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WHERE DID THAT REGIMENT GO?
The Lineage of British Infantry and Cavalry Regiments at a Glance
by Gerry Murphy
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 It’s a good question, and Where Did That Regiment Go? provides many extremely useful answers, although it is not entirely clear why The Life Guards figures so prominently on the front cover, since this is one regiment that is thankfully still with us! Perhaps because it is the senior regiment of the British Army? Not entirely sure, but it is of course a magnificent photograph: The Life Guards on the Queen’s Birthday Parade, the dust of the parade ground rising as the two divisions sweep past the saluting dais.
There is an abundance of factual detail here, chronicling the complex story of regimental antecedence, amalgamation, and disbandment, but this is probably not a book to read cover-to-cover, being more a volume of reference. Regular updates will of course be necessary, since regiments change in shape and form more often than many of us would like.
On one small but important point the author is incorrect. On page 140, he predicts that with an army so small, we have seen the last of the Field Marshals. This was perhaps a reasonable speculation in 2009 when the book was first published, but in the interim, and before the book’s updating in 2016, there have been two Field Marshals appointed, one of course being Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, a distinguished Welsh Guardsman and Colonel of The Life Guards. Notwithstanding this small error, there is much of interest in this book.
Where Did That Regiment Go? The Lineage of British Infantry and Cavalry Regiments at a Glance. The History Press, £17.99
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