UK Org Q

[Dandelion]

Hi all, I have some questions on UK organisation. In spite of there being comparatively rich material on the net, these issues, mostly on special forces, elude me:

1 Army and Royal Marine Commandos, particularly those serving in 3rd Commando Brigade. The precise organisation of these? I find only scetchy and, on top of it all, contradictory sources on them.
2 What happened to 5 Commando brigade after Madagascar?
3 What is the difference between provost and military police?
4. Did 3 Commando Brigade (or unit in it) have any scottish or Irish connection? (Well apart from very probably having individual soldiers from these regions). They are sometimes popularly illustrated as having bagpipers on D-Day.
5. The arm of service colour band, sometimes worn on the shoulder beneath the divisional emblem - what did it look like for commandos (and RM Commando if differed)?
6. Any organisational info on the WWII SAS, SRS, Popski's private Army, SBS or Boom patrol? I am in need of org from Rgt and down (to individuals).

...and Mr Dorosh(or anyone else), you wouldn't by any chance have a bmp armpatch with Commando and RM commando armtitle would you? I mean the textpatch worn at the very top of the shoulder.

Regards
Dandelion

[JonS]

1 Army and Royal Marine Commandos, particularly those serving in 3rd Commando Brigade. The precise organisation of these? I find only scetchy and, on top of it all, contradictory sources on them.Try here (http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=025095#000001) and pages 13 and 19 from here (http://www.fireandfury.com/britinfo/british.pdf).

3 What is the difference between provost and military police?AFAIK nothing.

6. Any organisational info on the WWII SAS, SRS, Popski's private Army, SBS or Boom patrol? I am in need of org from Rgt and down (to individuals).Have a rummage through here (http://salts.britwar.co.uk/mod/fileman/files/Britorg.PDF?PHPSESSID=3e9090d6c7adf2e66826079bdb8a 1769), especially pages 31-36. And don't forget to thank John Salt for it (another poster on this forum).

Amazon has this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1853675008/qid=1049251808/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9197666-4495316?v=glance&s=books), this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0304361437/qid=1049251808/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-9197666-4495316?v=glance&s=books), and this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/185756037X/qid=1049251808/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-9197666-4495316?v=glance&s=books) on Popski.

Regards
JonS

[Dandelion]

Thanks Jon, as always you're a pearl. Sorry for the late reply, took me some time to consume these links. Read both documents straight through, this is pure candy for people like me. And you, I would presume.

Tell me, did you ever find a way to change the color of the beret? Or is it quite simply impossible?

And the obvious question - why is it named both Provost and MP? Provost does not even sound very English.

Regards
Dandelion

[JonS]

You're welcome smile.gif

It's usually 'Provost Marshall', rather than just 'Provost'. I don't know what the derivation of the word is, thopugh looking at myCollins English Dictionary we have the following:
provost ... 5. (in medieval times) an overseer, steward, or baliff...
provost marshall n. the officer in charge of military police in a camp or city.

As I recall it, the red-beret is hardcoded and cannot be changed.

Oh, I forgot to mention - the Fire and Fury document (the one on 21st Army Group) is for a miniatures rule-set, and so the numbers are based on the assumptions inherent in that ruleset. So, the quatities of vehicles, weapons and men are wrong if you try and take them 1:1. From what I can work out, the vehicle ratio is approx 1:3 (game:real).

Regards
JonS

[Michael Dorosh]

I don't know if there is a Commando bmp arm patch out there or not. I am afraid I don't have one. :(

[Dandelion]

I see,

I use a version of this armpatch myself which is anything but good. Smears and stretches. Difficult to make a better one, my crappy image editor is too primitive.

Tried to make a RM armtitle, but it only made me frustrated and furious. To think how complex it can be to produce such a silly little thing.

And by the way - that was a very, very speedy establishing of a CM3 site :D

Yours as always
Dandelion

[Darknight_Canuck]

With regard to the arm patches,
I completed extensive arm patches for the whole of the Commonwealth forces in NWE (including Commandos and SAS) way back in early September of last year. I was collaborating with Phillipe on preparing them for CMMOS but then CMBB was released and everything fell by the wayside. My Commonwealth portion of the project would have been quite a large download and I think this was part of the problem.

[Dandelion]

Notwithstanding, I'd very much want to download it if you still have it. Is that correct English btw? Or should one split the word and write "load it down"? Anyway, anywhere on the net where I might find it? Or could we transfer it in some other manner? I have broadband, so transfers are but a *slrp*, but my e-mail server has a size limit. Not sure what it is, but not overly generous.

Regards
Dandelion

[Darknight_Canuck]

I've never actually asked anyone to host this work because of the size involved (I think it weighs in at a total of approx 50 megs :eek: ).
Michael Dorosh hosted my first offering a long time ago on his "Canuck" site (which is a great site btw) but that was limited to just Canadian stuff at the time (which was all redone in my latest work). There were just so many options available in this set that it was begging for CMMOS compatibility (which I wasn't sure how to implement to best effect).

