The 1st Battalion of The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment was the first of the Regiment’s Battalions in the thick of the fray, when it clashed with the 12th Brandenburg Grenadiers at Tertre, north of the Mons Canal causing heavy losses upon the Prussians, then notably at the epic stand at Neuve Chapelle. It was at this time the Regiment was undergoing great expansion with the 6th, 7th and 8th Service Battalions being raised. It was at Hill 60 that the 1st Battalion’s B Company stormed the mound at the charge sounded on the bugle, which may be seen today in the Regimental Museum in Maidstone! It was in the latter part of that same year that the three new Service Battalions arrived on the Western Front. The 8th, like so many new Battalions, suffered terribly at Loos in September, losing all but one of its officers and 550 other ranks.
The
next notable engagement was the great offensive on the Somme in July
1916, with the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th and the new 10th and 11th Battalions
involved. Sadly the blackest day in the history of the
British
Army, for by nightfall it had suffered 60,000 casualties.
1917
started with the audacious daylight raid by the 1st Battalion in
February, know thereafter as the The Royal West Kent Givenchy Raid, and
considered to be the way a raid should be carried out from then on! In
July the 10th Battalion, at the point of the bayonet, charged the
German positions on the Messiness Ridge, which was reminiscent of the
old 50th (West Kent) in the Peninsular war some 100 or so years
before! This was followed closely by the 11th Battalion who
dealt
ruthlessly with a German machine gun during their attack. Later that
same month the Regiment was to witness the horrors of the 3rd battle of
Ypres forever known as Passchendaele. None of the Battalions
fared well and by October, the 1st battalion was standing at only 290
men. The 7th Battalion suffered heavily during the fighting
at
Poelecapelle. Meanwhile the Regiment was fighting in other theatres
including the unsuccessful assault on the Dardanelles where the 2/4th
made a landing at Suvla bay, before moving on to Egypt and then
Palestine. Other notable actions included Nasiriya and
Kut-al-Amara. The 2nd regular Battalion spent its time out in the
Middle East hotly contesting ground against constant Arab attacks.
The
last year of the war, 1918, saw the Regiment gain 3 Victoria
Crosses. For the 1st, 10th and 11th Battalions a brief trip
to
Italy to bolster the Italian front. During the Kaiser’s battle of March
1918 the 7th Battalion, after being re-constituted after early heavy
losses, was to suffer in total the loss of 40 officers and 1,000 men!
This not without giving a good account of themselves with one Lewis gun
team emptying no less than 20 magazines into the attacking Germans! The
Great War was to end on the 11th November 1918, but not before the
Regiment had immortalized itself in the annals of British military
history. With great sadness the Regiment had lost 6,866
officers
and other ranks.
And lastly to quote General Sir H .
Smith-Dorrien: “I am perfectly certain there is no other Battalion that
has made such a name for itself as The Royal West Kents. Everyone is
talking about you. They say: ‘Give them a job, they will do it; they
never leave the trenches’!”
“QUO FAS ET GLORIA DUCUNT”
