The
History of the Corps of
Royal Australian Engineers
PRE-FEDERATION
The earliest of the forerunners of the Royal
Australian Engineers was the Corps of Engineers founded in the colony
of Victoria by Captain (later Major-General Sir) Peter Scratchley, on
the evening of Thursday, 15 November 1860, at a meeting held at the
Duke of Rothesay Hotel in Melbourne. At this meeting the Rules and Regulations
of the Victorian Volunteer Engineering were adopted.
The other Australian colonies soon followed suit, and by 1876 five of the six had raised their own engineer units, embracing field, fortress, telegraph, electric and submarine mining companies. All based their organisation and training on the Royal Engineers which had come into being as a Corps in 1886, when, by decree of Queen Victoria, officers and men of the Engineer arm of the British Army were amalgamated. All also opted to adopt the Royal Engineers practice of calling their private soldiers "Sappers", in recognition of the fact that the very earliest engineers had been primarily concerned with driving saps or tunnels both towards the enemy lines, and underneath his fortifications. It was these engineer forces that provided many of the volunteers who served in the Sudan Campaign in 1885 and the South Africa War of 1899-1902.
POST-FEDERATION
In 1902, after Federation, the armed forces of the former colonies were
united to form the Australian Army. The Engineers at that time comprised
a very small regular force of fortress and submarine mining companies
which were primarily concerned with the coastal defences of the capital
cities, and a number of militia units. On 27 September, 1907, Royal
assent was given for the granting of the title "Australian Engineers"
until 31 January, 1936 when the Corps was constituted as the Corps of
Royal Australian Engineers embracing both regular and citizen units.
WORLD WAR 1
The First World War saw the raising of the Australian Imperial Force
and, as a consequence, the first large expansion of the Corps. Some
40 engineer units were raised. These included field, tunnelling, signal
and railway operating companies and squadrons. It was these units which,
by serving with distinction in Gallipoli, Sinai, Palastine, France and
Belgium firmly established the identity of the Corps. Indeed at that
time World War 1 was frequently referred to as an "engineers" war.
In 1914, graduates of the Royal Military College joined the Corps for the first time. One of these officers was amongst the early casualties on Gallipoli. It is of interest that the tradition of the RAE annual dinner - the Waterloo Dinner - was established in 1915 at Gallipoli. The first dinner was held to celebrate the completion of Watson's Pier at Anzac Cove. The date chosen the 18th of June, happened to be in the 100th anniversary of the famous battle. On 1 July, 1915, all members of the Survey Section RAE, transferred to the newly raised Australian Survey Corps. It was during this period also that the School of Military Engineering was established at Moore Park in Sydney. It was disbanded at the end of the war and not re-established in Liverpool until 1939.
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS
After the First World War, the Corps reverted to a small regular element
of fortress engineers, and a number of field companies in the Citizen
Military Forces. When the government abandoned the compulsory military
training scheme in 1929, a number of volunteer militia engineer companies
were formed, based largely on the framework of the CMF. These militia
companies kept alive the techniques learned from World War 1 and, limited
as they were, provided the nucleus around which the large engineer force
raised in World War 2 was based.
In 1920, all members of the Australian Survey Corps were transferred to the Survey Section RAE. They were then transferred back to the Australian Survey Corps in 1932. In 1925 the RAE lost its Signals elements which combined to form their own Corps.
WORLD WAR 2
World War 2 was another turning point in the history
of the Corps. From a very small pre-war size: 233 regular troops and
1750 militia, it expanded to a total of 32, 984 men in 1945. Some of
the many and varied tasks undertaken by sappers in the Middle East theatre
of war were:
Clearing the way for the advance in
the First Libyan Campaign.
Keeping the roads open in Greece in spite of German
dive bombers.
Carrying out major demolitions during the withdrawal
from Greece.
Laying minefields and constructing defences
at Tobruk.
Clearing minefields during the El Alamein offensive.
Construction of the Haifa-Tripoli railway.
The entry of Japan into the war in 1941 presented the Corps with new, and in many ways, more difficult problems. The redeployment of the AIF to the South West Pacific not only required adaptation to new techniques and different problems, but also demanded the creation of expanded control elements for the Corps. The appointment of the Engineer-in-Chief with the rank of Major-General, and the Directors of Engineer Stores, Fortifications and Works, and Transportation, was the result.
The terrain, climate and general lack of communications facilities in Malaya, New Guinea and Borneo created problems which were to confront the Corps continuously until the end of the war. Roads, airfields, ports and bases had to be constructed almost everywhere and, as a consequence, by far the greater part of sapper effort was spent on construction tasks. On the combat engineering side, new techniques had to be developed and mastered for breaching obstacles during assault landings and cleaning tunnels and bunkers. As in the Middle East, the tasks undertaken by Sappers were extremely varied. The Seria oil installations in Borneo provide an excellent example of this. Left a blazing wreck by the Japanese, this oilfield was reconstructed and put into production again by the 9th Division Engineers.
POST WORLD WAR 2
The size of the Army was drastically reduced
after World War 2 but a small defence force was maintained in which
sappers were well represented. Since that time, engineers have been
employed continuously on construction work in Australia, and between
1962 and 1965 a significant contribution was made to Papua New Guinea.
Operational commitments for engineer units and sub units have included Malaya during the Emergency, Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation, and Vietnam. Although an Australian Engineer unit was not deployed to Korea, many saw service with the 1st Commonwealth Division.
To meet the commitment in Vietnam, the size of the Army was increased from around 28,000 in 1965, to 45,000 in 1972. This enabled the Corps to maintain a force of approximately 1,000 in Vietnam for most of the time.
On conclusion of the Vietnam conflict, Selective National Service ended and the Army was reduced in size. Since that time, significant changes have occurred in the Corps. Operation s in Vietnam had demonstrated the need for a larger combat support element than the Field Squadron and to meet this requirement, Field Engineer Regiments were raised in 1972. About this time also, the Corps lost its responsibility for Water Transport and Engineer Stores.
Since 1972, RAE has downsized as has the rest of the Army. It has also restructured to form Combat Engineer Regiments in each Brigade and Construction Regiments and Squadrons to support land force operations. Sappers have increasingly been involved in overseas deployments in support of humanitarian, defence co-operation and peace keeping duties in the South West Pacific Region, the Middle East, Rhodesia, Namibia, Pakistan/Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda, Bougainville and Mozambique. Sappers are currently serving in the Middle East, Cambodia and Mozambique on operations.
Recent deployments to East Timor have further proven RAE's potency for modern warfare. Sappers in support of the initial Australian led mission and subsequent UN operations contributed from all areas of RAE capability; combat support to the infantry forces, construction of roads, bridges and other infrastructure, the provision of mapping and topographic support and engineer planning advice.
The Corps of Royal Australian Engineers has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1860. It has behind it a wealth of experience, and today, through its connections with major civil engineering companies, and its affiliations with several State Statutory Authorities who foster specialist Army Reserve Engineer units, it maintains in peacetime, its proud right to its motto of UBIQUE or EVERYWHERE: a motto that it shares not only with its great parent corps the Royal Engineers, but also with Engineers from many other Commonwealth nations.
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Last modified 18 April, 2008