The Royal Welsh Regimental Stories

The British Army.

To an outsider, it looks like one single fighting force.

In reality, it's divided into more than 40 independent regiments...

each with its own culture and traditions.

And if you want to understand the British Army,

these regiments are the best place to start.

In this programme,

we meet a regiment whose reputation was forged when an isolated band

of 122 British soldiers survived an assault by 4,000 Zulu warriors.

Things going through their head must have been absolutely incredible, crazy.

The heroic last stand won more bravery awards

than any other battle in British military history.

We are the guys that carry on that legacy today, especially out here in Afghanistan.

This is a regiment where eating leeks is a rite of passage,

and goats become lance corporals.

Just make sure you don't get a gravy potato in the back of the head.

It's a regiment whose fighting spirit is deeply rooted in its national identity.

The Royal Welsh.

January 2011.

Highway 1 near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

The Royal Welsh are operating in an area under threat from

Taliban roadside bombs known as IEDs - improvised explosive devices.

Is there any reason why you're going to Kandahar?

Is it Bazaar or a family occasion?

'Our main mission is to protect the main highway that runs

'around Afghanistan itself.'

It's had a lot of IED problems in the past, insurgents coming

and laying IEDs which have blown up civilians, American soldiers

and our own forces in the last couple of years.

Look to your south on the high ground.

Just as the high ground slopes down, there's a little knoll next to it.

That's where we've had a large IED explosion destroy one of our vehicles.

It's a 36-tonne vehicle, so a very large explosion.

They're patrolling outside the area of the highway.

Their eyes are on us, not the highway, which protects the highway, so we can reassure these locals.

The Royal Welsh is made up of approximately 1,500 soldiers

and 200 Officers.

It's divided into three infantry battalions

based in Wiltshire, Cheshire and Glamorgan.

The First Battalion are light infantry.

The 2nd are armoured infantry

and the 3rd are made up of Territorial Army reservists.

The roots of the Royal Welsh reach back over 300 years

but its defining moment came in 1879 in one of the most heroic

last stands in British military history.

On the 11th of January 1879,

the British Army invaded a tribal nation in southern Africa -

Zululand.

8,000 soldiers crossed the Buffalo River.

Most of them marched on.

But they left 122 soldiers to set up a supply base

near a small mission station whose name has become military legend -

Rorke's Drift.

The men who stayed behind were from B Company,

part of the 24th Regiment of Foot,

which would later become the Royal Welsh.

Many were inexperienced and in poor physical condition.

Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne recorded events in his diary.

"This was my first experience of active service.

"I stood only five foot six inches and I was painfully thin.

"I was only 23, sensitive and afraid of my new responsibilities."

The British army set up its main camp 12 miles away

at the base of Isandlwana Mountain.

On the 22nd of January, 800 soldiers armed with rifles were slaughtered

by 20,000 Zulu warriors carrying spears and cow-hide shields.

Back at the supply base,

soldiers like Private Henry Hook continued with their routine duties.

"Everything was perfectly quiet at Rorke's Drift.

"Not a soul suspected that only a dozen miles away, the very men

"we had said goodbye and good luck to were in their last throes of life."

In the early afternoon, B Company's Commander

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead

was informed about the slaughter at Isandlwana.

He ordered Private Fred Hitch to climb on top of a building

and look out for the enemy.

"I could see the Zulus had got as near to us

"as they could without us seeing them.

"I told Bromhead they were at the other side of the rise

"and were extending for attack.

"They numbered 4,000 - 6,000. Advice from below. 'Is that all?

"'We can manage that lot very well for a few seconds.'"

The 1964 film Zulu helped turn the men of B Company into legends.

They're on the move, sir.

North Wall, keep those riflemen on the hillside pinned down.

But Zulu's epic portrayal of the battle is not entirely accurate.

In the film, 4,000 Zulus attack Rorke's Drift,

over a vast, flat plain.

In fact, the mission station was built on a six-foot ridge.

And B Company turned it into an improvised fortress

with barricades of sandbags and biscuit boxes.

The Zulus found it difficult to scale the British defences

during their early attacks.

