CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The Song of The Marines
There’s gotta be pork, there’s gotta be beans,
In order to fill up and fatten the fightin’ Marines,
The Mighty Marines.
We carry all our vitamins inside a little can,
For corned beef is a delicacy in China or Japan,
We know that we go prepared
To fight the foe or see that we keep ‘em scared;
On land we always land a bit of femininity,
And then we hear the bugle blow,
And where the heck are we?
Over the sea let’s go, men!
We’re shovin’ right off,
We’re shoven’ right off again;
Nobody knows where or when,
We’re shovin’ right off
We’re shovin’ right off again.
It may be Shanghai,
Farewell and goodbye;
Sally and Sue, don’t be blue;
We’ll just be gone for years and years and then,
We’re shovin’ right off for home again!
There’s gotta be work, as well as canteens,
In order to discipline all of those fightin’ Marines,
The blighted Marines.
But also by this rule they must have lots and lots of play,
And that’s how you bring up the Marines into the fighting way;
And so, a good N.C.O. can takes us in tow,
None of us then give a hang,
But deal the blow with parry and thrust and bang;
And when the scrap is over, we’ll relax in our own way,
Each man for himself with the dames around,
Call it a day;
Over the sea let’s go, men!
We’re shovin’ right off,
We’re shoven’ right off again;
Nobody knows where or when,
We’re shovin’ right off
We’re shovin’ right off again.
It may be Shanghai,
Farewell and goodbye;
Sally and Sue, don’t be blue;
We’ll just be gone for years and years and then,
We’re shovin’ right off for home again!
Al Dubin & Charles Dunn
Remick Music Corp.
1937
Royal Marine Corps Portsmouth Barracks, Stonehouse
Office of the Commandant
Portsmouth, England
August 16, 1939
Realizing that the manpower availability solely within the British Isles was insufficient to support the growth of the Empire’s military, the Imperial General Staff had decided shortly after the start of the women’s services recruitment drive to begin plans to field “mixed” regiments. These regiments would be made up battalions of both sons of the British Isles and sons of the former Commonwealth nations and Colonies. To the shock of a good number of the IGS, many officers and men of the British Army had grave reservations of serving alongside troops from the Far East, specifically India and Malaya.
A solution was reached when General Slim of the Royal Marines entertained the thought that due to the intense interdependency of Marine regiments, it might be best to integrate these battalions in to the Marine regiments that were in the process of forming. As the fourth Marine regiment earmarked for General Slim’s Marine Force Two, the Devonshire Maritime Yeomanry, was at full compliment on March 28 and had begun the process of advanced training, it was determined to have the fifth and sixth regiments assigned to General Slim’s command would be integrated regiments.
the Devonshire Maritime Yeomanry in their new assault craft
On April 6, the Pembroke Yeomanry, under the command of Colonel Alasdair Kim, mustered in at Stonehouse with four of its battalions, or roughly half the Marines of the Regiment, being comprised of fierce Sikhs from the Punjab of India. While the initial stages of training for the Pembroke Yeomen as rocky due to a sense of racism among some of the Marine recruits, Colonel Kim and his cadre of NCOs were able to severely curb those feelings through a mixture of lectures and traditional military training that tore down every recruit to the lowest common denominator and then began the rebuilding process.
Sikhs of 2nd Battalion, Pembroke Yeomanry
Several days after the mustering of the Pembroke Yeomanry, the Royal Marine Corps unfurled the colours of the Duke of Albany’s Maritime Infantry, a regiment that was comprised of six battalions of Gurkhas from the Imperial Protectorate of Nepal. No stranger to the Empire, Gurkhas had been in service to the British Crown since 1817 when the first Gurkha troops were employed by the British East India Company before becoming part of the British Indian Army in 1857 and of all of the “Colonial” troops being integrated into the British military, the Gurkhas were the least resisted by the British military professionals. In fact, based upon the exploits of the Gurkha Rifle regiments of the Great War, specifically during the Gallipoli Campaign when the 6th Gurkhas captured a feature later known as "Gurkha Bluff" and at Sari Bair where they were the only troops in the whole campaign to reach and hold the crest line and look down on the Straits which was the ultimate objective, and during the Battle of Loos in 1915 when the 8th Gurkha Rifles fought to the last man defending positions from a German counter-attack, many within the military welcomed the arrival of the men from Nepal, recalling the words of Sir Ralph Turner of the Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles:
“As I write these last words, my thoughts return to you who were my comrades, the stubborn and indomitable peasants of Nepal. Once more I hear the laughter with which you greeted every hardship. Once more I see you in your bivouacs or about your fires, on forced march or in the trenches, now shivering with wet and cold, now scorched by a pitiless and burning sun. Uncomplaining you endure hunger and thirst and wounds; and at the last your unwavering lines disappear into the smoke and wrath of battle. Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you."
Gurkhas of the Duke of Albany’s Maritime Infantry's 5th Battalion
Within several weeks, the two new Marine regiments were in the full throes of the harsh Royal Marine training regimen, and on April 16 when all three regiments were presented to General Lord Mountbatten and General Slim, the new Marines, English, Scot, Welsh, Irish, Canadian, South African, Australian, New Zealander, Sikh, and Gurkha, stood before the Royal Marine Corps Portsmouth Barracks at Stonehouse with a sense of pride at their unique status within the Empire.
For the Empire, the inclusion of the three new Marine Regiments meant that Royal Marine Corps had a total of fourteen regiments, each with an attached artillery brigade, divided into two separate field forces, Force One under the Commandant, Lord Mountbatten with eight regiments, and Force Two under Assistant Commandant, General Slim, with six regiments. At the ceremony that officially welcomed the three new regiments into the Corps, King George VI sent a clear signal to the world when he clearly indicated that the purpose of the Royal Marines was to project the power and might of the British Empire around the globe, wherever the interests of the Empire may lay or be imperiled.
Excerpt from The Roads to War
By F.E.H. von Longaernon
****
Anybody who is intelligent fears the Gurkha... now can you imagine the impact of a Gurkha Marine?
Up Next: The descent picks up some more speed!