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One of the little known facts of military history is that on the outbreak of World War 2 the British Army was the only one, from any of the major powers, to be almost completely mechanised. The horse had been replaced in all but one cavalry division which was itself mechanised early in the war. Horses were then only retained for ceremonial purposes or in some remote areas for pack transport.
This total change over to the motor vehicle was never achieved by the German or Russian armies during World War 2 and even the US Army still had mounted units up to the time it entered the war in December 1941.
In the late 1930s the British Army launched a programme of modernisation and expansion which continued paast the beginning of World War 2. To obtain the required amount of vehicles many civilian types were requisitioned under emergency war legislation and similar types were purchased from manufacturers. The result was a large number of trucks not really suitable for use on the battlefield. A huge variety of types and sizes from a wide range of British and foreign manufacturers made the maintenance and repair of these vehicles a nightmare. This was compounded by the hasty training of drivers with resultant poor skills and frequent accidents.
A further complication was that the vehicle maintenance organisation within the Army was fragmented between different Corps with many of those units operating the vehicles also having some repair tradesmen of their own. The standards and depths of training varied between Corps and regiments and there was a severe shortage of men with the necessary skills and aptitude for this work, particularly as the wartime needs of industry placed it in direct competition for available manpower.
As the war progressed the Director of Military Training in the War Office expanded technical training by taking over numerous civilian technical colleges together with their staff. Whilst this greatly increased the capacity for training soldiers in basic technical skills it was not easy to standardise the curricula or methods of teaching. The knowledge of military vehicle repair techniques depended on the continuation of training in workshops and operating units. The difficulties caused by the diversity of equipment makes and types did not improve as more were imported from the USA but at least a lot of purely civilian vehicles, commandeered early in the war, were now dispensed with, either being returned to their owners or to other government departments.
The shortages of skilled repair tradesmen, the scarcity of spare parts and tools and the nature of the repair organisation resulted in great wastage of equipment and huge backlog of defective equipment awaiting repair. During the mobile warfare in France in 1940, (which was mainly a withdrawal) and later in North Africa, the failure to repair a vehicle quickly or to tow it away when the workshop moved, meant its loss to the enemy or destruction to prevent its capture. The manufacture and shipment to war zones of replacements could not keep up with losses.
By 1942 it was clear that the Army's repair organisation must be overhauled. The recommendations of the Beveridge Committee on the use of skilled manpower in the Armed Forces gave the leverage needed. The War Office then refined the Beveridge recommendations, and as a result the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) came into being on the 1st October 1942. This brought together most but not all of the Army's repair resources under one War Office department, headed by the Director of Mechanical Engineering. To undertake such a major change in the middle of a war was considered too difficult to achieve in one round, so most regimental tradesmen with fighting units retained their own unit identity, as did the transport company workshops of the Royal Army Service Corps. Whilst this still left a plethora of repair organisations, it was a major improvement. The supply of spares was generally improved and a greater organisational and training standardisation was soon achieved.
No great improvement in equipment standardisation was possible due to the need to import from the USA and Canada and the great number of manufacturers used both there and in the UK. Many used their own individual methods of engineering and production. There was little standardisation in screw threads and other fundamentals, although with the US built equipment there was more interchangeability of components between manufacturers than there was in Britain. The need to improvise, to adapt parts from one make of vehicle to fit another and to manufacture unavailable parts, soon led to REME gaining a high reputation as gifted engineers. Much of the credit for this is attributable to the thousands of officers and soldiers who came into REME with engineering skills and expertise gained from apprenticeships and years of experience in civilian industry.
REME went on to provide an incredible range of engineering support services to the Army, and occasionally to the other Armed Services, throughout the war and for the last half century. It was involved in design work on military equipment, redesign to iron out defects which occurred in service, scaling the necessary range and quantity of spare parts to keep equipment in service, and the full range of repair work from quick fixes in front line units to major overhauls in base workshops. In addition REME officers at all levels of Army command were able to advise on the technical considerations of the use of new equipment, its limitations which might affect operations and the need to cover the repair and recovery requirements in operational plans.
Among many important World War 2 successes was the design and testing of waterproofing kits for all types of vehicles, guns, radars and other equipment used in landing operations which involved wading from the ramps of landing craft to a beach. The vehicle waterproofing for D Day in 1944, much of it carried out by REME tradesmen, was so successful that less than 1% of the vehicles landed suffered a waterproofing failure.
In addition to its work on vehicles REME was equally responsible for repairing the full range of military equipment including radios, radar, guns, early missile systems and virtually any mechanical, optical or electronic device the Army used. This responsibility remains, but in modern times and for economic reasons, some equipment and components are discarded and replaced rather than repaired. Major overhauls are now the responsibility of a civilianised workshop organisation under Ministry of Defence control. With the changes to a peace time technical training organisation, REME developed new training methods often well in advance of those in civilian technical training establishments. The Corps also remained in the forefront of research, working in close liaison with the Ministry of Supply and its succeeding organisations, in experimental establishments and with manufacturers.
REME officers and soldiers undergo the full range of military training and have always been perfectly able to defend their workshops. Their military skills and regular front line location, have resulted in many gallantry awards to the Corps from World War 2 right up to operations in the 1991 Gulf War.
Attempts were made after World War 2 to produce a range of standardised military vehicles with many common components. However, the high cost of this range of 'combat' vehicles and the gradual improvement of equipment types largely designed by civilian firms led to the cheaper 'general service' range of trucks being provided in increasing numbers. For many domestic uses the Army has found unmodified civilian vehicles perfectly adequate. Civilian vehicles have the advantage in that they can be maintained cheaply by local dealers.
Modern military vehicles have become generally larger and far more complex, most have diesel engines and hydraulic systems. They are, however, more reliable in day to day use, but not invulnerable in accident or war. Therefore, REME continues to train highly skilled vehicle and recovery mechanics. To enable these men and women to operate in action, the mobile workshops include many repair facilities mounted in trucks or in containers which can be easily carried on trucks. Recovery vehicles ranging from modified Land Rovers up to the 60 tonne Challenger Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle, ensure that disabled vehicles can be moved to a workshop or a sheltered part of a battlefield so that repairs can be carried out.
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Page produced by Peter Eldred - Last updated 24 July 2004