Report on the Gambia / Colonial Office.

Date:
[1955]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the Gambia / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Chapter 13 : Local Forces THE GAMBIA REGIMENT In 1901 a party of four officers and two non-commissioned officers seconded from British Regiments arrived in Bathurst to raise and train a unit of Company strength forming part of the Sierra Leone Battalion, Royal West African Frontier Force. During the Great War of 1914—1918, the Gambia Company saw active service in the Came- roons and East Africa. At the outbreak of war in 1939 the Company was serving in Sierra Leone with its parent unit. In the following year it returned to Bathurst and the First Battalion, the Gambia Regiment, was formed, followed in 1941 by the formation of the Second Battalion. In 1943 the First Battalion moved to Nigeria where it became part of the Sixth Brigade of the 81st (West African) Division. The Division moved to the Far East in November 1943, and was thereafter engaged in the Burma Campaign. The most noteworthy action in which the Battalion partici¬ pated was the eight-day defence of Frontier Hill. The Second Battalion entered Burma at a later date, taking part in the victory over the Japanese at Myohaung, and, as an independent anti-tank unit in the 82nd Division, in the liberation of Rangoon. The First Battalion returned to the Gambia in January 1945, followed later by the Second Battalion. After demobilisation, elements of both Battalions were reorganised to form, once more, the Gambia Company of the Sierra Leone Battalion. On the 10th February 1950, the Company again became a separate entity and, as “A” Company, the Gambia Regiment, is the onty military force in the territory. The Regiment was presented with its Colours on the 28th April 1951, and it is, so far as is known, the only independent unit of Company strength to possess them. The unit is manned by a limited number of British Officers and non-commissioned officers for command and administration purposes ; apart from these, all ranks are African, the majority recruited from the main tribes of the Protectorate, including Wollofs, Fulas and Man dingoes. Recruits are accepted as required to maintain the Com¬ pany at full strength. Training and administration follow the accepted lines, including the normal cycle of individual and collective training under African non-commissioned officers who have, in most cases, attended courses at the Command Training School at Accra in the Gold Coast.
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