Service With Other Nations
In addition to Commonwealth and colonial forces other Second World War users included the free forces of France, Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The first shot fired by US artillery against the German army in World War II was fired by a 25pdr of the 34th Infantry division.
After the Second World War 25 pounder remained in service with many Commonwealth armies into the 1960s. It was used in Korea by British, Canadian and New Zealand regiments and in Malaya by British and Australian batteries. It also featured in wars on the Indian sub-continent and in the service of Israeli and other Middle Eastern armies.
Since leaving UK service, the last users of the 25-pounder in combat have been the Special Air Service advisors to the Omani Army during the 1972 Battle of Mirbat in Oman, the Cypriot National Guard during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and by Kurdish militias in northern Iraq in 2003.
Read more about this topic: Ordnance QF 25 Pounder
Famous quotes containing the words service and/or nations:
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
““... There, there,
What you complain of, all the nations share.
Their effort is a mounting ecstasy
That when it gets too exquisite to bear
Will find relief in one burst. You shall see.
That’s what a certain bomb was sent to be.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)