The Corps of Royal Engineers - Did You Know?
Images from left to right:
RE Divers (1902), Royal Engineers Balloon and the Royal Albert Hall designed by Major General Scott of the Royal Engineers.
Royal Engineers Historical Facts
Sappers are named after the trenches or 'Saps' they constructed during siege warfare against fortresses.
The Royal Engineers Corps football team won the FA Cup in 1875.
Major General Scott of the Royal Engineers designed and oversaw the construction of the Royal Albert Hall.
Sappers invented military diving in 1838 and taught the first Royal Navy divers.
The Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal Engineers is HRH the Queen.
Colonel Bye of the Royal Engineers built the Rideau Canal in Canada from Quebec to Lake Ontario.
The Corps of Royal Engineers features in a poem 'Sappers' by Rudyard Kipling, which includes the lines:
"There's only one Corps that is perfect - that's us; An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers"
Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers commanded the defence of Rorke's Drift in the 1879 Zulu War. He was immortalised by actor Stanley Baker in the film Zulu.
In 1911, the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers became the first unit responsible for manned balloons, airships and kites. The Air Battalion became the Royal Flying Corps in 1912 and then the Royal Air Force in 1918.
Civil engineering, as it is known today, was once the preserve of the military.