The British soldiers also had another advantage -

they were armed with one of the most technically advanced weapons in the world -

The Martini-Henry rifle.

Welcome to Queen Victoria's weapon of mass destruction.

This is a Martini-Henry rifle -

the standard service firearm of the British Army

between 1874 and 1889.

It's a single-shot breach-loading weapon capable of

putting bullet through a railway sleeper at 500 yards.

To load it was simplicity in itself. It was soldier-proof.

You simply open the lever, which drops the breach.

The round is slid into the breach, bring up the lever

and it's now cocked and ready to fire.

A good rifleman could expect to get around 14 rounds a minute away with it.

It's a quantum leap in firearm technology.

If you've got a man running towards you this would put a bullet

clean through him and maybe through the guy behind him.

The kick and physical effort from this weapon

is quite physically challenging.

It's completely different to the rifles we've got now. Hell of a kickback on it.

Loading after every round - I wouldn't feel very good at all.

I'd flap with the loading and unloading all the time

so I'd probably drop it and run like a baby.

The secondary weapon to be issued with the Martini-Henry

was the 1876 patent bayonet.

Triangular shaped because you cannot stitch up a triangular wound.

If this went into a person's body,

mainly the only way to get it out is to kick them off or fire a round.

The front rank would kneel,

push the bayonet up into the chest of the adversary or horse coming towards you.

Behind the man that's kneeling is a second rank firing over his shoulder.

The muzzle is very close to his ear.

You can understand why most Victorian soldiers were deaf.

It must have been an immense physical effort to fight the Zulus that day.

Fair dos to em, I couldn't do what they done.

Hat's off to 'em.

Every year, on the anniversary of Rorke's Drift,

the regiment gathers to watch the film Zulu.

And in the Officer's Mess,

new recruits are told the events of the battle.

This is your history.

Those guys who stood in your shoes beforehand,

this is what happened to them, this is what they did.

Imagine, on the night, they fired 20,000 rounds of this

to the point where the kick was so significant -

they'd fired so many rounds - that some of them had dislocated their shoulders. A nightmare.

You try putting yourself in that situation and stood there.

Obviously, all the high ground around you and just imagine everyone around.

The things going through their head must have been absolutely incredible, crazy.

With 40 Zulus for every British soldier,

B Company was fighting against all the odds.

If you can imagine, this is the sandbag barrier here

with a few of the biscuit boxes scattered around.

These chaps down here, private soldiers,

trying to fend back the Zulus who are coming at them with their spears,

fighting hand-to-hand to save each other.

By late afternoon,

the Zulus were now breaking through the sandbag barricades.

Most of B Company retreated behind a hastily erected wall

of biscuit boxes around the store house.

But six soldiers, including Private Hook, together with a dozen

sick and injured, were trapped inside the hospital building.

"We were pinned like rats in a hole.

"Already the Zulus were fiercely fighting,

"trying to burst through the doorway.

"The only way of escape was the wall itself,

"by making a hole big enough for a man to crawl though."

Private Hook and the other healthy soldiers managed to rescue

nearly all the sick and injured men.

But the supply base was now overwhelmed by Zulus.

The British soldiers stood little chance of escape.

To honour their forebears, this company,

now fighting in Afghanistan,

is called B (Rorke's Drift) Company.

The comparisons, I think, are quite strong.

We're living in very basic conditions, as the men did back then

and we've got an enemy force around us that does intend to do us great harm.

I think that sense of isolation is quite strong these days

and that binds us all together- the sense that we are living in

a base that's no bigger, I'm sure, than what they defended back in 1879.

This is our eating area, you can see some of the foods we've got.

The last six months, this is what we've been living off, army rations.

We do get some fresh, like eggs and when we go on patrols

we get fresh meals like bread, cheese slices, the sauces and condiments.

This our library, quite a few books.

We have a bit of fun at night, so playing darts -

there's only two darts - the other one got damaged.

This is our home-made gym which we've made ourselves

to keep us fighting fit before we go home.

This is where our toilet is, slightly hidden away so a bit of privacy.

Obviously poohing in bags at the moment.

All the black bags are burnt. The rooms themselves, 18-man tents,

we've only got 13 guys here at the moment.

