THE ROYAL GREEN JACKETS
The Green Jacket Brigade
In
1958, in the most fundamental peacetime reorganisation of the Army since
1881, which involved the forced and sometimes unhappy amalgamation of many
regiments, The Green Jackets Brigade was formed to comprise 1st Green
Jackets (43rd and 52nd), 2nd Green Jackets (The King's Royal Rifle Corps)
and 3rd Green Jackets (The Rifle Brigade). Thus for the first time these
three regiments, sharing so much common history and tradition, became
formally linked and based themselves on the Green Jacket Depot at
Winchester . In the next eight years each of the three battalions was
engaged in the confrontation with Indonesia in Borneo, the 1st being part
of the force rushed to Brunei from Malaya on the outbreak of armed
rebellion in 1%2. By the time peace returned in 1966 the whole Brigade had
perfected the techniques of jungle warfare. Meanwhile, Green Jackets had
also been performing peacekeeping operations in British Guiana and Cyprus
as well as taking their turn in the British Army of the Rhine and in
Berlin.
Colonels Commandant with H.R.H. The Duke of Gloucester, Colonel-in-Chief 3rd Green Jackets, The Rifle Brigade, after the formation parade of the Green Jackets Brigade, November 1958.
Left to right: Lt. Gen. Sir Euan Miller & Gen. Sir George Erskine, KRRC; HRH; Gen, Sir Montagu Stopford, RB; Maj. Gen. Sir John Winterton, 43rd & 52nd; Gen. Sir Francis Festing, RB.