To answer your request, if you'd like something specific emailed to you, just send me a private email and I'll see what I can do.

If there's still interest in this stuff being made available somewhere, I'm willing to go that route as well.

And I can see that soon I'll have to get ready for the Commonwealth in the MTO as well....geez, my wife is going to hate me. :rolleyes:

[Darknight_Canuck]

I just took another look at the actual size of my finished product, and it weighs in at a whopping 135 megs for ALL of the sleeves of ALL of the battalions of ALL of the Commonwealth units from the 21st Army Group in NWE. :eek:

I'll bet that would scare away any potential hosting sites right there. ;)

[Dandelion]

Thanx a million for the patches,

It just struck me. What about just publishing the patches, armtitles and such sans arms? Wouldn't it become smaller?

Regards
Dandelion

[Darknight_Canuck]

Originally posted by Dandelion:
Thanx a million for the patches,

It just struck me. What about just publishing the patches, armtitles and such sans arms? Wouldn't it become smaller?

Regards
Dandelion Well, I think the whole point of modding for the game is to make it as easy as possible for people to implement the mods....nobody wants to download then be forced to assemble the sleeves themselves.

[Dandelion]

Good point. But I wouldn't say "nobody" ;)

Regards
D

[Dandelion]

Et Voila, le Commando Kieffer dans les rues de Cherbourg:


http://hem.bredband.net/b157003/Streetfight.bmp

The Monsieurs dashing a streetcorner here are displaying the latest fashion mods of the good Mr Darknight, in combination with the Dandelion commando beret Mod and the Mr Dorosh subdued style pants. It's what they're wearing in Paris you know. [Edit, I have been informed that Andrew Fox has made the British uniforms appearing in the screenshot, the unit insignia and periphernalia being the Darknight part]

Of course, as they are running, they are cursing in cockney...

[ April 11, 2003, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

[Lou2000]

You may find this site answers some of your questions about Royal Marine Commando units.

Units of the Royal Marines (http://www.burmastar.org.uk/The%20Units%20of%20The%20Royal%20Marines.htm)
Note - the links at the top of the page dont seem to work !

Until recently I was in the Royal Navy and spent a number of years working in Amphibious Operations alongside the 'Booties' HQ & Sigs and the Commando units (40, 42 and 45) but the Brigade history isnt something I know much about.


However its always nice to remind the RNLI (Royal Navy Light Infantry) ... oops I mean RM's :D that the last person in the RN to be hung from the yardarm was a marine (circa 1860).

[Dandelion]

Thanks Lou,

The relation between RN, RM and RM Cdo infantry units had always been misty to me before this list. I am still not sure why the WWI divisions of Chruchill fame were called RN rather than marine, but the keys to the mystery will be buried under a few centuries of tradition one suspects.

About the hanging, do the marines have a reputation of being individually brutish? Or is it the sailors who have this?

Just trying to get a grip on the basic inevitable inter-service slander within the British armed forces ;)

Regards
Dandelion

[ April 13, 2003, 05:24 AM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:
Thanks Lou,

The relation between RN, RM and RM Cdo infantry units had always been misty to me before this list. I am still not sure why the WWI divisions of Chruchill fame were called RN rather than marine, but the keys to the mystery will be buried under a few centuries of tradition one suspects.
I'm not sure what is mysterious about it -- AIUI the RND was raised from matelots, not from booties, so it would have been very odd to call it "Royal Marine".

Originally posted by Dandelion:

About the hanging, do the marines have a reputation of being individually brutish? Or is it the sailors who have this?

Just trying to get a grip on the basic inevitable inter-service slander within the British armed forces ;)
All the Royal Marines I have ever met have been absolutely gentlemanly in their behaviour, which I attribute to the civilising effect of their frequent contact with the Senior Service.

Immediately after the Falklands War, we had a lecture from the schoolie of the Hermes, who, as a matelot, had been accustomed to regarding the Marines as nasty and brutish, if not short. Then he met members of the Parachute Regiment. I think his description of the Paras was "Boot-boys with brass buttons -- just the kind of people we've been trying to keep out of the Marines for years". Of course that, too, might be a good example of "inevitable inter-service slander".

All the best,

John.

[ April 13, 2003, 07:11 AM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]

[Lou2000]

Dont get my last posting wrong ......

Any fun I poke at the Booties is done jokingly, in a way that all forces (or ex-forces) people will readily understand and also done with an underlying respect for the job they do and the way they do it.

That includes the members of the Royal Navy (RN Commando)( medics etc) who have earned the right to wear the coveted Green Beret, and serve in frontline commando units.

