Royal Pioneer Corps

Royal Pioneer Corps

Badge of the Royal Pioneer Corps (early version)
Active 1917–1921 (as Labour Corps)
1939–1993
Allegiance  United Kingdom
Branch  British Army
Role Light engineering tasks
Garrison/HQ Cuddington, Cheshire
Motto(s) Labor omnia vincit
March Pioneer Corps

The Royal Pioneer Corps was a British Army combatant corps used for light engineering tasks. It was formed in 1939 and amalgamated into the Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. Pioneer units performed a wide variety of tasks in all theatres of war, including stretcher-bearing, handling all types of stores, laying prefabricated track on beaches, and effecting various logistical operations. Under Royal Engineers supervision they constructed airfields and roads and erected bridges; they constructed the Mulberry Harbour and laid the Pipe Line Under the Ocean (PLUTO).

History

The first record of pioneers in a British army goes back to 1346 at Calais where the pay and muster rolls of the English Garrison show pay records for pioneers.[1] Traditionally, there was a designated pioneer for each company in a regiment, when, about 1750, it was proposed that a Corps of Pioneers be formed. Nothing came of this for nearly two hundred years, until the Army Works Corps was established during the Crimean War in 1854.[1]

The Labour Corps was formed in 1917 during World War I[2] and employed 325,000 British troops, 98,000 Chinese, 10,000 Africans and at least 300,000 other labourers.[1]

In September 1939 a number of infantry and cavalry reservists were formed into Works Labour Companies, which were soon made the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (AMPC); a Labour Directorate was created to control all labour force matters. A large number of Pioneers served in France with the British Expeditionary Force. During the Battle of France an infantry brigade was improvised from several AMPC Companies under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. B. H. Diggle. Known as "Digforce", the brigade became part of Beauman Division and fought in defence of the Andelle and Béthune rivers on 8 June 1940 against the 5th and 7th Panzer Divisions. Digforce brigade and thousands of other BEF Pioneers were evacuated to England in Operation Ariel.[3] An unknown number of AMPC troops were killed when the HMT Lancastria was sunk off St Nazaire on 17 June.[4]

On 22 November 1940 the name AMPC was changed to Pioneer Corps.[5] In March 1941 James Scully became the only member of the Pioneer Corps to be awarded the George Cross. Corps members have won some 13 George Medals and many other lesser awards.[6]

A total of 23 pioneer companies took part in the Normandy landings.[7] The novelist Alexander Baron served in one of these Beach Groups and later included some of his experiences in his novels From the City From the Plough and The Human Kind. He also wrote a radio play about the experience of being stranded on a craft attempting to land supplies on the beaches of Normandy. Nos. 85 and 149 Companies, Pioneer Corps served with the 6th Beach Group assisting the units landing on Sword Beach on D Day, 6 June 1944.[8]

On 28 November 1946, in recognition of their performance during the Second World War, King George VI decreed that the Pioneer Corps should have the distinction "Royal" added to its title.[7]

In April 1993, following the Options for Change review, the Royal Pioneer Corps was joined with the Royal Corps of Transport, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, the Army Catering Corps, and the Postal and Courier Service of the Royal Engineers to form the Royal Logistic Corps.[9]

Recruitment

In the early part of World War II the Pioneer Corps was apparently the only British military unit in which enemy aliens could serve.[10] Thousands of German and Austrian nationals joined the Pioneer Corps to assist Allied war efforts and the liberation of their home countries. They typically were Jews and political opponents of the Nazi Regime who had fled to Britain, including film production designer Ken Adam, writer George Clare, and publisher Robert Maxwell.

Later, some members of Pioneer Corps—often dubbed "The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens"—transferred to serve in various fighting units. Some were recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to serve as secret agents and were parachuted behind enemy lines.[11]

Serving as a German or Austrian national in the British forces was especially dangerous because, in case of being taken captive, there was a high probability of being executed as a traitor by the Germans. Still, the number of German-born Jews joining the British forces was exceptionally high; by the end of the war, one in seven Jewish refugees from Germany had joined the British forces. Their knowledge of the German language and customs proved particularly useful; many served in the administration of the British occupation army in Germany and Austria after the war.[12]

It has wrongly been claimed at various times and in various places that British conscientious objectors were sometimes ordered into the Pioneer Corps by Conscientious Objection Tribunals in the Second World War; the error may have arisen from a misunderstanding of a misleadingly drafted question in the House of Lords on 22 July 1941 and a reply by Lord Croft, Joint Under-Secretary of State for War, that was not expressed with the clarity which might have been expected. The War Office was asked about "British conscientious objectors who have been ordered by the Tribunals to undertake service with the Pioneer Corps", whereas the Tribunals had no power to make such an order; the only power they had relating to conscientious objectors in the armed forces was to order non-combatant military service, meaning call-up in most cases to the Non-Combatant Corps, or occasionally to the Royal Army Medical Corps; the Pioneer Corps, as a combatant unit, was by definition excluded. In his reply Lord Croft referred to "conscientious objectors ordered for attachment to the Pioneer Corps", only obliquely correcting the language of the question. To spell it out in full, what Lord Croft meant was "conscientious objectors ordered by the Tribunals to serve in the Non-Combatant Corps and then, as members of the NCC, attached at certain times and for certain purposes to the Pioneer Corps".[13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Pioneer: History". Royal Pioneer Corps Association. p. 1. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
  2. ↑ Baker, Chris. "The Labour Corps of 1917-1918". The Long, Long Trail. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ "The Pioneer: The Lancastria Story". Royal Pioneer Corps Association. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
  5. ↑ "The Pioneer: History". Royal Pioneer Corps Association. p. 2. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
  6. ↑ "The Pioneer: Honours and awards". Royal Pioneer Corps Association. Retrieved 2007-11-22.
  7. 1 2 "The Pioneer: History". Royal Pioneer Corps Association. p. 3. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
  8. ↑ "Invisible Ink: No 83 - Alexander Baron". The Independent. 26 June 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
  9. ↑ "The Royal Logistic Corps and Forming Corps". The Royal Logistic Corps Museum. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  10. ↑ "House of Lords Questions - Aliens in the Pioneer Corps". Hansard. 22 July 1941.
  11. ↑ Interview by Colin MacGregor Stevens with Major George Bryant (aka George Breuer)
  12. ↑ National Geographic documentary Churchill's German Army
  13. ↑ "House of Lords question: conscientious objectors". Hansard. 22 July 1941. Retrieved 10 November 2015.

Further reading

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