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| Lt-Col Heaven demonstrating a mortar to Sandhurst officer cadets in the 1950s |
... Heaven recalled, "and up the hill came these two
Gurkha companies with their kukris out. I have never seen such alarm and
dismay in the German faces before or since, and there were very few of
them left alive."
WHO: Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven
WHAT: Supporting some Gurkhas
WHERE: Near Bologna.
WHEN: August 26, 1944
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven, who has died aged 89, was the last officer-cadet to be awarded the Sword of Honour at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich before it closed in 1939, and was later awarded a Military Cross as a mountain battery commander in Italy.
6:19PM GMT 09 Mar 2009
In November 1943 Heaven landed at Naples with 479 Light Battery, which had 3.7in guns that split into eight pieces to be transported by mules. These (he recalled in his memoirs) were beautiful, placid, broad-backed beasts, which were drilled to prepare for action by standing in a circle looking outwards, with a smaller, pivot mule at the centre. The unit would march six days a week between dawn and around 6pm, halting every two hours for a 20-minute break. The animals would then be unloaded and watered, have their girths slackened and their hooves inspected for repair, if necessary, by the farrier sergeant using a portable anvil.
Though the battery trailed well behind the front-line troops as it marched north, it none the less amazed infantry battalions it passed by its average speed of five miles an hour and the way the animals held their heads down with their ears flopping backwards and forwards in a way that suggested a happy acceptance of their lot.
Heaven proved an efficient officer, refusing to allow the men to drink water before lunch because it made them drowsy, and not letting officers ride unless they were sick or checking the rear of the column. He was involved in several skirmishes with stragglers from the retreating German army before he earned his MC supporting some Gurkhas on August 26 1944, near Bologna.
The action took place on a hill that was the Gurkhas' headquarters, which had little more than one depleted company. As the brr-brr of German machine guns drew closer, Heaven agreed to start continuous firing, but finally had to turn to the Gurkha colonel, saying he could do no more to hold off the enemy. "At that moment we heard whoops and cries and shouts of joy," Heaven recalled, "and up the hill came these two Gurkha companies with their kukris out. I have never seen such alarm and dismay in the German faces before or since, and there were very few of them left alive."
As a tiny Gurkha ran towards him, waving a kukri streaming with blood, the colonel said: "Don't worry, Richard, he is just telling you he has killed three German soldiers. He has been bloodied, it is the first time he has done it, and he is going to carve three notches on his kukri. And what a splendid warrior he is."
Excerpted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Other entries in this Gurkha/Kukri Spotlight series:
- The Kukri Knife: Fighting Blade of Nepal by Shuny Bee
- Bishnu Shrestha: Lone Nepal Gorkha who subdued 40 train robbers
- Tuljung Gurung: Gurkha who was shot & hit by a grenade & then took on Taliban with only his Kukri
- Bhanubhakta Gurung used his bayonet, kukri and a rock on his enemies
- Lt-Col Donald Ramsay-Brown killed 2 Germans with a kukri
- Lieutenant Tul Bahadur Pun, VC
- Dipprasad Pun: Lone Gurkha vs 30 Taliban
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