I have a number of very good friends who are currently serving in the Marines.

If I didnt have that respect they I wouldnt take the mickey out of them :confused: but the ones I know all understand that ... indeed they expect it!

=============================================
The Royal Marine,
Speed of a race horse, strength of a plough horse, grace of a show horse and ..............

........brains of a rocking horse :D :D
=============================================

A friend of mine will still remembers the torment he suffered in Sierra Leone, when my boots got covered in African dirt long before his did ! tongue.gif ... Ahhh sweet

They are IMHO the best in the world at what they do and that inlcudes the US marines, they may share a common name, but Royal Marines are primarily a 'commando' force and designed to operate in a different manner to US marines.

AFAIK the one that was hung was convicted of a triple murder. Not the behaviour of a gentleman .. but it was the 1860's and he wasnt an officer and a gentleman !!

[Dandelion]

Dear John and Lou,

I did not misinterpret. Being ex-officer myself of another nations army, I fully realise that the odd comment from the fellow next door is in fact a subtle form of compliment, rather than insult.

I also realise the likeness to commenting on ones own sister. If I picked up an RN officers comments on RM, it would not lure me into believing that it would be accepted that I as a non-RN officer was to use those same comments when encountering a RM. Some matters are strictly family affaires.

I also realise the value in exploring this particular inter-service lingo, in getting to know and better understand a foreign armed force. I try to pick as much as possible up whenever I can, from any army who's representatives I encounter in fact.

I met a RN officer in Vienna, he was drunk in a bar. Very charming fellow in fact. From our conversation, I was able to deduct that he did not really think much of the Army - refused to call it "Royal" in fact, calling it a fraud that it carries this title (I never got that joke) - but he had a peculiar kind of almost patronising affection for marines. So, I gathered, in the everyday life of his career he probably did not see much of the army, but probably pursued many tasks alongside marines, allowing time for a relation including both rivalry and admiration.

I met a marine too, in Stockholm visiting his girlfriend. He was also drunk (no I do not spend all my time in bars, and nor are all Englishmen I encounter intoxicated and frequenting such establishments, but it's a good place to have a chat). Also a charming and extrovert fellow, a cockney (I think). Certainly not a brute. He was full of jokes about the army too, especially the cavalry for some reason (that I never got). But he did in fact display genuine hostility towards Paratroopers. This surprised me much, as I had got it in my mind they operated a lot together. So I had expected the normal nasty jokes. But he was not joking, he really did not appreciate them at all. I didn't dig deeper into it.

All in all, these details tells a story of the intimate relations between various units of an armed force, and indeed of the morale and esprit of it. Far from disregarding them as mere jokes, I actually hunt for them.

Regards
Dandelion

[Dandelion]

...and what puzzled me about the RN divisions...

Yes, the Divisions did consists of people employed by the Navy and as such one could fairly call them Naval. But I was still puzzled.

The definition of a marine used to be a soldier trained and equipped for land warfare - or land warfare-ish tasks aboard ship - in the service of a naval force otherwise consisting of sailors. The only thing that made him a marine was his employer and his lack of skills as a sailor, one might say. In my humble opinion.

The troops of the Naval Divisions were as I understand it almost exclusively fresh recruits, all claiming some connection to the sea or other. As I understand it, this connection would rarely be stronger than that of being stewards on board a pleasure cruiser or a clerk at a shipping company or the like. Apart from that, these divisions seem also to have been irresistable to various poets and young upper class intellectuals with no connection to the sea but plenty connection at the Admiralty. Thus according to my source here, they were not actually sailors as such.

They were recruited by the Admiralty - again, as I understand it - merely because this was the authority then available to Churchill in his many little escapades.

In this situation, many nations would have called these men marines. They were not trained sailors and thus unable to do service as such. They were not trained for land warfare either, or for anything else for that matter, as it was, but quickly gained experience in this field at least.

I compare to the list Lou showed me, where troops intended for "Public Service" (not sure what that means in this context) in London, and apparently also serving in this field, were considered marines rather than naval.

So, I surmised that the men recruited exclusively for service as land combat troops, yet employed by the Navy, must naturally be marines.

Of course, there is something I am missing, I realise this. Perhaps the RN and RM are so separate services that it is unthinkable to simply switch whole units between them (my image is that of the RM being a semi-autonomous but still subordinated part of the RN?). Or perhaps the RN has a long tradition of having land combat troops who were not marines. Or perhaps the Navy feared loss of manpower and were unwilling to release them to the RM. Or perhaps Churchill simply could not be bothered with admittedly irrelevant logics at the time.

I am not saying it was wrong to call them Naval or anything smile.gif I just tried to figure out the line of thinking behind it.

Right. Now everyone knows what I am pondering late at night. I'll get a life any day now. Promise.

