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The sapper corps of the British army responsible for construction of fortifications, camps, airfields, roads, and railways; demolition operations; and mining operations. The Royal Engineers were also responsible in overseas theaters for the supply of water, and, curiously, the operation of the military postal system.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
Royal Engineers (RE). While civil engineers were quick to realize the potential uses of photography as a recording tool in their profession, it was not until the mid-1850s, in Britain, that the medium was adopted by the military. After largely unsuccessful attempts at photography during the Crimean War (1853-6), the involvement of RE personnel in the construction of the South Kensington Museum was seen as a good opportunity to widen the photographic skills within the corps and led, in 1856, to a number of sappers receiving instruction in photography from the museum's photographer, Charles Thurston Thompson (1816-68). Shortly afterwards, courses in photography were officially established under Captain Henry Schaw at the RE Institution at Chatham, and henceforth until 1904, when it was absorbed into the Survey School, the Photographic School retained an independent status.
While the main purpose of this photographic work was to support the technical demands of the corps in both its day-to-day operations and on campaign, sappers were also officially encouraged to use the camera for more general photography. As a result, between the 1850s and 1870s, they produced some remarkable work, both in the course of their military duties and on secondment to other projects. The photographic influence of the Royal Engineers was thus felt well beyond the corps itself: in addition to producing photographers and photographic chemists of the international standing of Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney, the Photographic School at Chatham was also involved in training photographers for expedition work (such as two members of the Nares Arctic Expedition of 1875-6); sappers with photographic training were routinely attached to survey parties (such as Corporal Lawson, who accompanied Charles Gordon on his Russo-Turkish border survey of 1857), while the photographic department of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI; f. 1870) was heavily reliant in its formative years on the expertise of the sappers who undertook much of the technical work. Already by 1860, John Donnelly, writing on the military applications of photography, was able to enumerate RE photographs taken in places as varied as Panama, India, Singapore, China, and Russia. While Sergeant John Harrold (who was to spend his later years with the ASI) produced over 15, 000 prints of maps for use during the Abyssinian Campaign of 1867-8, his photographic record of the progress of the campaign itself and the country through which it passed is of far greater historical interest. Arguably the most significant work of RE photographers was of a semi-military or civilian nature, where their skills were placed at the disposal of scholarship in a variety of fields: the two sappers (Corporals B. L. Spackman and J. McCartney) who accompanied Charles Thomas Newton's British Museum expedition to Halicarnassus and Cnidus in 1857-9 made one of the earliest detailed records of a major archaeological investigation, while in the survey field sappers produced an exhaustive record of the Canadian Boundary Commissions of 1858-62 and 1872-3, concentrating their photography as much on the people, landscapes, and daily life of the country as on their professional operations. Perhaps the most distinguished of the many photographers who received their training at Chatham was Colour Sergeant James McDonald (1822-85), who in the course of Ordnance Survey operations in Jerusalem (1864-5) and Sinai (1868-9) produced a magnificent series of technically assured and evocative views of the topography and architecture of the Holy Land, which remain a documentary resource of major importance.
— John Falconer
| British Army Arms and Services | |
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It provides combat engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces.
The Regimental Headquarters and the Royal School of Military Engineering are in Chatham in Kent. The corps is divided into several regiments, barracked at various places in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Germany.
The Royal Engineers traced their origins back to the military engineers brought to England by William the Conqueror and claim over 900 years of unbroken service to the crown. Engineers have always served in the armies of the Crown; however, the origins of the modern corps, along with those of the Royal Artillery, lie in the Board of Ordnance established in the 15th century. In 1717, the Board established a Corps of Engineers, consisting entirely of commissioned officers. The hard work was done by the Artificer Companies, made up of contracted civilian artisans and labourers. In 1782, a Soldier Artificer Company was established for service in Gibraltar, and this was the first instance of non-commissioned military engineers. In 1787, the Corps of Engineers was granted the Royal prefix and adopted its current name and in the same year a Corps of Royal Military Artificers was formed, consisting of non-commissioned officers and privates, to be officered by the RE. Ten years later the Gibraltar company, which had remained separate, was absorbed and in 1812 the name was changed to the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners.
In 1855 the Board of Ordnance was abolished and authority over the Royal Engineers, Royal Sappers and Miners and Royal Artillery was transferred to the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, thus uniting them with the rest of the Army. The following year, the Royal Engineers and Royal Sappers and Miners became a unified corps as the Corps of Royal Engineers. In 1862 the corps also absorbed the British officers and men of the engineer corps of the East India Company.
