Author: J P Cross
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 075096930X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Gurkhas have served with the British for almost 200 years, first with the army of the East India Company, then with the Indian Army of the Raj, and then in 1947 becoming an integral part of the British Army. This anthology of articles from The Kukri, the Gurkha regimental journals, by J.P. Cross covers much of the past sixty years of their history, taking in the last days of the Second World War and the Indonesian Confrontation in the 1960s, and also gives an insight into the everyday life, culture and beliefs of these renowned soldiers.As a Gurkha officer, J.P. Cross had many unusual experiences in his long career: in 1945, for example, he was attached to a Japanese battalion in Indochina that was fighting for the British against the Viet Minh, and the only photograph taken of this Japanese unit finally laying down its weapons appears in this book. Later, he just managed to resolve a potentially deadly dispute between an offended Gurkha and a visiting South Vietnamese trainee at the Jungle Warfare School. He also describes several seemingly supernatural experiences whilst serving with troops from a culture where such things are firmly believed in.This is a unique anthology of articles drawn from an equally unique military career and a relationship with the Gurkhas that has lasted for over half a century.
Author: John Masters
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474626092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
The first of John Master's evocative memoirs about life in the Gurkhas in India on the cusp of WWII John Masters was a soldier before he became a bestselling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in 1933 at the age of eighteen and was commissioned into the 4th Gurkha Rifles in time to take part in some of the last campaigns on the turbulent north-west frontier of India. John Masters joined a Gurhka regiment on receiving his commission, and his depiction of garrison life and campaigning on the North-West Frontier has never been surpassed. BUGLES AND A TIGER is a matchless evocation of the British Army in India on the eve of the Second World War. Still very much the army depicted by Kipling, it stands on the threshold of a war that will transform the world. This book is the first of three volumes of autobiography that touched a chord in the post-war world.
Author: C. Lawrence
Publisher: Uniform
ISBN: 9781912690237
Category : Gurkha soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A pictorial history of The Royal Gurkha Rifles. An introduction to this remarkable regiment, its operational deployments abroad and at home supported by a wealth of photographs chronicling its quarter century of service to the Crown. This unique insight into one of the world's elite fighting units includes descriptions of operational deployments in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Sierra Leone and East Timor, as well as special interest sections covering recruiting, sport, adventure training, snipers, tracking and, of course, the kukri fighting knife. The Roll of Honour, its Battle Honours (including those of its antecedent regiments), honours and awards received by members of the Regiment and a brief history of Britain's Gurkhas are amongst the detail amassed in this special edition.
Author: Prajwal Parajuly
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623651468
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
A number one bestseller in India and a shortlisted nomination for the Dylan Thomas Prize, The Gurkha's Daughter is a distinctive debut from a rising star in South Asian literature. This collection of stories captures the textures and sounds of the Nepalese diaspora through eight intimate, nuanced portraits, taking us from the hillside city of Darjeeling, India to a tucked away Nepalese restaurant in New York City. The daily struggles of Parajuly's characters reveal histories of war, colonial occupation, religious division, systemized oppression, and dispossession in the diverse geographical intersection of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and China. In a cruel remark by a wealthy doctor to her tenant shopkeeper, we hear the persistent injustice of the caste system; in the contentious relationship between a wealthy widow and her sister-in-law, we glimpse the restricted lives and submissive social roles of Nepalese women; and in a daughter's relationship with her father, we find a dissonance between modernity and tradition that has echoed through the generations in unexpected ways. Across different ethnicities, religions, and other social distinctions, the characters in these share a universal yearning, not just for survival but for a better life; one with love, dignity, and community. In The Gurkha's Daughter, Parajuly reveals the small acts of bravery--the sustaining, driving hope--that bind together the human experience.
Author: Chris Bellamy
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1848545150
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
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Book Description
The Gurkhas have fought on behalf of Britain and India for nearly two hundred years. As brave as they are resilient, resourceful and cunning, they have earned a reputation as devastating fighters, and their unswerving loyalty to the Crown has always inspired affection in the British people. There are also now up to 40,000 Gurkhas in the million-strong army of modern India. But who are the Gurkhas? How much of the myth that surrounds them is true? Award-winning historian Chris Bellamy uncovers the Gurkhas' origins in the Hills of Nepal, the extraordinary circumstances in which the British decided to recruit them and their rapid emergence as elite troops of the East India Company, the British Raj and the British Empire. Their special aptitude meant they were used as the first British 'Special Forces'. Bellamy looks at the wars the Gurkhas have fought this century, from the two world wars through the Falklands to Iraq and Afghanistan and examines their remarkable status now, when each year 11,000 hopefuls apply for just over 170 places in the British Army Gurkhas. Extraordinarily compelling, this book brings the history of the Gurkhas, and the battles they have fought, right up to date, and explores their future.