[edit spelling error]

Regards
Dandelion

[ April 13, 2003, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:
...and what puzzled me about the RN divisions...

Yes, the Divisions did consists of people employed by the Navy and as such one could fairly call them Naval. But I was still puzzled.
In fact, I note that there was for some time a Royal Marine Brigade as part of the Royal Naval Division. But the formation was, still, mostly made up of matelots.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

The definition of a marine used to be a soldier trained and equipped for land warfare - or land warfare-ish tasks aboard ship - in the service of a naval force otherwise consisting of sailors. The only thing that made him a marine was his employer and his lack of skills as a sailor, one might say. In my humble opinion.
Ah, I think you are falling into the trap of looking for some kind of logical consistency in the way H.M. Armed Forces are organised and designated. Best to give up that idea at once, before it drives you insane.

While other nations may have used "marine" simply as a synonym for "naval infantry", the British don't. For example, my own regiment, the Queen's, in one of its previous incarnations, had a record of sea-service, but was never part of the Royal Marines. On D-Day, Queensmen manned the guns of the old light cruiser HMS Despatch; they were the first Army soldiers to man the guns of one of HM ships for over 280 years, and it had been Queensmen who manned them then.

Friends of the Gloucestershire Regiment may recall the story of how its Colonel, Philip Bragg, gave them the order to present arms at a time when the regimental future was doubtful. There had been talk of making the battalion part of the Queen's regiment, or the King's regiment, or the Royal Marines. Bragg wanted none of it, and, so the story goes, gave the following command in a single breath:

"Neither King's nor Queen's nor Royal Marines,
But Bragg's, Old Bragg's,
Brass before and brass behind,
Never feared of a foe of any kind,
Present... ARMS!"

"Old Bragg's" was ever after one of the nicknames of the regiment, more often known as "The Glorious Glosters" since Imjin River, and now sadly amalgameted into the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment (called "The M4 rifles", after the motorway that runs through those counties).

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[Snips]
Perhaps the RN and RM are so separate services that it is unthinkable to simply switch whole units between them (my image is that of the RM being a semi-autonomous but still subordinated part of the RN?). The RM is indeed part of the RN. I think it was 3 Cdo Bde Air Squadron that had the joke recruiting slogan "You too can be a flying soldier in today's Navy".

The whole business of switching roles can be ticklish in the British armed forces, where unit identity is jealously guarded in order to foster esprit de corps. In fact units have often been extremely flexible in changing roles, but rather less flexible about changing their designations. In the WW2 period, this leads to such apparent anomalies as battalions of Foot Guards driving around in tanks, a Crocodile regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps retaining the cap-badge and title of The Buffs (an infantry regiment), and the South Notts Hussars (a yeomanry regiment, that is, cavalry reservists) being field gunners (the "Acorn gunners" of Tobruk fame, so called because they kept their own cap-badge). During the Boer War the Royal Artillery provided a mounted infantry regiment, the Royal Artillery Mounted Rifles (Kipling's "RAMR Infantillery Corps"), and I have seen a TA training film on how to do a platoon attack that had to be entitled "troop attack" because the people demonstrating how to do it were from an infantry-role Yeomanry unit, and therefore cavalrymen.

It might be more logical to have everyone designated by role and neatly numbered to a standard plan, but it wouldn't be half as interesting.

All the best,

John.

[Dandelion]

LOL! Lovely round-up there John I must say. This is exactly the kind of posts one loves to read.

And I now cannot but presume that the quoute in your signature is concerning an Englishman. ;)

Queens, is this a Liverpool Rgt? It says "The Queens Rgt (Liverpool)" in a sourcebook on WWI here. Which I naturally interpret as the regiment is consisting of men born in Liverpool. But of course, I now have a sinking feeling they were not from Liverpool at all, but probably Cornish, or miners from some faraway rainy place in Wales.

While I have your attention, might I ask what "London Scottish" means? There are/were really so many Scotsmen in London that one can/could raise an entire regiment? Or is it an honour title of some sort?

And why is only a single company of the Royal Artillery called honourable?

And did catholic Irishmen serve in the Irish regiments during the war?

And yes, now a question that has eluded me for ages spring to mind - the issue of the institution of...well, what the Germans call Jägers, in HM Armed Forces. As I understand it, there was (is?) something called "The Rifle Brigade", which I have understood as being equivalent to Jäger troops (Right?). However, another Regiment keeps popping up, namely the "Royal Greenjackets". Is this an official name? Anyway, were these also "Jäger" troops? And were/are there more of them?

