The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment
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Battalions |
The earliest predecessors, later known as the 4th, or King’s Own, Regiment of Foot, was raised by King Charles II on 13 July 1680 as The Earl of Plymouth’s Regiment of Foot for service in Tangiers, a former Portuguese possession which had come to the Merry Monarch in his wife’s dowry. The Regiment’s first active service was the suppression of Monmouth’s Rebellion at Sedgemoor, 1685. A consequence of this revolt was an expansion of the Royal Army and the formation on 20 June 1685 of Princess Anne of Denmark’s Regiment of Foot, later known as the 8th, or King’s Regiment. Both regiments were soon involved in opposition to King James II’s increasingly autocratic rule and were early adherents of William of Orange. The 4th were the first to join William at Torbay, which later earned for them the name The King’s Own and the unique distinction of the Lion of England as their regimental badge. The accession of King William III led to war with Jacobite supporters in Ireland and Scotland and with Louis XIV of France, and among the new regiments raised was the future 30th Foot, formed on 8 March 1689 as Viscount Castleton’s Regiment of Foot.
The 4th and 8th saw service in Ireland, 1689-92, at the Battle of the Boyne and the sieges of Carrickfergus, Cork, Kinsale and Limerick, while the 30th was sent to Scotland. In 1692 all three regiments joined King Wiiliam’s army in the Spanish Netherlands, where they fought at Steenkirk and Landen, and 4th and 30th gained particular distinction at the capture of the fortress-city of Namur in 1695, the Regiment’s first battle honour.
The 4th and 30th were restored to the Army establishment in 1710 and 1715 respectively, and in 1715 King George I conferred upon the 4th the title The King’s Own. A similar honour was given to the 8th in 1716, when it became The King’s Regiment.
The 4th, 8th, 30th, 34th, 40th, 47th, 55th, 59th and 63rd all fought in America. The 4th, 47th and 59th were stationed in the colonies at the outbreak of hostilities and took part in the first skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, and, with the 63rd, in the bloody battle of Bunker’s Hill, 1775, where the 47th made the final charge to carry the rebel lines. The 40th returned to America, and in 1782 led in the capture of Fort Griswold. But elsewhere the war was drawing to an unsuccessful close and in 1783 the 40th left New York with the last of the British garrison.
In 1793 war with Revolutionary France found Britain militarily unprepared and additional regiments were hurriedly raised. Two of these were formed in Lincolnshire, largely from militia volunteers. These were the 81st, popularly known as The Loyal Lincoln Volunteers, and the 82nd, who earned the title of The Prince of Wales’s Volunteers. These subsidiary titles were officially authorised in 1832 and 1831 respectively. Peace with France came in 1802, but lasted barely a year. Under the threat of invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte the British Army expanded rapidly and all our predecessor regiments raised second battalions. The initial priority was home defence, but from 1805 the emphasis switched to expeditionary warfare in support of a succession of alliances.
Peace in Europe brought no respite for the Peninsula veterans, for the 4th, 40th, 81st and 82nd were despatched to North America, where the 8th had been stationed on the Canadian frontier since 1810. The 4th fought at the battle of Bladensburg, which led to the capture of Washington, but then suffered heavy losses in the attack on New Orleans. The 40th was present at the subsequent capture of Mobile. The 8th fought throughout the war on the Canadian frontier, at York, Stoney Creek, Chippewa, Lundy’s Lane and elsewhere, while the 82nd repelled a final attack on Canada to share with the 8th in the battle honour Niagara.
In the 40 years between Waterloo and the outbreak of the Crimean War our predecessors had few home postings, spending long periods in overseas garrisons guarding British trade routes and the frontiers of the rapidly expanding Empire. Their stations spanned the world, from Canada, the West Indies and Bermuda to Gibraltar, Malta and the Ionian Islands, and on via Arabia, Mauritius, South Africa, India, Ceylon, Afghanistan, China and Burma to Australia and New Zealand.
The 30th, 47th, 55th and 63rd formed part of the British army despatched to the Crimea in 1854. The 30th, 47th and 55th, brigaded together, advanced gallantly and side by side against the centre of the Russian line at the battle of the Alma, when the 4th and 63rd were also present. The 8th and 81st were already in India when the Mutiny broke out in 1857, and the 4th, 34th and 82nd were hurried east as reinforcements. The 81st disarmed the mutineers around Lahore, where their presence did much to keep the Punjab loyal, while the 8th secured Jullundur and then played a prominent part in the siege and storming of Delhi and at Agra. The 8th, 34th and 82nd then saw considerable fighting at Cawnpore and Lucknow.
