The 1st Battalion of The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment was the first of the Regiments 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 Battalions 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 Kaisers 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