[Footnote that you will probably not need: Jäger troops, once recruited among foresters, game wardens, hunters and such, were troops trained and equipped for skirmish warfare. They remain a type of light infantry almost but not quite of commando capacity. Often transalted to Ranger or Sharpshooter in US literature. Compare French "Chasseur"]

Regards
Dandelion

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:
[Snips]And I now cannot but presume that the quoute in your signature is concerning an Englishman. ;)
Indeed -- in this case, someone who was pestering Lord Mountbatten with reports of UFOs in the 1950s.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Queens, is this a Liverpool Rgt? It says "The Queens Rgt (Liverpool)" in a sourcebook on WWI here.
Are you sure that's not the King's (Liverpool) Regiment? They were the 8th of foot, and started life as Princess Anne of Denmark's Regiment, were redesignated the Queen's Regiment in 1702, and became the King's Regiment in 1716 and have, as far as I know, never changed back.

The Queen's was formed in 1966 by amalgamation of the Queen's Royal Surreys, The Queen's Own Buffs, the Royal Sussex and the the Middlesex regiments. The Queen's Royal Surreys were themselves the amalgamation of the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) and East Surrey regiments, and the Queen's Own Buffs were amalgamated from the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent) regiment and the Buffs (East Kent Regiment). The Queen's regiment was amalgamated with the Royal Hampshire Regiment in 1992 to form the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires), otherwise known as the PWRRs or "Di's Guys".

This might be a good time for me to recommend "Brassey's Companion to the British Army", by Anthony Makepeace-Warne (Brassey's. London, 1995) which is packed with this sort of stuff, and which I am relying heavily on for this post.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

While I have your attention, might I ask what "London Scottish" means? There are/were really so many Scotsmen in London that one can/could raise an entire regiment? Or is it an honour title of some sort?
Good Lord, there are enough Scotsmen in London that we've got one in no. 10 Downing Street, and another one next door in no. 11.

A splendid potted history of the London Scottish, which I cannot improve on, is to be found at their own website:

http://www.londonscottishregt.org/history.cfm

I note in passing that they were once a component of the London Regiment in its previous incarnation, and other battalions of the London Regiment included such fine bodies of men as the Post Office Rifles and the Artists' Rifles. The title "Artist's Rifles" is currently perpetuated by 21 SAS, a TA battalion of the SAS.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

And why is only a single company of the Royal Artillery called honourable?
Because Henry VIII (he of the VI wives) in 1537 authorised the raising of the Fraternity or Guild of Artillery of Longbows, Crossbows and Handguns, which sounds to me as if it was the contemporary equivalent of the National Rifle Association. In 1656 this came to be called The Artillery Company; in 1685 the prefix "Honourable" was first used; and it was confirmed by Queen Victoria in 1860. During WW1 the HAC raised three infantry battalions and seven artillery batteries. In WW2 it raised a regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery. Its current activities seem to be mainly ceremonial; see http://www.landrovercentre.com/guntroop/HAC.htm

When I was in the TA, it was reckoned that the peacetime role of the HAC was to give incredibly lavish dinners, which we felt was fair enough, as their wartime role was to provide nuclear fire controllers for the Long Range Group, Royal Artillery, operating as "stay-behind" parties.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

And did catholic Irishmen serve in the Irish regiments during the war?
Certainly they did -- I think it was an Irish Guardsman who accounted for his unit's tremendous motivation and group cohesion by saying "We were all Guardsmen, we were all Irishmen, and we were all Catholics".

I would expect to find Irishmen in most units of the British Army -- citizens of the Republic of Ireland can serve in the British Army, and have often done so. When, during the Falklands War, my university OTC unit was lucky enough to get a presentation from an SAS team (including the most amazing action shots from the Dhofar campaign of a BATT group directing a rocket attack by a Strikemaster aircraft) the man making the presentation was a big, red-haired Irishman.

I can't remember where I heard it, but reputedly during the Western Desert campaign in WW2, a couple of Irishmen sharing a slit trench on the Tobruk perimeter were aguing about domestic politics while they sheltered from a reasonably intense Afrika Korps bombardment. During a lull in the shelling, a voice could be clearly heard: "Say what you like about De Valera, at least he kept us out of the war."

There were, of course, some Irish regiments that disappeared when Ireland gained home rule; the Royal Irish Regiment, the Connaught Rangers, the Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians), the Royal Munster Fusiliers and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers were all disbanded in 1922.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

And yes, now a question that has eluded me for ages spring to mind - the issue of the institution of...well, what the Germans call Jägers, in HM Armed Forces. As I understand it, there was (is?) something called "The Rifle Brigade", which I have understood as being equivalent to Jäger troops (Right?). However, another Regiment keeps popping up, namely the "Royal Greenjackets". Is this an official name? Anyway, were these also "Jäger" troops? And were/are there more of them?
[Snips]The Royal Green Jackets became an offical title in about 1959, and had been a nickname a long time previously (now that "Green Jackets" is official, their nickname is "the Black Mafia").

