Gurkha and Victoria Cross Recipient

 

Bhanbhagta Gurung, also known as Bhanbhakta Gurung, grew up in the small Nepalese village of Phalpu and enlisted in the British Indian Army during World War II. He joined the 3rd Battalion, 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles) at age 18 in 1940, a few months after the war began.

 

Gurkha was the traditional name given to soldiers recruited into the British or Indian military from Nepal. The word derives from an area known as the “Gorkha kingdom,” which became part of Nepal at the turn of the 20th century. Both impressed and terrified by the soldiers they faced in the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814, the British, after that war ended, offered the Nepalese soldiers a chance to volunteer for the British army. They referred to the new recruits collectively as Gurkhas.

 

Gurung did not see combat until March 1943 when he fought in the Chindit expedition led by Brigadier Orde Wingate into northern Burma. He was promoted from rifleman to naik, or corporal. But he was demoted back to rifleman in 1944 when his commanding officer told him to patrol the wrong area and then refused to admit he’d made a mistake, instead blaming Gurung.

 

On March 5, 1945, Gurung was part of a platoon of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Gurkha Rifles, tasked with taking a hill colloquially known as “Snowdon East” near Tamandu, Burma (now Myanmar). The hill was a strategic foothold overrun by the Japanese, who had wiped out about half the Gurkha company after the Gurkhas had run out of ammunition and fought their way through enemy lines with nothing but knives. Because of the Gurkhas’ proximity to enemy troops, support artillery from their own side wasn’t possible. As Gurung and his unit approached the hill, an enemy sniper from a tree approximately 75 meters to the south began taking out Gurung’s colleagues one by one. Gurung, unable to fire from his prone position, stood up, fully exposing himself to heavy fire and killed the enemy sniper.

 

He then signaled his men to follow him and sprinted up the hill as enemy fire rained down. He sprinted to the nearest enemy foxhole. Without waiting for orders, Gurung attacked the foxhole, throwing two grenades and dispatching the occupants. Without pause, Gurung rushed to the next foxhole and killed the Japanese in it with his bayonet. He cleared two other foxholes with bayonet and grenades, under almost continuous and point-blank machine gun fire. A fifth time, Gurung proceeded alone in the face of heavy fire to knock out the position. He doubled forward and leapt onto the roof of the bunker from where he threw two smoke grenades into the bunker’s slit, the source of machine-gun fire. The two Japanese soldiers who ran out of the bunker fell prey to Gurung’s kukri (a knife with a curved blade), after which he entered the bunker and killed the Japanese sniper with a rock instead of his kukri because of the close quarters.

 

Gurung ordered three others to assume positions in the bunker, where they took possession of the machine gun. The enemy soon counter-attacked, but under Gurung’s command, the men inside the bunker repelled it, with heavy Japanese losses. With no regard for his own safety, Gurung’s clearing of five enemy positions single-handedly in itself was decisive in capturing the target and he inspired the rest of his company contributed to success. Gurung was 24 years old.

 

The regiment gained the battle honour “Tamandu” as a result and he received the Victoria Cross from King George VI at Buckingham Palace.

 

Soon after the war’s end, Gurung’s company commander tried to persuade him to continue serving, but he declined as he had a frail widowed mother and a young wife and children to care for in Nepal. When he quit the regiment in January 1946, he had regained his former rank of naik and had been given the honorary rank of Honorary Havildar (sergeant). In addition to his Victoria Cross he also received the Star of Nepal, 3rd Class, in 1945. Gurung died on March 1, 2008,  at age 86. In 2000, the Gurkha training company block at Catterick, England, was named in his honour.

 

A quote from Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw sums up the valor of the Gurkhas: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.”