43rd Gurkha Infantry Brigade in Op Grapeshot?

Hi all,

My pursuit of information on Archers takes some complicated turns. Right now I'm following a potential lead to do with 7th Polish Anti-Tank Regiment in 1945. That relates to the Gurkhas by way of the brigade being under 2nd Polish Corps in 1945, at least for part of it.

According to a book on 2nd Polish Corps, in the first part of the final campaign in Italy a pursuit group was created around the brigade:

“The following units were in support of 43 Gurkha Bde
One Armd Regt from 7 Armd Bde
14/20 Hussars plus one Kangaroo Sqn in order to move one inf bn
23 Fd Regt
One SP Bty from 15 Fd Regt
One A/Tk Bty from Polish 7 A/tk Regt
Possibly one Bty from 73 Md Regt
Two sections of Air OPs
One Survey Section
255 RE Company
Most of 2 sections RE from 7 Armd Bde”
(I have not checked which of these units are Polish)

They were to exploit “along the northern axis either via S Bartolomeo – rd crossing La Ringhiera – rd crossing Fantazza – Medicina, or via the axis S Bartolomeo – rd crossing La Ringhiera – Castel Guelfo – Poggio Piccolo”. I had a look on Google Maps and while I can't locate all the intermediate positions, these directions appear to trace the axes from north to south (though the advance was in the opposite direction) and this is all east of Bologna.

The brigade group also had to form a mobile column code-named Devon to move cross country at short notice, under the command of the Deputy Commander of 7 Armoured Brigade.

As far as advances go, I have that on 13 April the Brigade “passed through the right brigade of the Polish Corps and crossed the Scolo Gambellaro, five miles northeast of Imola”

Then on 18 April the Brigade attached to 13th Corps and under 2nd NZ Division. It reached Quaderna River, southwest of Budrio.

I am curious what did the Gurkhas did from this point? (I'm going to guess that the attached units did not follow them to 13th Corps.) There's not really much info in Doherty's book. I do have access to Bugle & Kukri at the library and maybe I'll take a look.

 

BBC - WW2 People's War - The Day that War Broke Out - Facts & Figures Pt 3

Chapter 14 – The Gurkha Lorried Brigade Joins the Fray

 

Here is what 2/6th Gurkha Rifles was doing from April 18th until the surrender on May 2nd, 1945.

 

Here is the 2/8th Gurkha Rifles:

 

Here is the 2/10th Gurkha Rifles:

 

Thank you very much!!

 

No problem. I hope it helps.

 

Hello Dryan67, my name is Diego Tacconi and i'm trying to retrieving informations on the battle of Santarcangelo ridge. I have understood from those posts that you have all 3 books regarding the Gurkha regiments involved in this battle (2/6 - 2/8 - 2/10). I would like to kindly ask you if it is possible to have a picture of the few pages related to 23th september 1944 that is the date on which this battle takes place. I have already the book "the tighers triumphs" and "the campaign in italy 1943-45" of B.Prasad, but i guess that those regimental histories contains much more details.
My goal at the moment is trying to establish the number of casualties of both sides, and i have noticed that a rough count could be present or deducted from those sources.
Thank you in advance for your reply. I hope to have correctly addressed my request in the correct posting place.

Diego

 

Diego,

You can get a good view of the unit's death from the CWGC website, by searching for each unit for the period around 23/9/1944. It can take time to get to grips with the site: Find War Dead | CWGC

 

Thanks you, David ! I entered Cwgc and made the research. But i guess that not all the fallen of that day could be addressed to that battle, if they died of wounds, for example. I will evaluate the "concentration" forms to gain more informations ! Thank you again, David