Ready for Easter, the new Jungle Warfare special exhibition at the museum is an exciting display of montages and artifacts depicting what life was like for soldiers and officers caught up in active service in the Far East.
The 2nd Battalion, 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment deployed to the Burma Campaign of World War II against Japanese forces, engaging in intense jungle warfare. Here soldiers operated in extreme conditions, facing dense, difficult terrain and harsh, tropical climates.
They were also involved in ‘The Malaya Emergency‘, where three regiments fought during the 1948 – 1960 conflict. The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between British and Malayan forces against the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). In 1958 both the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment and the Sherwood Foresters deployed to Malaya for two years following The Worcestershire Regiment from 1950 to 1953.
The service involved grueling “jungle bashing”—intense patrolling and navigating through dense, difficult vegetation to track down enemy combatants, with tasks made harder by heavy monsoon rains.
The conflict ended on 31 July 1960 when the Malayan government declared the state of emergency over.
Earlier in The Cheshires’ history, the 2nd Battalion served in the Third Burma War (1885–87) and both the 1st and the 2nd battalions were active in India periodically.