaign. During the fighting in September 1918, a Victoria Cross was awarded to Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Burges of the Gloucesters while he was in temporary command of 7th South Wales Borderers on the Doiran front. Although badly wounded in an attack on Bulgarian positions, the forty-five-year-old from Bristol repeatedly exhorted his men while under heavy fire until he was hit again and fell unconscious. On 24 October 2006, exactly sixty years after his death, a marble plaque to his memory was unveiled in Bristol at Arnos Vale cemetery. Burges’s VC was one of six awarded to members of the regiment.
The Gloucestershire Regiment’s long life came to an end in 1994 when it amalgamated with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) to form The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment. Twelve years later, in 2007, there was further change when the regiment merged with The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment to form the 1st Battalion The Rifles, both regiments having already transferred to the light infantry role.
Although the Gloucesters are no more, the legend of the Imjin River remains a powerful one within the British Army. In 2010, when the headquarters of the NATO Rapid Reaction Corps moved back to the UK from Germany, its new base at RAF Innsworth in Gloucester-shire was renamed ‘Imjin Lines’.
Ramillies, Louisburg, Guadaloupe 1759, Quebec 1759, Martinique 1762, Havannah, St Lucia 1778, Egypt, Maida, Corunna, Talavera, Busaco, Barrosa, Albuhera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse, Peninsula, Waterloo, Chillianwallah, Goojerat, Punjaub, Alma, Inkerman, Sevastopol, Delhi 1857, Defence of Ladysmith, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, South Africa 1899–1902
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Mons, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, 18, Ypres 1914, 15, 17, Langemarck 1914, 17, Gheluvelt, Nonne Bosschen, Givenchy 1914, Gravenstafel, St Julien, Frezenberg, Bellewaarde, Aubers, Loos, Somme 1916, 18, Albert 1916, 18, Bazentin, Delville Wood, Pozières, Guillemont, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, Arras 1917, 18, Vimy 1917, Scarpe 1917, Messines 1917, 18, Pilckem, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Rosières, Avre, Lys, Estaires, Hazebrouck, Bailleul, Kemmel, Béthune, Drocourt-Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Èpéhy, Canal du Nord, St Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Selle, Valenciennes, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Piave, Vittorio Veneto, Italy 1917–18, Struma, Doiran 1917, Macedonia 1915–18, Suvla, Sari Bair, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915–16, Egypt 1916, Tigris 1916, Kut al Amara 1917, Baghdad, Mesopotamia 1916–18, Persia 1918
Defence of Escaut, St Omer-La-Bassée, Wormhoudt, Cassel, Villers Bocage, Mont Pincon, Falaise, Risle Crossing, Le Havre, Zetten, North-West Europe 1940, 44–45, Taukyan, Paungde, Monywa 1942, North Arakan, Mayu Tunnels, Pinwe, Shweli, Myitson, Burma 1942, 44–45
Carried on the Regimental Colour
Hill 327, Imjin, Korea 1950–51
Surgeon (later Surgeon General) Herbert Taylor Reade, 61st Regiment, Indian Mutiny, 1857
2nd Lieutenant Hardy Falconer Parsons, 14th Battalion, First World War, 1917
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Burges, The Gloucestershire Regiment, Commanding 7th South Wales Borderers, First World War, 1918
Captain (later Brigadier) Manley Angell James, 8th Battalion, First World War, 1918
Private Francis George Miles, 1/5th Battalion, First World War, 1918
Lieutenant Colonel James Power Carne, 1st Battalion, Korean War, 1951
Lieutenant Philip Curtis, The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, attached 1st Battalion, Korean War, 1951
