The most recent Regimental History of the Green Howards, published by Colonel Geoffrey Powell MC FRHS in 1992, has been brought up to date by the author's son, Brigadier John Powell OBE. Both father and son were in the Green Howards. Geoffrey Powell served as Deputy Colonel of the Regiment, and his son, John, as Colonel of the Regiment.

The book, "The History of the Green Howards", was reviewed by Malcolm Barker of the Yorkshire Post in the 18 July 2002 edition of that newspaper. This review, in itself, is a useful concise history of the regiment. The review is reproduced below, with the permission of the Yorkshire Post.

THE Green Howards could hardly have found more able chroniclers than the Powells. Both served the Regiment, the Army and their country with distinction. Geoffrey was awarded the MC at Arnhem, and was deputy colonel of the Green Howards between 1982 and 1984. His first version of this history appeared in 1992. In preparing this revised and updated edition, he has had the assistance of his son, John, who recently retired as a Brigadier after 32 years in the Army during which he too was deputy colonel of the Regiment.

The Powells are therefore amply qualified to lead a sortie through English history, which began in 1688 when Col Francis Luttrell's newly raised Regiment of Foot marched with William of Orange to supplant his father-in-law, James II. Thus, the most loyal of Regiments began by participating in what might have been regarded as an act of treachery if the "Glorious Revolution" had, failed. The means whereby a Regiment raised by a Somerset landowner and named after a Coldstream Guards officer, the Hon Charles Howard, became attached to Yorkshire are bizarre to say the least. After the American War of Independence, the 19th Regiment of Foot, as the Regiment was then designated, became the 1st York North Riding Regiment. The Colonel of the Regiment, Lt-Gen David Graeme, had been consulted before the change was promulgated, and seemed to think it had been raised in Yorkshire "and chiefly at Leeds". This the War Office accepted, and in a circular expressed a Royal wish that "a mutual attachment between the County and the Regiment" might be an aid to recruiting. In fact, any connection with Yorkshire was tenuous, but the Regiment had at least set foot in the county, marching across it, with a five-day break at Northallerton, during a trek from Portsmouth to Berwick- on-Tweed in 1772.

It was, in fact, 1909 before the Regiment first based itself in Yorkshire with the arrival of the 2nd Battalion at Fulford Barracks, York. The North Riding celebrated by presentng a silver table centre piece for the officers' mess, with four soldiers grouped round a representation of the Colours and the seven fine Russian drums captured at the Alma during the Crimean campaign.

The Green in the title has nothing to do with the splendour of the Dales (or any credulity on the part of the Regiment's soldiers), but is derived from the colour of uniform facings. These were adopted to distinguish Charles Howard's men from another Regiment also commanded by a man called Howard, "the Buff Howards". Green Howards survived only as a nickname until 1920, when an Army Order made it an official designation. King George V was not pleased. He declared it was the only Regiment in the Army to be named after a commoner. As the Powells point out, he must have forgotten the Duke of Wellington's Regiment.

The book is threaded through with anecdotes, and tales of gallantry. The Regiment's first VC went to a private called Samuel Evans in the Crimea. In the same war, a lad of 17, Lt Massy, led a company into the Redan fortress at Sevastopol and even though badly wounded kept on his feet and continued to urge his men forward. He was quickly promoted Captain, and was known thereafter as "Redan Massy".

In the Great War, a regular with the Green Howards, Pte Henry Tandey, VC, DCM, MM, was the most highly decorated private soldier to survive. His medals, together with Company Sergeant Major Stan Hollis's VC, the only one awarded on D-Day in 1944, were presented to the Regiment by Sir Ernest Harrison in 1997, and are on display at the Regimental Museum at Richmond.

The battle honours are many, beginning with Malplaquet,and continuing through the Great War with a list of names now associated with enormous sacrifice, Ypres, Somme, Suvla Bay, and many more in a sombre catalogue. The 2nd Battalion was first in action in that conflict, resisting a German assault during the 1st Battle of Ypres in October 1914. It went in with 1,000 first-class troops, regulars to a man, and came out with four officers and fewer than 300 men. The attrition went on, and a page from the Green Howards Gazette's Roll of Honour, reproduced in the book, lists 33 officers killed in action at the start of the Somme offensive in 1916. Battle honours added during the Second World War included Dunkirk, El Alamein, Anzio and Burma. Lt-Col C A "Bunny" Seagrim, commanding the 7th Battalion in North Africa during Montgomery's attack on the Mareth Line, led his men across a 12ft ditch, and attacked two machine-gun posts with his pistol and grenades. He was awarded the VC, but died of wounds before the news reached him.

Latterly, the Green Howards have been deployed in Northern Ireland, where five of its young soldiers were killed during a four-month tour of duty in 1971, the Gulf in 1991 (where the Regimental Band acting as medical orderlies helped free Kuwait), and Bosnia. Its men have also helped out where needed, most recently in the foot-and-mouth emergency, when Green Howards dealt with 300 infected premises and disposed of 300,000 dead animals. The result was honorary life membership of the National Union of Farmers for the commanding officer. A curious "battle honour" this, to end a list beginning with Malplaquet, but it fits nicely the Army's ability to do what has to be done, a concept embodied in the book's sub-title, "Three Hundred Years of Service".

King Harald of Norway, the Colonel-in-Chief, contributes a foreword, and shrewdly points to one of the virtues of this splendid book. It represents a powerful argument in favour of the British Army system whereby Regiments are regarded as enlarged families. The Green Howards are now very much part of the even larger Yorkshire family, even if we did seem to acquire them by mistake.

To order a copy of The History of the Green Howards for £25, call the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on freephone 0800 0153232. Postage and packing is £1.50.

"The History of the Green Howards; Three Hundred Years of Service" by Geoffrey Powell and John Powell is published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd (ISBN 0-85052-857-7). Copies can be obtained from the Green Howards Regimental Museum at £25.00 each (serving and retired members of the Green Howards and Friends of the Green Howards Museum £20.00). Postage and packing is extra, at £4.25 per copy.

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