A GREAT RECORD
Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 149, 27 June 1930, Page 3
A GREAT RECORD
MANCHESTER REGIMENT
ALLIANCE WITH SOUTHLAND
(From ,"Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 15th May.
, To-day the King ?is receiving at Buckingham Palace, a representative party of officers from the Regular and .Territorial battalions' of the Manchester Regiment, of which His Majesty became Colonel-in-Chief towards the end of last year. The Manchester Regiment is allied with the Southland Regiment, New Zealand Military Forces, and the Ist Battalion, now quartered at Shorneliffe, is under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Freybcrg, V.C.
Some particulars about the regiment arc given by a correspondent of "The Times." At one period during the war there were 54 battalions of .the regiment in existence, 42 being shown in the Army List, of which -7 served overseas. The total of all ranks killed, wounded, missing, or who died of disease was about 45,000, while the number killed in action or who died of wounds was 14,122. Between them, the battalions earned during the war twelve Victoria Crosses, the earliest being those awarded to Second Lieutenant Leach and Sergeant Hogan, of the 2nd Battalion, for their great gallantry at Festubert on 29th October, 1914.' WEST INDIES AND CRIMEA. j The Ist Battalion was originally the CBrd Foot, being constituted in 1758 from the 2nd.Battalion of the Bth (The King's)— General Wolfe's regiment. Twenty-five years later it became known ag "The 63rd" West Suffolk regiment." Beading through its earlier records one is struck by the frequency with which- it served and fought in the I West Indies. In all, during the 'first; sixty years or so of its existence it j seems to have been there for four different periods,' lasting for a total of seventeen years, though, service in America during the W,ar of Independence, two expeditions to- Holland, and one each to Ferrol and Madeira, together with more humdrum duty in the United Kingdom, Gibraltar, and Malta intervened. But Guadalcupe and Martinique both figure in the regimental battle honours, the former twice, and it is a fact that the 63rd assisted in the seizure or occupation of each of .these islands on.no fewer than three distinct occasions. In the Crimea the regiment fought gallantly in the battles culminating in the capture of Sevastopol. Landing in Kalamita Bay, 1068. strong in September, 1854, they embarked again at Balaclava in May, 1856, having lost in the interval 947 officers and men killed, died of wounds, or invalided. But they did not embark for England. Instead, they were sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where, and in Canada, tticy remained until 1565. By 1870 they wore in India, and ten years later served during the later phases of the Second Afghan War. THE MAORI WAR. No fewer than five regiments numbered 96 were raised and disbanded between. 1761 and 1818, but in 1824, during a new threat of war with France, a sixth 96th, the' real forbear of the present 2nd .Battalion, was raised in Manchester. It was immediately sent abroad, returning home in 1835. Six years later saw it in New South Wales, with detachments in Van Dieman's Laud, and in 1844 one of its companies was on active service against the Maoris in. New Zealand, for which, in 1870, another battle honour was tardily granted. After five years' service in Australia the 96th'was sent to India until the end of 1854, when it returned to the United Kingdom. Hero it remained for nine years until it went to the Cape, and, in 180.), again to India. Returning home in 1873, it was linked with the OSrd Regiment to form the 16th. Infantry Brigade, the depot of which was at : Ashton-under-Lyn, in Lancashire.
Timberman
