I think we’re saying basically the same thing; Gurkhas themselves may be formidable raw material, but the units they serve in aren’t anything particularly special, because they’re not trained, equipped or intended to serve as special operations units.
Honestly, I’d guess one main reason to keep the Gurkha regiments around would be to have a force that they can send places without having much in the way of casualty repercussions back home. I mean, is your average Briton in some random Midlands town going to be as wound up about a Gurkha getting killed as he would if it was Tommy Atkins from the next town over?
One anecdote from the Korea war. My father was on the front lines in a foxhole one night and on watch. A knife at his throat, a pat on his helmet, and the whisper “yankee” and then vanished silently in the night. Next morning, all on the opposing line were dead with slit throats. Not a peep.
Never officially in Korea…but take that anecdote for what it’s worth.
If these silent without a trace killers were so effective, it makes you wonder why they weren’t just used all along the line in Korea… or why they were “never officially in Korea.”
Brits had other obligations at the time besides Korea. The Malayan Emergency was in full swing then, and required a lot of troops. Including, per the wiki, seven partial Gurkha battalions(!), the rebuilding of the Special Air Service, and it still wasn’t enough men. Malayan Emergency - Wikipedia
It sounds like China Guy’s dad may have been asleep. Not the first time that happened on night watch. Or the Gurkha in question may have been a Hollywood ninja, who knows?
They’re trained infantry who come from a martial culture, they are well led, they have an experienced cadre to teach them how to be a soldier vs being a warrior, and they benefit from a rigorous selection process. Of course they’re going to be better infantry than an infantry unit that doesn’t have those benefits. Does that make them ‘the best’? To which I again ask, “The best at what?”
The Gurkha anecdote I know, almost certainly apocryphal, involves a general asking for volunteers for a dangerous mission. The Gurkhas immediately raise their hands.
I’m not asking why Gurkhas were or were not in Korea (even though the Brits most definitely were). I’m trying to suss out details of this story, because it really sounds apocryphal and I hate seeing this kind of “friend of a friend” or even just “friend/uncle/dad/whoever said” second-hand story go unchallenged. Not that I doubt China Guy is relaying the story as he received it accurately, but the elements that I find troubling are:
Some unit (which hasn’t even been specifically identified as Gurkhas, but this is a thread about Gurkhas…) managed to wipe out a whole bunch of North Korean or communist Chinese troops. Silently. At night.
They did this without it being connected to any greater purpose. No offensive, no breakthrough. They just did it because… they just felt like killing?
Whoever these people were, they were never officially in Korea.
Who were these secret killers, what possible reason could there have been for keeping their presence in Korea a longstanding (to the present day) secret? And if they’re so darn effective, why did the war end in a stalemate? Why didn’t these stealthy killers get deployed as part of a concerted effort the end the stalemate, either locally or generally?
deep breaths
I get it. There is a mythos around the Gurkhas. It’s probably part of the reason we have this thread. As I’ve indicated before, I don’t see any reason to buy into that mythos. But, if the story China Guy relates was true and (as I’ve inferred from it being posted in this thread, otherwise I’m really scratching my head) about Gurkhas, then, hey, maybes there’s something to that mythos. I just want to better understand the details of the claim, so I can evaluate it properly.
Yep, it’s apocryphal—this whole subject really doesn’t belong in GQ—and as I wrote, I think the most likely explanation is that CG’s pop fell asleep or micro-dozed, only to wake up to some patrolling infantryman accosting him. Aside, patrolling like that, at night, amidst dug-in, twitchy soldiers, is a fantastic way to get shot by your own side. A frequent order back in WW2 or Korea, when dug in at night, lacking night vision, and facing an enemy that had the rep for trying to infiltrate lines, was “If it’s outside your hole and scurrying around, shoot it.” Hard on the locals, and local wildlife though.
My further guess is that the guy who shook up CG’s dad, was lost himself.
As for wiping out a group of enemy at night, ‘silently’, it happens. To the US—thinking of that four or so Army sniper team in Iraq that managed to get themselves killed in their hide site—and to other countries’ people. Part of the infantry’s job is to see what’s out there. To do that, they need to patrol. Night helps conceal movements. Night induces fatigued or poorly trained men to sleep instead of watch. Ambushing sleeping men can often be done with no losses to the ambusher, and if using knives, clubs, e-tools, the odd angry shot, what have you, the fight might not be overheard and comprehended by other enemy.
So a group of well trained infantry with the initiative, trying to patrol as part of a greater effort to win the reconnaissance fight, might quietly and entirely kill a group of hostiles. As to whether they were Gurkhas or not, I don’t know. Certainly there were a multitude of nationalities fighting for the UN. It was dark and the observer was rattled. It’s not like they compared military IDs at a checkpoint under lights. He might have mistaken some other Central Asiatic fighter for a Nepalese. Maybe the Gurkha was on TDY? I dunno.
As to the last point, consider the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would count the men of the 75th Ranger Regiment to be in actuality, what the Gurkhas are in myth. (Minus the kukris and enemy mutilation.) They train to be among the best possible at small unit, direct action raiding, and individual Ranger teams are able to infiltrate enemy lines, identify isolated/unwary enemy personnel, and kill them if the mission requires it.
Wars aren’t won that way. They are won when the enemy loses the will to keep fighting. Doing all of the above things helps with that—and may convince other enemy on the line, who’ve just woken up to seeing their dead buddies in the adjacent hole, to quit and be somewhere else—but it doesn’t go towards convincing enemy decision makers to stop fighting.
GG, that’s all fine, but to the extent I’m interested in evaluating the… historicity of the event, I’d be most interested to get China Guy’s impression, as he is the most proximate source.
I doubt doubt anything you’ve said. I tend to kind of go that way myself, but again, I’m interested in China Guy’s impressions before I settle on “probably apocryphal.” Call it a useful exercise.
That was it in a nut shell. Father’s story to son a couple of times around the campfire on the 3-4 times he ever talked about combat (Philippines at the end of WW2 and Korean War). Had flashbacks and un-diagnosed PTSD. Visited me a few years back in Seattle, and still woke up with combat nightmares. He might have been asleep, but was certain that whomever it was identified him by the helmet. And equally certain that the opposing enemy were dead with slit throats and he didn’t hear a thing. He was sure they were Gurkhas FWIW.
I worked with a retired Japanese translator at UBS in the early 1990’s in Tokyo. He grew up in the US until he was 16, then went to Japan. Witnessed the Dolittle raid from the ground in Tokyo. Fought the British in Burma as an officer in the Imperial Guards. When I knew him, still wore an Omega watch he took off a dead British officer after a battle. Joked about how the other 3 survivors of a battle tried to wash with the British soap, and he educated them that it wasn’t soap but cheese rations. Marched overland for weeks from Burma to Thailand to surrender at the end of the war. Was the last Japanese soldier repatriated at the end of the war because he was bilingual Japanese English. He came to my wedding in Tokyo. It’s been a while, and while I don’t know for a fact, I’m sure he has passed. I loved that man. RIP Ito-san.
He ran up against the Gurkhas in Burma, who he found formidable. His words: “They blood their kukris if drawn. We didn’t like to go up against them.”
FYI, Mr. Ito and my father had lunch one time in Tokyo when I worked there for UBS in the 1990’s. I was nervous but they got along famously well as one old war horse to another, and kept up an irregular but comradery correspondence for a few years.