Two of the Green Jacket precursor regiments were the Rifle Brigade and the King's Royal Rifle Corps (note how, in the British Army, not only are regiments typically one battalion strong, but they may be called a Brigade or a Corps, too).

The Rifle Brigade inherit the traditions of the 95th Rifles, originally the Experimental Corps of Riflemen raised by Sir John Moore, were the first British soldiers to use rifles in combat, and famous for their rifle green uniforms. After Waterloo they were afforded the unique honour of being removed from the numbered sequence of line precedence. The other rifle regiment was the 60th, the King's Royal Rifle Corps. There are also many other regiments that had "Light Infantry" in their title, now mostly amalgamated into The Light Infantry, although the Ox & Bucks LI for some reason went in with the Green Jackets; I believe that the Gurkhas are also considered light infantry. "Light" regiments have tended to have distinctive peculiarities of their own, such as drilling at a faster pace than line regiments, performing drill movements from the "at ease" instead of the "attention" position, carrying their rifles at the trail instead of shoudered, and saying "swords" instead of "bayonets".

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John D Salt:
[QB]
While other nations may have used "marine" simply as a synonym for "naval infantry", the British don't. For example, my own regiment, the Queen's, in one of its previous incarnations, had a record of sea-service, but was never part of the Royal Marines. On D-Day, Queensmen manned the guns of the old light cruiser HMS Despatch; they were the first Army soldiers to man the guns of one of HM ships for over 280 years, and it had been Queensmen who manned them then. That's odd; two Calgary Highlanders were mentioned in despatches at Dieppe in August 1942 for manning the AA guns on a landing ship and shooting down a German aircraft. I do believe the landing ship belonged to His Majesty...You are referring to the D-Day in June 1944, yes, not in 2222 AD?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:
[QB]
[Snips]
On D-Day, Queensmen manned the guns of the old light cruiser HMS Despatch; they were the first Army soldiers to man the guns of one of HM ships for over 280 years, and it had been Queensmen who manned them then. That's odd; two Calgary Highlanders were mentioned in despatches at Dieppe in August 1942 for manning the AA guns on a landing ship and shooting down a German aircraft. I do believe the landing ship belonged to His Majesty...You are referring to the D-Day in June 1944, yes, not in 2222 AD? </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, and I said "Army", not "Canadian Army".

Saying "British Army" would be like putting the name of our country on our postage stamps... ;)

All the best,

John.

[Andreas]

I think John is horribly in need of a good Sam Smith's bitter.

http://www.merchantduvin.com/images/brewery_art/sam_smith_art/ss_nonick_glass.gif

Next week sometime?

[Monty's Double]

Andreas, if you are ever travelling North (and why you'd need an excuse to get out of that hell-hole we call a capital God only knows), there's a little village called Saxton where you'll find a pub called the Greyhound. They serve (or used to when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, OK a giant mutant grasshopper if you're being picky), Sam Smith's finest from oak casks kept behind the bar. That's because the pub is 400 years old and has sunk into its own cellar (they had to shore up the wall in the ladies' loos because the bodies from the graveyard next door were starting to poke through the wall.

Delightful place, give it a try if you get chance. It's only 5 miles from the Towton battlefield, which is worth a quick look, and 10 miles from York, which is worth a much longer one.

PS Isn't the reason Dandelion's drunken Marine friend refused to call the Army Royal because it isn't. Can't remember why, might be to do with the Civil War.

[Dandelion]

It was the Naval officer who denied them the title Royal. Although in a sense he was a marine form of life in many ways that evening, he was still particular about being a gentleman of the Navy. He fit the role too I must say. Grey eyes and he spoke the Queens English and all. Plus a peculiar "r" that he seemed to add whenever words ended with a vowel. I looked some of those words up when I got back to my flat and there is no "r" at the end of them. Maybe it's a Navy thing.

The army really isn't Royal? How come? Did it rebel in the Civil war? And a few hundred years is no time to forgive? What is it if not Royal? Parlimentary? Secretly Republican? Cornish separatist? Cromwellian? ;)

Seriously, I really finally want to understand this joke (at the time I just smiled back at him as if I understood perfectly - it seemed the social thing to do).

Regards
Dandelion

[JonS]

The Army isn't 'Royal.' There is the Royal Navy, and the Royal Airforce, but the Army is just the Army.

But ... individual units and corps within the Army certainly do carry the 'Royal' moniker.

Examples of corps: Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Royal Armoured Corps, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Royal Military Police.

Examples of units: Royal Anglian Regiment, Royal Dragoon Guards, Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, Royal Green Jackets, Royal Gurkha Rifles, Royal Highland Fusiliers, Royal Irish Regiment, Royal Lancers, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, Royal Regiment of Wales, Royal Tank Regiment, Royal Scots, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

Here in NZ all (or very nearly all?) of the individual units carry the Royal distinction, but the NZ Army as a whole doesn't.