The rooms, very basic, all luxuries sent in by family members

or bought from PX, like protein shakes - a lot of the guys are on protein shakes.

As you see, living very basically, but the guys are comfortable,

That's everything a soldier needs these days.

In the early hours of the 23rd of January, B Company made

their last stand from behind a biscuit-box barricade.

Private Hitch was expecting the worst.

"Deacon, a comrade, said to me as I was leaning back against

"the biscuit boxes,

"'Fred, when it comes to the last, shall I shoot you?'

"I replied, 'No, they have very nearly done for me

"'and they can finish me right out when it comes to the last.'"

The men of B Company resisted wave after wave of attack.

In the film, the end of the fighting is marked with

a show of respect from the Zulu warriors.

They're saluting you! They're saluting fellow braves!

But, according to contemporary accounts of the battle,

this Zulu salute to B Company is fiction.

In reality, it was the arrival of British Army reinforcements

that brought about the Zulu retreat.

"We saw the Zulus had once more swept round the mountain to attack us,

"but it was too late.

"On seeing that we were reinforced, they turned silently away

"and only their dead and a few wounded were left with us."

17 men died at Rorke's Drift. Nine were injured.

And around 450 Zulus were killed.

Seven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the 24th Regiment of Foot.

At Rorke's Drift, more bravery awards were given

to a regiment than any other battle in British military history.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli

described its defence as "One of the proudest moments of the British Empire".

Every year, on the Sunday before Rorke's Drift Day,

the Royal Welsh hold a remembrance service at Brecon Cathedral

to honour those who fought at Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift.

After Veterans parade into the Cathedral

with the standards of the Royal Welsh's ancestral regiments,

the Colonel of the Regiment, Major General Roddy Porter,

celebrates the regimental spirit of the Royal Welsh.

B (Rorke's Drift) Company is again on operations.

The leadership, teamwork and camaraderie

that regimental spirit engenders are as real today for B Company,

in the fight against the Taliban, as they were for their direct forebears at Rorke's Drift.

Rorke's Drift has a huge significance to the men of B Company.

A huge fact of pride for us that

we are the guys who carry on that legacy today

and especially out here in Afghanistan now today.

We have such a strong team spirit here and I think that comes

from being a Welsh regiment, coming from very close-knit

small communities, where people have grown up

playing rugby together, grown up working in the same mines and steel works.

You walk around the compound, going for a shave,

and all you can see is Welsh tattoos.

I myself got three Welsh tattoos. Cymbry on my forearm.

Made in Wales around my wrist, three feathers on my arm.

And the regimental motto on my chest.

Welsh ring on, support the Royal Welsh band.

Everybody's proud to be Welsh.

Billy, one of the regiment's goats,

is being prepared for the most important day in his calendar -

St David's Day.

At the moment, I'm washing him down with lavender shampoo

so it just helps calm him down and get any stains off him.

He's quite relaxed at the minute.

Hopefully tomorrow he'll be the same,

he'll be able to perform well, but obviously he'll have his off days.

The regimental goat is a tradition that dates back to 1775.

According to legend, a wild goat wandered onto the battlefield

and led a victorious charge against the enemy.

Goats have had honorary ranks in the regiment ever since.

Billy's had this role since he was three months old.

He came here as a kid, really.

He's now become a lance corporal so he's getting on in the world.

Further in his career, so let's see how far he can get.

At 6am on St David's Day,

the officers wake the soldiers in their beds with a gunfire breakfast.

It's tea laced with rum - a tradition that goes back to World War One.

Wakey, wakey. Hands off snakey.

Oh, God!

BLEEP

-Looking beautiful as ever.

-Cheers, sir.

'Gunfire is a tradition that we do every St David's Day.'

It takes us back to the trenches

when the soldiers had breakfast at gunfire,

the rounds going over their heads every morning at first light.

The officers would feed the soldiers and they'd feed them

anything they could find, mainly rum and tea

so we try and keep it a tradition and do it every St David's Day.

Nice.

They don't like it at all.

It's not nice to be woken up at 6am and have rum and tea shoved down your face.

-What time did you get in last night?

-About an hour ago.

Royal Welsh! Royal Welsh!

