79 (KIRKEE) Commando Battery Royal Artillery
79 (Kirkee) Commando Battery Royal Artillery was raised on 13th October 1797 as the 6th Company of the Bombay Artillery in the service of the Honourable East India Company. The Battery’s battle honour dates from Mahratta-Pindari wars when on 5th November 1817 when four 12 pounder guns from Captain Hardy’s Battery (under the direction of Lieutenant Laurie) supported Colonel Burr’s column against a Mahratta Confederacy force of some 35,000 at Kirkee, near Poona. The accurate fire of guns was critical to the outcome of the action and the Battery was awarded the honour title Kirkee.
In 1862 the Battery became part of the Royal Artillery as all artillery was taken out of the Indian Army following the Great Munity. The Battery became the 31st Battery and continued to serve in India until 1897 when it returned to the United Kingdom, based in Sheffield. In 1906 the Battery moved to Kilkenny in Ireland where it spent five years until returning to Woolwich to re-equip as a heavy Battery with 4.2 inch howitzers. It was thus equipped when it deployed to France as part of the 37th Heavy Brigade Royal Field Artillery on 22nd August 1914 and first saw action at Le Cateau. On 17 May 1916 the 37th Heavy Brigade was disbanded the Battery was transferred to the 35th Brigade RFA. In time this new unit was re-designated 25th Brigade and then 25th Field Regiment Royal Artillery. The Battery left the Western Front in late 1917 and moved to the Italian Front where it saw action at Genoa. Between the wars Kirkee again served in England (Aldershot and Bordon) and Ireland before moving back to India in 1929. The Battery was initially stationed in Peshwar where it was involved in internal security operations both in the city and on police operations against the Alfridi Tribe. In 1935 the Battery moved to Jhansi as part of the 6th Infantry Brigade before moving to Kirkee where it had won its honour title more than a century before.
On the outbreak of the war 1939 the Regiment was still mounted but exchanged its horses for motor gun tractors and in early 1940 sailed to Egypt as part of 4th Indian Division and was involved in many of the western desert actions including the assault on Gazala Ridge in December 1941 when the Battery as part of 25 Regiment faced 39 Enemy Tanks and stopped Rommel’s advance at great cost. The Battery formed part of the defences of the garrison of Torbruk and was overrun on 20 June 1942. Reduced to a small Cadre the Battery returned to England to reform with the rest of 25th Field Regiment and landed in Normandy on 18th June 1944. The battery supported the crossing of the River Orne (Operation EPSOM) and the capture of Caen (Operation GOODWOOD) before the breakout in the Autumn and the pursuit of the Franco – German border. In 1945 the battery crossed into Germany with the 6th Airborne Division and crossed the Rhine and the River Elbe where the Battery last fired in anger before heading for the Baltic. The Battery finished the war at Bremen docks.
After the Second World War the Battery became 79 (Kirkee) Field Battery as part of the re-designation of all Regiments and Batteries in 1947. at the same time 25th Field Regiment became 29th Field Regiment and served in Libya and Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine. In 1957 it deployed to Cyprus where it undertook internal security duties in the second wave of the emergency sustaining one fatality in a result of an accident. The Regiment itself suffered a great outrage when the wife of Sgt Cutliffe, a mother of five, was gunned down by EOKA terrorists in Famagusta. The Regiment returned from Cyprus and moved to The Royal Citadel in Plymouth. In 1961 the Battery was the first element of the Regiment to deploy to Kuwait to deter the Iraqi threat to the Kuwait oilfields. On its return the Battery worked alongside 41 Commando at Bickleigh and converted to the Commando role on 15th May 1962. Two years later saw the Regiment based in Singapore and serving in Borneo and Malaya where it saw action in the jungle role. The early seventies saw the battery based in Malta until it returned to The Royal Citadel in 1974. The troubles in Northern Ireland saw the Battery deployed on four Operation BANNER tours. The Battery has also served as part of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus on two occasions, the last in 1995.
In 1982 the Battery deployed with the Regiment on Operation CORPORATE the operation to recover the Falkland Islands. Landing in San Carlos on 21 May 1982 the Battery was the first fire unit ashore and the first to fire in anger. Over the course of the war the Battery fired 2,200 rounds and the tactical group supported 42 Commando on foot throughout. Initially moving to Teal Inlet on 31 May the battery moved to Estancia House alongside 3 PARA and finally to Two Sisters within range of Port Stanley. The campaign was the ultimate test for Regiment in extremely hostile conditions which tested gunnery, men and logistics to their very limits and then further still.
The Battery took part in Operation HAVEN in1991 to provide a safe and secure haven for the Kurds against Saddem Hussein in Northern Iraq and three years later in 1994 it reinforeced 7 Battery with two Fire support Teams and two gun detachments for Operation DRIVER to block predicted Iraqi incursion into Kuwait which had echoes of the deployment to Kuwait of 1961. Kirkee served in the Balkans in 1995 as part of Operation LODESTAR (Bosnia-Herzgovina). In 2003 the Battery was split up to reinforce 7 and 8 Batteries for Operation TELIC 1, the liberation of IRAQ. In 2005 the Battery deployed to Helmond ProvinceAfghanistan on Operation HERRICK V returning two years later on Operation HERRICK IX. The Battery’s latest operational deployment was to Afghanistan in 2011 on Operation HERRICK XIV. The Battery also contributed, at short notice, to the security for the hugely successful 2012 Olympic Games in London.