Regards
JonS

[Dandelion]

Ok Jon.

So why is this? Is the Queen not the formal c-in-c of the British (and NZ?) Armed Forces? Logically, that would make the Army Royal? And why are not all regiments called "Royal"?

Of course, I've tried this logic business before with the Anglo-Saxons, without much success. But there must be some story behind this, some reason why it is not called the Royal Army. A demotion? Or just a development?

Incidentally, what's the difference between "The Kings" and "The Kings Own"?

Regards
Dandelion

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:
It was the Naval officer who denied them the title Royal. Although in a sense he was a marine form of life in many ways that evening, he was still particular about being a gentleman of the Navy. Ah, being a gentleman in the Royal Navy was not possible for most of the last century; I believe it was Queen Victoria who said of Naval Officers that "they are not gentlemen" when she heard that they had lied to their men after some ringleaders of the Spithead Mutiny were punished, going against promises given earlier. Thereafter Naval Officers were required to carry their swords at the trail, and people before a mixed audience were sometimes heard to address them as "Ladies, Gentlemen and Naval Officers". I believe that this idictment has now been lifted, but I think only fairly recently.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

He fit the role too I must say. Grey eyes and he spoke the Queens English and all. Plus a peculiar "r" that he seemed to add whenever words ended with a vowel. I looked some of those words up when I got back to my flat and there is no "r" at the end of them. Maybe it's a Navy thing.
No, quite a lot of English English speakers do that (as opposed to people who speak English as a Liguar Francar).

Originally posted by Dandelion:

The army really isn't Royal? How come? Did it rebel in the Civil war? And a few hundred years is no time to forgive? What is it if not Royal? Parlimentary? Secretly Republican? Cornish separatist? Cromwellian? ;)
The parliamentary New Model Army was the first regular army to be raised in England, so the roots of the Army are indeed parliamentarian. In 1661, Monck's Regiment of Foot paraded on Tower Hill in London and grounded its arms, to indicate its disbandment as a regiment of Parliament's army; immediately after, it was ordered to pick them up again, now as a regiment of the (restored) King. The regiment became the Coldstream Guards, the oldest continuously-existing regiment in the Army.

I'm not aware of any particular strain of Cornish separatism in any regiment, and the DCLI have now been amalgamated, but it is worth recalling that the shamrock on St. Patricks's day is a tradition with its roots in the British Army: Queen Victoria was so pleased with the performance of her Irish regiments in the Crimea that she permitted them to wear the shamrock, hitherto a secret sign of separatist tendencies.

Likewise, there were Scottish regiments so rife with Jacobite tendencies that some would drink the loyal toast ("The King!") while passing their wine-glasses over their finger-bowls, thus changing the toast to "The King over the water".

All the best,

John.

[Dandelion]

Dear John,

>"I believe it was Queen Victoria who said of Naval Officers that "they are not gentlemen"
- Harsh dealings. To think that she would say that about national heros such as Nelson. Still, a gentleman cannot back down on his word. This story provides fascinating contrast to the popular image - thus the one I too carried in this case - probably best embodied by the late Admiral Beatty. That of the gallant womanising yacht-club type of gentleman. Mrs Tuchmann also gives a story of some contrast in her book "The First Salute", in which one is given a very grim picture of the Royal Navy indeed. The men either press-ganged or dragged out of jail, the officers ferociously grumpy and greedy brutes with an intense hatred for primarily eachother. And yet she loved the English, especially a certain naval officer named Rodney. Another gallant, womanising yacht-club type gentleman.

And in fact the officer in Vienna fit that description also.

>"particular strain of Cornish separatism"
- I saw a television interview with a Cornish gentleman referring to another gentleman as being a "fellow countryman, Cornish". (In the context it would have made more sense to say fellow Englishman). I found that amusing and have everafter made frequent reference to the Cornish as a supressed nationality with separatist undercurrents. I suppose they might have a separate celtic identity as opposed to the rest of the germannic Englishmen, but I've never really heard of any separatists there since the Anglo-Saxon-Jute invasion myself.

Speaking of which, I read in Mr Weintraubs wonderful book "Silent Night" that British and German Saxons expressed kinship as late as WWI. Fellow countrymen, in a distant but yet tangible sense. I wonder if the people from Kent feel kinship with the now Danish Jutes?

>"quite a lot of English English speakers do that"
- Is it regional or a general English lingustic trait? Or is it a class marker?

>"The King over the water".
- The King of France? The Scotsmen toasted the King of France? Ah well. Like Ho-Chi-Minh, I find it too much to ask of a man not to love France, and too much to ask of a man to love the French. Maybe the Scotsmen reasoned likewise.

Hm. I am forced to display my ignorance further here. Are the Scotsmen catholic?

