A Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) radio party in Quetta, India 1932. (Photo Peter Suciu)
The Royal Corps of Signals was formed in 1920 however prior to that date the Royal Engineers provided a communications system during the Crimean War and the Abyssinian War of 1867 brought further active experience for the telegraphists and signalers of the Royal Engineers. 1
Note the white/blue armband worn by the signalers in the above photograph.
A photograph believed to be of J.B. Patterson taken in 1917.
An often overlooked area of conflict during World War One is East Africa. The Wolseley helmet in this article was purchased by me in 2004 from a relative of the owners’ family. Continue reading
W.D. Wroe as a 2nd Lieutenant. (Photo courtesy of Toby Riley-Smith)
Having recently purchased this Wolseley helmet, I was intrigued as to why it appears to have never been worn. Some initial investigation of the name inside W.D.Wroe, 10th Lincolns, led me to “The Grimsby Chums”, one of the tragically named Territorial “Pals Battalions” so often decimated on the World War One battlefields. Having never been sent to any of the theatres of War in Egypt or Mesopotamia, I wondered why W.D. Wroe would have had a Wolseley Helmet and why it was in such good condition.
A Constable of the Royal Barbados Police Force Circa 1960
The “sun never set on the British Empire” the saying went, and it is also true that the sun shined brightly on the British colonies in the Caribbean. Even as the Wolseley helmet faded from use as true “military” headdress it lived on in British colonies and post-colonies in the Caribbean and South America. Continue reading
An Indian made sun helmet featuring the flash of the 151
Battalion of the Independent Parachute Brigade (Photo: Daniel Fisher and Oliver Lock)
When one thinks of a British Paratrooper helmet it is usually the steel helmets used in such notable engagements as the D-Day Landings to secure Pegasus Bridge and later during Operation Market Garden.
However, authors Daniel Fisher and Oliver Lock note in their new book British Airborne Headdress that a variety of other headdress including slouch hats, turbans and even sun helmets were used by various units of the Independent Parachute Brigade during and after World War II. Continue reading
The Twelfth (XII) Army actually existed twice during the Second World War – although the first time it was created as a fictional formation as a Cairo-based deception department. Created by Dudley Clarke as part of the deception plan for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, it was intended to have the Germans believe that the Twelfth Army was going to land in Greece and then advance into the Balkans.
The army’s formation insignia was a trained seal balancing on its nose a terrestrial globe, which is obviously quite different from the above example. This is because in May of 1945 the phantom Twelfth Army was disbanded and a second Twelfth Army was created to take control of operations in Burma from the Fourteenth Army. Continue reading
(Collection of Robert G. Segel)
The machine gun played a major role in the First World War, and it could be argued that one of the reasons the war on the Western Front turned into a stalemate was that the rapid fire machine gun made a maneuver virtually impossible. The machine gun was thus responsible for the trench warfare that ensued as soldiers “dug in” as each side blasted away at one another.
Ironically perhaps the same gun that created this situation was considered to be the solution. The British Army formed the Machine Gun Crops (MGC) in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns. Continue reading