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Last Gurkha Battalion to leave Hong Kong
The presence of some 48 years of Gurkhas in Hong Kong will effectively end this Friday (November 1) with the last Gurkha infantry battalion paying a ceremonial farewell to the territory by a beating retreat at its headquarters at Malaya Lines.
The Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, and Commander British Forces, Major General Bryan Dutton, will be present for the traditional evening ceremony of Beating Retreat at which the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles (IRGR) will lower its regimental flag for the final time in Hong Kong.
Music for the occasion will be provided by the Pipes and Drums of IRGR and by the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas, which has flown in from its base at Church Crookham, in the United Kingdom, specially for the ceremony. There will also be a short display of traditional Nepali dancing.
Over the coming weeks members of the battalion will move to the United Kingdom where they will be take on their new role as part of 5 Airborne Brigade. A small rear party will remain to complete the closure of Malaya Lines and prepare it for handover to the Hong Kong Government in December.
Gurkhas were deployed intermittently in Hong Kong from 1948 until 1971 when three battalions were permanently stationed in the territory. A fourth, the 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles, was re-raised and based in Hong Kong in 1982.
In 1994 the 10th Princess Mary's Own Gurkha Rifles were re-badged as 3rd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles (now serving in the United Kingdom), the seventh Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles as 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles (based in Brunei) and the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles merged with 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles to form the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles.
Since its formation IRGR has been based at Cassino Lines, near Fanling, and now at Malaya Lines, Sek Kong, and is commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bijaykumar Rawat, the first Nepali officer to command a Gurkha infantry battalion.
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