Regular battalions of predecessor regiments were engaged in the Boer War, as were formed Militia battalions and a succession of Active Service Companies drawn from the Volunteers. This joint venture was a defining experience for the Regimental System, bonding the newly extended regiments as living, organic ‘families’ with strong local roots and a collective pride in their heritage and achievements.
During the Great War predecessors raised some 176 battalions, of whom 109 saw active service overseas, earning 124 battle honours and 43 VCs. By early 1916 there were 50 Lancashire battalions and 7 Border on the Western Front. Almost all of these took part in the great Somme offensive of that year. In the final German offensive of spring 1918 the Lancashire and Border battalions fought on stubbornly, despite mounting casualties, until the attack was halted. All took part in the allied offensive which breached the Hindenburg Line and brought the war to an end, in the course of which Lieutenant Wilfred Owen MC of the 63rd, the great war poet, was killed one week before the Armistice. Private Isaac Rosenberg of the King’s Own, another celebrated war poet, was also killed in action in 1918.
The 2nd King’s and the 40th had remained on the turbulent North West Frontier of India throughout the war and were joined there by 1/4th and 2/4th Border. In 1915 the King’s saw action against Mohmand tribesmen, and the 40th was the only British battalion awarded the battle honour Baluchistan 1918, while all three Regiments were involved in the Third Afghan War, 1919. The 34th were in action in Waziristan in 1922-23, the 40th saw further service on the North West Frontier in 1932-33, and the 1st King’s in 1937.
Following the fall of the Manchu dynasty China was plunged into civil war and Japanese intervention, and international forces were sent to preserve foreign interests. The 30th, 34th, 47th, 55th, 59th and 81st all served there in the 1920s and 30s, guarding the legations in Peking and defending international settlements at Tientsin, Canton, and most importantly Shanghai.
In the course of the war of 1939-45 predecessor regiments raised some 67 battalions, of whom 37 saw overseas service in the infantry role, earning 108 battle honours, and 20 were converted to other arms: seven Royal Armoured Corps, nine Royal Artillery, two Reconnaissance Corps and two Parachute battalions. Both Regular battalions of the Manchesters, together with the 7th and 9th, were converted to medium machine gun (MMG) battalions. The Lancashire and Border battalions were awarded 22 battle honours for the Burma campaign, of which three are unique: Chindits 1943, earned by the King’s, and Nyaungu Bridgehead and Letse by the South Lancashires.
In the immediate aftermath of the war Regular battalions from Lancashire and the Borders (albeit full of National Servicemen) served in India, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Somaliland, the Sudan, Eritrea, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Trieste, Austria, Germany and Norway, in most of which they carried out internal security and/or occupation duties. Peace brought major reductions and in 1948-50 our seven County and City Regiments were reduced to one battalion each; however, active service continued in many parts of the world.
The post-war period was marked by the start of the Cold War, and the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) transmuted from an occupying force to a vital part of the NATO defensive alliance against the Warsaw Pact. The King’s Own, East Lancashires, Border and Manchesters all served in BAOR in the 1950s, at Osnabruck, Hubbelrath, Luneburg, Gottingen, Minden and Wuppertal, and the King’s, Border, South Lancashires and Manchesters all had tours in the isolated city of Berlin. Battalions also had overseas tours in Trieste, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kenya, from where in 1958 the Kings Own deployed to deal with unrest in Aden and Bahrein.
Further amalgamations took place in the late 1950s, this time combining pairs of the old regiments as follows: The King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) and The Border Regiment merged at Barnard Castle on 1 October 1959 to form: The King’s Own Royal Border Regiment. The King’s Regiment (Liverpool) and The Manchester Regiment merged at Brentwood on June 1958 to form The King’s Regiment (Manchester and Liverpool) – the suffix was dropped in 1969. The East Lancashire Regiment and The South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) merged in Hong Kong on 1 July 1958 to form: The Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) In its short life The Lancashire Regiment worthily upheld the traditions of its forebears, serving in Hong Kong, Germany, Swaziland, Cyprus, Aden and Malta.
The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment was formed at Dover on 25 March 1970 by merging The Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) with the Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) and only six weeks later the 1st Battalion was on active service in Northern Ireland. Between 1970 and 2005 the three Regiments undertook between them 27 battalion-level operational tours in Northern Ireland, seven of them residential, in the course of which 27 of our soldiers were killed by terrorist action and many hundreds were wounded. Among the numerous incidents a few stand out: the post-internment battles of 1971-73, when we fought gunmen and rioters of both persuasions on the squalid streets of West Belfast; the King’s Own Royal Border and the King's participation in Operation Motorman in 1972; the 1990 ‘human bomb’ at Victor 2 checkpoint which killed five Kingsmen and wounded many others; and the 1998 Omagh bomb when the swift and humanitarian response of the Queen’s Lancashires saved many lives. No regiments have made a greater effort to restore order and harmony to the troubled Province.