Turn!

MUSIC PLAYS

Right, the hymn, Cwm Rhondda.

# Open thou the crystal fountain... #

This St David's is particularly important to the Royal Welsh.

It's the regiment's 5th birthday.

On this day in 2006,

The Royal Welsh was created after two regiments were amalgamated.

The regiment celebrate with a fiercely competitive rugby tournament.

-Come on Pete, you all right?

-I'm too

-BLEEP

-old, I'm falling apart, aren't I?

Every year when you have things like this, it keeps the spirits up with the boys.

It keeps any solidarity and moral within the regiment up.

Three cheers! Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

In the film Zulu, B Company is bound together

and sustained by its Welsh spirit.

The soldiers try to drown out the Zulu war chants by singing

the Welsh hymn Men of Harlech.

# Men of Harlech Stand ye steady... #

Today, this is one of the Royal Welsh's regimental marches.

But it wouldn't have had the same significance for the men

at Rorke's Drift, because only a third of them were Welsh.

It was only in 1881, two years after Rorke's Drift,

that the regiment began to recruit all its soldiers from Wales.

This was the result of Army reforms which are the foundation

of the regimental system today.

The reforms effectively tied regiments

to specific recruiting areas.

And they set up regimental depots in each of those recruiting areas.

All the soldiers are fiercely proud of being Royal Welshmen.

For us, it defines who we are and it's the most important character of the regiment.

-Go on!

-Push it through!

-Go on!

-Push it through!

ORDERS SHOUTED

By the right, quick march!

Left, right, left, right, left right...

Lance Corporal Billy is leading the Officers

to one of their greatest challenges of the year.

In another regimental tradition, the officers and senior NCOs

must serve lunch to their men on St David's Day.

This is the most celebrated day on the calendar for us, the Royal Welsh. It's a very good day.

As you can see, the lads get a lot of stick all year round

and the dinner is their opportunity to give us a bit of stick.

It's a change.

We work hard for them all year and now obviously they're serving us.

When you hear them banging on the tables, it's a bit intimidating at first but it's good fun.

After the meal, Lance Corporal Billy makes his entrance.

MEN CHEER

Billy's arrival heralds another great Royal Welsh tradition-

the leek-eating ceremony.

The newest recruits are challenged to eat a raw leek

and drink from what's known as the battalion's "Loving Cup".

MEN CHANT

In the officers' mess, the Officers have their own leek-eating ceremony.

Second Lieutenant Liam Maguire is taking part for the first time.

'I've heard rumours that they'll lace it with chilli

'and some other spicy things so it should be quite fun.'

MEN LAUGH

'It's good to keep your sense of identity and know that you are from Wales

'and it's good to keep celebrating the things that make us different.

'When you know that you're on the front line with people around you from the same place as you,

'they cherish the same type of things you do,

'it's just brings you together and it helps that type of brotherhood.'

St David.

THEY CHEER AND APPLAUD

B (Rorke's Drift) Company are about to return home from Afghanistan.

Quiet journey so far...

We've got eight or nine days left of a seven-month tour.

We're all looking forward to getting back to Wales.

Since we've been here,

there've been no instances of hi-jacking or IEDs on this route.

So far so good. It's been a good tour.

The fighting spirit of Rorke's Drift and the regimental bond

with Wales has made the Royal Welsh who they are today.

We do rely on each other here and I'm confident that

if we were ever unfortunate to be put in a situation where

we did have hoards of enemy forces running up the ramparts,

then we could stick together and we could get through that.

A week later, the families of the men in B (Rorke's Drift) Company

are gathering at the Wiltshire barracks.

This will be the first time they have seen the soldiers for six months.

CHEERING

Every one of the 150 men who went out to Afghanistan has come home.

The Welsh are nuts. To be fair, they're all nuts.

I couldn't see myself in another battalion having

the same atmosphere with each other. It's a cracking bunch of lads.

As a Welshman, to serve with the Royal Welsh in Afghanistan

is a great thing and to bring all my men back

is one of the greatest feelings a man could have.

Just marching up there, I had tears in my eyes.

Feelings, it's...

I'm home, we're all home, we're all safe,

that's all that matters really.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]