About: 1st Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteers

The 1st Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteers was a part-time unit of the British Army first raised from the Cinque Ports of Kent and Sussex in 1859. It later became the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. During the First World War, it served on the Western front as pioneers, seeing a great deal of action at Aubers Ridge, the Somme, Ypres, and in Italy. In the Second World War, both the battalion and its duplicate served in the Battle of France and were evacuated from Dunkirk. The 5th Battalion then fought at the Second Battle of El Alamein while its duplicate unit served as an anti-aircraft regiment in the campaign in North West Europe. Neither unit was reformed after the war.