In 1911 the Corps formed its Air Battalion, the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces. The Air Battalion was the forerunner of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force.
The Corps has no battle honours, but its motto Ubique (Everywhere), awarded by King William IV in 1832, signifies that it has seen action in all the major conflicts of the British Army. A second motto is Quo Fas et Gloria ducunt (Where right and glory lead).
The Royal Engineers Museum of Military Engineering is in Gillingham in Kent.
A point of some pride to the Sappers is that their name takes the form Corps of Royal Engineers rather than, for example, Royal Engineer Corps. The distinction, they say, is that every Sapper is Royal in his own right, rather than simply being a member of a Royal Corps (such as the Royal Corps of Signals or the Royal Regiment of Artillery). The famous Royal Engineers A.F.C. have won the FA Cup in 1875 and are considered pioneers of the game.
All members of the Royal Engineers are trained combat engineers and all sappers (privates) and non-commissioned officers also have another trade. Women are eligible for all Royal Engineer specialities. They are now eligible for RE Diver, although to date there are none.
Sappers can join the Royal Engineers in one of the following trades:
Later, sappers can specialise in further trades and specialities, including:
Senior NCOs who have passed the appropriate Clerk of Works course can be commissioned as Garrison Engineers (Construction, Electrical or Mechanical).
The Royal Engineers comprises units of both the Regular Army and the Territorial Army. There are also two higher engineer formations:
NB: As part of the restructuring of the armed forces in 2004, it was announced that the engineering support for 3 Commando Brigade would be increased to a full regiment, with 24 (Commando) Engineer Regiment to be formed.
Several units have been formed from the Royal Engineers.
The Royal Engineers from just after the Second World War until the early 1970s also had 4 Plant Troops located in the United Kingdom which were RE re-inforced Plant & Engineering troops attached to various Home Commands. The Command Plant Troops were initially set up in the late 40s to clear up the beach defences around the coast and remove the minefields and were equipped with Armoured Bulldozers. In the 1950s once all this work was complete they took responsibility of maintaining and building all Army Ranges and various civil works in support of the civilan population and in support of civilian organisations in the event of natural disasters and crises such as the Torrey Canyon disaster where the Soutnern Command Plant Troop was deployed to the West Country to clean up the mess on the beaches caused by the large volume of oil that floated ashore. The 4 Command Plant Troops were based in various locations across the United Kingdom with Southern Commend Plant Troop initially based in Tidworth, then Perham Down in Wiltshire and eventually Longmoor in Hampshire. The Midlands Plant Squadron was based in Walsall and the Northern Command plant troop was based in Ripon. The other command plant troop was based in Scotland. In Germany there was an Entire Engineering group based in Willich near Dusseldorf called the Military Civilan Plant & Engineering group that had a similar large scale Engineering, Plant and Support role for British Army of the Rhine. Each Command Plant Troop was commanded by an RE Major supported by a Military Plant Foreman.
In 1969, it was decided to amalgamate all of the Command Plant Troops into one large Squadron which had 4 troops, a HQ Troop and a large REME Attachment to it and the Squadron - 66 Plant Squadron became the largest squadron in the entire Royal Engineers, in terms of Plant Engineering and Equipment as well as staff. Its last home was in Longmoor Hampshire - Engineer Stores Depot attached to Longmoor Camp, which was also home to a Field Support Squadron. Longmoor Military Railway was from 1901 until the late 1960s the preseve of the Royal Engineers but subsequently Royal Corps of Transport and eventually Royal Logistic Corps Railway Training Centre. Its role also changed with a much wider role to support Military operations throughout NATO.
These are being replaced by 66 Armoured Support Vehicles [1] ;
Both vehicles which weigh over 60 tonnes and are capable of speeds of up to 56 km/h, are designed to mount and tow the current range of in-service Royal Engineer equipment (PYTHON, AVRE Trailer, Track/Full Width Mineploughs and earth moving blades). They have purpose designed hulls, will incorporate Special to Role equipment and have major assemblies common to the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank.
| Preceded by: Royal Regiment of Artillery |
Order of Precedence | Succeeded by: Royal Corps of Signals |
The following Royal Engineers have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
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 | US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Photography Encyclopedia. The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Royal Engineers". Read more |
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