Author: John Pemble
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 9781848325203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
ASIAN / MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY: C 1500 TO C 1900. The British love affair with the Gurkhas began during the early nineteenth century clash of the expanding English East India Company and Nepalese hillmen. The remarkable fighting abilities of the Nepalese contrasted against the most incredible British ineptitude. In the end, the British wrested key hill tracts from the Gurkhas. As Sir David Ochterlony - perhaps the only figure who saved the British reputation - was poised to attack Kathmandu, the Gurkhas prudently made peace which maintained their kingdom as an independent state. Pemble's account is a comprehensive history of the conflict, detailing the origins of the war, the consequences of strategic errors, and the enduring impact of the final victory. Even before the campaign had finished, the nucleus of the Gurkha Bridgade had joined the East India Company's Forces. This is a thrilling telling of a little-known war. Fully authenticated and presented in a lively, engaging style.
Author: Scott Gilmore
Publisher: Potomac Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
America was still neutral when, in the fall of 1941, a tall, solid thirty-year-old advertising executive from Connecticut volunteered to serve as an American Field Service ambulance driver in the British Army. It was the start of an adventure that took Scott Gilmore to Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, India, and, finally, to the jungles of Burma. After an exciting and dangerous year in North Africa, where he witnessed the fall of Tobruk and the battle of El Alamein, Gilmore was accepted for training as an officer in the elite Indian Army. This was the old Indian Army of the British Raj, a fighting force of unflappable English officers, hardy Indians, and the legendary Gurkhas of Nepal. It was an army at the apogee of its skills and about to inflict on the Japanese their greatest defeat on land. With dry, offbeat humor, Gilmore describes his challenging months at the Officers Training School and with his new unit, the 8th Gurkha Rifles. As he endures the assault courses and marches, confronts the arcane rituals of the officers' mess, and learns the language and customs of his diminutive fellow soldiers, Gilmore's adaptability and good nature is notable, and his American viewpoint on the mix of cultures refreshing. Moreover, like generations of Britons, he learns to love and respect the kukri knife-wielding Gurkha warriors. When Gilmore's 4th Battalion is finally deemed ready to be put to the test as part of General Bill Slim's Fourteenth Army, it plunges into battle in the jungle-covered mountains of the Indo-Burmese border. He and his comrades fight their way across the dry plains of central Burma, execute a dangerous crossing of the mile-wide Irrawaddy River, and press on to Rangoon, enduring ahostile climate and tenacious Japanese opposition. As Gilmore moves up in responsibility to company commander and engages in night reconnaissance patrols and set-piece attacks, his experiences give a forceful picture of the fighting in one of the most difficult and remote theaters of World War II.
Author: Saad Z. Hossain
Publisher: Tordotcom
ISBN: 1250209102
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 103
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Book Description
A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST NOVELLA "Saad Z. Hossain continues to blow through the flimsy walls of genre like a whirlwind with The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, sweeping science-fiction, fantasy, myth, and satire into the wildly imaginative vortex of his ever-expanding fictional universe of alternate djinn-history and futures. Hossain's wit and wry compassion create a vision of humanity's hurtling path through time and space as both farcical and epic, leaving a blazing trail of casualties and wonders."—Indra Das When the djinn king Melek Ahmar wakes up after millennia of imprisoned slumber, he finds a world vastly different from what he remembers. Arrogant and bombastic, he comes down the mountain expecting an easy conquest: the wealthy, spectacular city state of Kathmandu, ruled by the all-knowing, all-seeing tyrant AI Karma. To his surprise, he finds that Kathmandu is a cut-price paradise, where citizens want for nothing and even the dregs of society are distinctly unwilling to revolt. Everyone seems happy, except for the old Gurkha soldier Bhan Gurung. Knife saint, recidivist, and mass murderer, he is an exile from Kathmandu, pursuing a forty-year-old vendetta that leads to the very heart of Karma. Pushed and prodded by Gurung, Melek Ahmer finds himself in ever deeper conflicts, until they finally face off against Karma and her forces. In the upheaval that follows, old crimes will come to light and the city itself will be forced to change. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Author: John Parker
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 1472202600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
Their ferocity is as legendary as their loyalty to the British Monarch and their regimental histories are crammed with acts of incredible bravery and sacrifice. Their reputation as fearsome fighting men remains undisputed and the mere threat of their kukri knives has put the fear of God into opposing forces throughout the world. John Parker's book is a fascinating testimony to the Gurkhas - a fighting force that stands dramatically apart in British military history.
Author: JP Cross
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 1912049791
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
In post-WWII Laos, Vietnamese communists secretly commence to infiltrate the kingdom. They are countered by four dedicated Lao ‘moles’ who try to thwart these aims. Gurkha Colonel Jason Rance is unwittingly dragged into a confrontation between one of the Lao moles and a Thai spy and the mole gives him a ring as a reward for saving his life. During his appointment in Laos as military attaché, Rance becomes a target of the KGB and of the Vietnamese communists, and is sought by the remaining three Lao moles because of the ring in his possession. Rance’s two Lao language instructors are nieces of the Lao king and London hopes that, by stealth, Rance might, through them, persuade the king delay his coronation no further in an effort to prevent the spread of communism southwards. Can the new military attaché manage to do the seemingly impossible? Based on historical fact and the author’s personal experience, Operation Stealth is the fourth in a series of books involving Gurkha military units that may be read in any order and includes Operation Black Rose, Operation Janus, Operation Blind Spot and Operation Four Rings. The author, JP Cross, a much revered retired Gurkha colonel, draws on real characters and events he witnessed across various theatres of war.
