'Bab' and 'Jumbo' with officers of 1st/8th Gurkha Rifles, 1911

Photograph taken by D H R Gifford, 8th Gurkha Rifles, India, 1911 (c).

'Bab' and 'Jumbo', two dogs presented to the 1st Battalion, 8th Gurkha Rifles, by the wife of one of the officers, were awarded the India General Service Medal 1908-35. According to the regimental history, the dogs 'gave warning that the enemy were in the neighbourhood' of the battalion during the Abor Expedition (1911-1912). This expedition was carried out to punish the perpetrators of a massacre of a British colonial official, a doctor and their coolies on the Assam border.