Regiment celebrates 150 years

NEW ZEALAND'S oldest Army unit, the 5th Wellington West Coast Taranaki Battalion Group (5WWCT), marked its 150th year of service to New Zealand last weekend with a series of activities around Taranaki.
The celebrations began with a Chunuk Bair remembrance dawn service at the Malone Gates in Stratford on Friday morning, which was followed by a parade through the streets of New Plymouth on Saturday. The celebrations finished on Sunday with a service at St Mary's Anglican Church, New Zealand's oldest stone church, and where the regiment was garrisoned for short time in 1860.
The charter parade was accompanied by the sounds of blank gunfire and received a challenge from the New Zealand Police when they reached the Puke Ariki Landing. The Charter was re-affirmed to allow the regiment to march through the streets with swords drawn, drums beating, bayonets fixed, and colours flying. During the parade a number of the Regiment's personnel were presented with medals for deployments to the Solomon Islands and Sinai as well as efficiency medals.
A powhiri was held at Owae Marae in Waitara on Friday on to recognise and acknowledge the presence of the Regiment to iwi in the Taranaki area.
"It is very important for us to continue our relationship with the people of the area, with whom we now have had a long relationship, and one which we need to recognise alongside our own history," said Warrant Officer Class One Kenny Trinder.
Major Simon Strombom, the Regiments training officer, is continuing the tradition of his family's military service which began in Taranaki and is currently serving in Afghanistan. Major Strombom said he was thinking of the province and of the regiment over the weekend.
"It would mean a lot to be back in the province with the unit in its 150th year where so much of my family history is tied to. I was thinking of home when the unit paraded."
Brief Regimental History
The 5th Battalion (Wellington West Coast and Taranaki) RNZIR (5WWCT) is considered the oldest unit in the New Zealand Army as it traces its history from the early years of New Zealand. It comes from two broad pathways, namely that of the Wellington West Coast Regiment and the Taranaki Regiment, both of which claim an ancestry pre-dating the official raising of armed forces in New Zealand.
The Taranaki Regiment's forbearers include the Taranaki Rifle Volunteer Corps, which is believed to have been the first unit formally raised in New Zealand. This Corps took part in the New Zealand Land Wars and so distinguished itself at the battle of Waireka (being the first British Empire reservist unit ever committed to battle) that it was granted the Battle Honour 'New Zealand'. This is a unique distinction. No other unit has ever been given its country's name as a Battle Honour in the long and colourful history of Britain, her Empire and the Commonwealth. This battle honour was subsequently adopted by the Regular Force Infantry battalions in the 1960s to demonstrate their lineage to the Territorial Force units.
The Wanganui Rifle Volunteers, renamed the Victoria Rifles, the Wanganui Bushranger Volunteers, and the Royal Rangitikei Rifles are a few of the many ancestral units associated with the Wellington West Coast Regiment, a number of which were involved in the New Zealand Wars.
In the First World War men from the Wellington West Coast and the Taranaki Regiments took part in composite battalions due to the government policy that no regiment would fight as a unit. A similar system applied in the Second World War with soldiers taking part in 19th, 22nd, 25th and 36th Battalions. It was members of this unit, lead by Colonel Malone of the Wellington Regiment that made the now famous stand at Chunuk Bair.
In 1948 The Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regiments were combined to form the Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regiment. Then in 1964 the New Zealand Army was again restructured with all the previous Regiments falling under the umbrella of the single Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment.
At this point the Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regiment became 5th Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (5 RNZIR). In 1974 the name was changed to 5th Battalion (Wellington West Coast and Taranaki) (5 WWCT) in order to recognise the territorial affiliations of the unit.