Lieutenant Colonel Houlton-Hart MBE (Commanding Officer), The Second Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles

Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) Houlton-Hart was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, where he was brought up and educated until reading Material Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield. In August 2006 he commissioned into The Royal Gurkha Rifles.

Highlights of his first two years at Regimental Duty included the Jungle Warfare Instructors Course, helping run the 2004 intake Junior Leadership Cadre and deploying on Operation HERRICK 7. After two years in Brunei, he was posted for a short time to G (Tobruk) Company, a Gurkha Reinforcement Company with 1 MERCIAN Regiment based in Catterick. During this period, he deployed to the Falkland Islands.

In summer 2009, he was posted back to the Battalion and took command of Recce Platoon. The Platoon deployed on Operation HERRICK 12 as part of the 1 SCOTS Battle Group in an advisory role, and he was mentioned in dispatches for his work alongside the Afghan National Army during a busy summer tour in the Nahr-e-Saraj South AO (Area of Operations). In 2011 he became the Operations Officer and was heavily involved in preparations for Operation HERRICK 17. When it came time to deploy, he was moved into 4 (Mech) Brigade Headquarters where he spent six months running the Task Force Helmand Joint Operation Command.

In April 2013 he moved back to Brunei as the Officer Commanding of Training Team Brunei (now Jungle Warfare Division), a post he felt very privileged to have held due to the historic links between the Gurkhas and jungle warfare. He was the first to command Training Team Brunei as it became a Division of the Infantry Battle School and led a period of course re-balancing towards tradition jungle warfare and tracking skills.

After promotion to Major and a successful period at Staff College, he was posted to Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ). He spent a year in J6 before being drawn up to the Command Support Group to be the PJHQ Executive Officer (a new post). Just before moving to sub-unit command, he completed a fourth tour of Afghanistan and was awarded an MBE for his work as a Strategy and Policy Advisor in the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Following two fun years as a Company Commander, which included a fifth tour of Afghanistan and a very enjoyable overseas exercise in Jordan, he became the Battalion Second in Command (Bn 2IC). This period saw the Battalion deal with the implications of COVID-19 and deploy on an Operation REHEARSAL to Kosovo as KFOR’s Strategic Reserve Force. He was selected for promotion to Lt Col at the end of his two years as Bn 2IC and attended the Advanced Command and Staff Course in Shrivenham. On completion of this, he spent one year in Headquarters 3rd (UK) Division as SO1 G5 Future Plans before assuming command of The Second Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles on 26 July 2024.