All three Regiments have been stationed in Cyprus, responsible for the internal security of the British Sovereign Base Areas (SBA), and sometimes serving with the UN Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) on the Green Line between Greek and Turk. The King’s Own Royal Border were based on the Island in 1968-70, 1987-88 and 2001-3; the King’s were present in 1977-78 and 1996-98; the Queen’s Lancashires were stationed there in 1978-80, 1983 and 2004-5.
In 1982 the Queen’s Lancashires, having helped train the units sent to recapture the Islands, were warned for deployment as a follow-up battalion, but in the event only one company deployed. 1st King’s Own Royal Border provided the Falklands and South Georgia Infantry garrison in 1983, as did 1st King’s in 1986. The latter also found Reinforcement Infantry Companies in 1992-93, and the Queen’s Lancashires did likewise in 2004-5.
For some 40 years up to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact the main effort of the British Army was directed towards the North German Plain, where BAOR stood prepared as a vital part of the NATO Alliance to resist a Soviet Russian invasion of Western Europe. Between 1960 and the withdrawal of Russian troops our Regiments carried out a further eight tours of duty in Western Germany and four in Berlin. The King’s Own Royal Border were stationed in Wuppertal 1962-64, Minden 1974-77, and Berlin 1981-83; the King’s were based in Berlin 1962-64, Minden 1969-71, Osnabrück 1980-85, and Berlin (for the fourth time) in 1988-90; the Loyals were in Wuppertal 1962-64, and the Lancashires in Hilden; the Queen’s Lancashires served in Osnabruck 1970-74, Paderborn 1984-90, and Berlin 1992-94. To set the seal on this period it is pleasing to recall that the King’s were in Berlin when, in 1989, the Wall came down and following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the Queen’s Lancashires had the honour of being the last British battalion in Berlin. It was a bloodless victory, and in December 2005 the Queen’s Lancashires started another tour in Osnabruck in a reunited Germany.
The Queen’s Lancashires carried out peace-keeping operations in Bosnia in 1996, as did the King’s Own Royal Border in 1997-98 and again in 2000, while on account of the Kosovo crisis a company of the King’s Own Royal Border deployed in 1998-99 to Macedonia, where their professionalism was reflected by a second award of the Wilkinson Sword of Peace.
The Regular battalions of the King’s and the Queen’s Lancashires, serving together in 19 Mechanised Brigade and both reinforced by TA soldiers of their Regiments, deployed to Basra June-November 2003 in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, bringing a measure of peace and stability to the city and surrounding area. The Queen’s Lancashires lost an officer killed. The King’s Own Royal Border Regiment began a tour in Southern Iraq in October 2005. In 2002, following Allied intervention to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan our Territorials produced a composite sub-unit for Force Protection in Kabul.
Since World War II the Territorials have experienced at least as much turbulence and change as their Regular comrades, with radical cuts followed by expansion and then renewed mergers. In 1967 the old TA battalions, previously unaffected by the amalgamation of the Regulars, were reduced to cadres and a single battalion of The Lancastrian Volunteers spanned the Regimental areas from the Mersey to the Borders. This later expanded to two battalions, and in 1975 the companies were all restored to their parent Regiments to form the 4th King’s Own Royal Border, 5th/8th King’s and 4th Queen’s Lancashires, the latter two having NATO roles in Germany. This happy state of affairs continued, with minor reduction in the early 90s, until 1999 when a major reduction in the TA Infantry resulted in the merger of the 4th Battalions of The King’s Own Royal Border and The Queen’s Lancashires to form The Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers, and of 5th/8th King’s and 3rd Cheshires to form The King’s and Cheshire Regiment, sub-units retaining their parent Regimental uniform and identity. Since the 1990s many of our TA officers and soldiers have served with the Regular Army in the Balkans, Iraq, Falklands, Kuwait and Afghanistan, often as individual reinforcements to the 1st Battalions of their Regiments.
On 1 July 2006 The King’s Own Royal Border Regiment, The King’s Regiment, and The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, together with their respective companies of The Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers and The King’s and Cheshire Regiment, merged to form: The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment (King’s, Lancashire and Border) By March 2007, the new Regiment, originally of three Regular battalions and the TA component, reorganised to form the Regular 1st and 2nd Battalions and a Volunteer 4th Battalion.
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