Regards
Dandelion

[JonS]

The Scottish king was in exile in France at the time.

IIRC, as a result of this practice, it became the norm to completely clear the tables at formal dinners before the toasts to prevent this kind of ambiguity.

Dandy,
re: "why?" I don't know the root reason. It's just one of those things I've gotten used to. There are so many contradictions in the way the British army uses nomenclature that I would be far greyer and far balder than I already am if I tried to understand it all smile.gif

Regards
JonS

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[Snips]
>"particular strain of Cornish separatism"
- I saw a television interview with a Cornish gentleman referring to another gentleman as being a "fellow countryman, Cornish". (In the context it would have made more sense to say fellow Englishman). I found that amusing and have everafter made frequent reference to the Cornish as a supressed nationality with separatist undercurrents. I suppose they might have a separate celtic identity as opposed to the rest of the germannic Englishmen, but I've never really heard of any separatists there since the Anglo-Saxon-Jute invasion myself.
There is currently a Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow, which contests parliamentary elections. Its badge is based on the Black Flag of Cornwall, a white cross on a black ground, also known as St. Perran's (alternatively spelt Piran) cross.

One should, of course, take Cornish nationalism very seriously, but I find it hard to do so when St. Perran died by getting drunk and falling down a well, and the cached traces of the Mebyon Kernow web page seem to show that it was co-located with The Official Novelty Sporran Website.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[Snips]
>"quite a lot of English English speakers do that"
- Is it regional or a general English lingustic trait? Or is it a class marker?
I'm not sure. If he'd put "l" on the end of everyhting, you could have been reasonably sure that he was from Bristol.

It doesn't sound very upper-class to me, anyway; one upper-class affectation of speech is to pretend to be unable to pronounce the letter "r" at all. I still recall with a shudder of horror a friend's wedding reception, which was held in the Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn. A very posh do; the women were all dressed in dead animals, and the men all dressed as penguins. An interminable succession of upper-class twits felt constrained to stand on their hind legs and blather out of themsevles interminably, and it seemed that every single one started by saying "It is a vey geat pleashah and pivelege to be asked to say a few wahds..."

Originally posted by Dandelion:

>"The King over the water".
- The King of France? The Scotsmen toasted the King of France? Ah well. Like Ho-Chi-Minh, I find it too much to ask of a man not to love France, and too much to ask of a man to love the French. Maybe the Scotsmen reasoned likewise.
JonS has already explained this one; but I would add that Scotland and France have always been friends ("The Auld Alliance"), thanks to what is probably the most effective unifying force ever know to history, hatred of the English.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Hm. I am forced to display my ignorance further here. Are the Scotsmen catholic?
There are all sorts -- RCs, Church of Scotland, Presbyterians, Baptists, Wee Frees. A Celtic vs. Rangers match can be thought of as the sublimation of Catholic vs. Protestant conflict, just as in England a cricket match between Yorkshire and Lancashire is still called "a Roses match" in memory of the war of the Roses.

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

The Canadian Army did away with all its corps in the late 1960s, in the process all the corps that had earned the "Royal" title (and they had to be earned in battle, mostly in WW I, not just automatically granted) then lost them.

The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps became the Canadian Forces Medical Service.

The Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps was amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps to become the Canadian Forces Logistics Branch.

etc.

For some reason, though, the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps kept their titles, as did all royal regiments, as well as the Royal Canadian Artillery.

HM Queen Elizabeth II is the Colonel in Chief of my regiment, yet we have never been Royal or the Queen's Own.

I believe the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers were created in 1944 sans the Royal title but it was practically automatic. Today. they are known only as the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME as opposed to RCEME), and the cap badge as EME/GRE on it to incorporate the French version of the title.

And most strangely, the premiere French speaking unit in the Canadian Army, is the Royal 22e Regiment....

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JonS:
The Scottish king was in exile in France at the time.

IIRC, as a result of this practice, it became the norm to completely clear the tables at formal dinners before the toasts to prevent this kind of ambiguity.
[Snips]True in many regiments -- but in the Royal Scots (the First of Foot, Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard), the regiment does not drink the loyal toast at all, supposedly on the grounds that its loyalty is unquestioned. Given that they served the French as Le regiment de Douglas, one might suspect otherwise... ;)

The Queen's used to drink the loyal toast sitting down, as do the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, in memory of their sea service previously alluded to. Stories that it is only because the officers are habitually too drunk to stand are as contumelious as they are untrue. I believe that the tradition is maintained by the PWRRs.

All the best,

John.

[Chelt]

For a social history of a regimental depot town, you might look at Geoffrey Moorhouse's Hell's Foundations (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034057982X/026-5321849-3298860). Moorhouse examines the history of the Lancashire Fusiliers and their home town, Bury, focusing on the effects of the regiment's heavy losses at Gallipoli.