QUEEN’S OWN ROYAL WEST KENT REGIMENT, 1951 – 1961

This third and final part of the three-volume history of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment
tells of the last decade in the unit’s existence before it was amalgamated with its neighbouring unit, the Royal East Kent Regiment – the Buffs – to form the Royal Kent Regiment in 1961. The final ten years in the old unit’s life was as eventful as any in its history as it held the line while Britain gave independence to many of its former colonies.The regiment’s First Battalion saw service from April 1951 to February 1954, in the ‘Malayan Emergency’ – Britain’s successful containment of a Communist guerilla campaign. The First Battalion also took part in a far less happy post-colonial episode, the Anglo-French occupation of Egypt’s Suez Canal in 1956. Almost immediately, It then embarked from Port Said for Cyprus to help deal with the Emergency caused by the Greek Cypriot guerilla group EOKA and its campaign for unity (‘Enosis’) with Greece. The book concludes with the smooth amalgamation of the two Kent regiments, each with their own distinguished history. With ten appendices listing honours, awards, memorials etc. four maps and 33 photographs.