The 1st Somersetshire Engineers was a volunteer unit of Britain's Royal Engineers (RE) whose history dated back to 1868. As the engineer component of the 43rd (Wessex) Division, the unit served in both World Wars, distinguishing itself at the assault crossing of the River Seine at Vernon in August 1944 and in the doomed attempt to relieve the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. A detachment also served as airborne engineers in Sicily, Italy and at Arnhem. Their successors served on in the Territorial Army until 1967.
Origins The enthusiasm for the Volunteer movement following an invasion scare in 1859 saw the creation of many Rifle, Artillery and Engineer Volunteer units composed of part-time soldiers eager to supplement the Regular British Army in time of need.Beckett. One such unit was the 1st Somersetshire Engineer Volunteer Corps (EVC) formed at Nailsea on 5 September 1868. The unit soon had two companies at Nailsea and one at Weston-super-Mare, where the headquarters was moved in 1873.Beckett, Appendix IX.Westlake, p. 13.
From the beginning, the 1st Somerset EVC was attached to the 1st Administrative Battalion, Gloucestershire Engineer Volunteers. With the reorganisation of the Volunteer Force in 1880, the Gloucestershire Admin Bn was consolidated as the 1st Gloucestershire (The Western Counties) Engineer Volunteers, Royal Engineers, with the 1st Somerset providing G and H Companies at Nailsea and I Company at Weston-super-Mare. The EVC titles were abandoned in 1888, when the units became 'Engineer Volunteers, Royal Engineers', proclaiming their affiliation to the Regular RE, and then simply 'Royal Engineers (Volunteers)' in 1896.Westlake, p. 3.
In August 1889, the Devon and Somerset companies were removed from the 1st Gloucestershire and constituted as a separate 1st Devonshire and Somersetshire RE (V), with its HQ at Exeter.Monthly Army List. The unit sent a detachment of one officer and 25 other ranks to assist the regular REs during the Second Boer War in 1900, and a second section the following year.Watson, pp. 42–3.
Territorial Force When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new Territorial Force (TF) in 1908, the Devon and Somerset Engineers were split to form the Devonshire Fortress Royal Engineers at Plymouth and the Somerset-based divisional engineers for the Wessex Division.London Gazette, 20 March 1908Lord & Watson, pp. 151–2. The latter unit was organised as follows:Watson & Rinaldi, p. 11.
Wessex Divisional Engineers HQ and 1st Wessex Field Company at the Victoria Drill Hall, Upper Bristol Road, Bath, SomersetBath at the Drill Hall Project. 2nd Wessex Field Company at Churchill Road, Weston-super-MareWeston-super-Mare at the Drill Hall Project. Wessex Divisional Telegraph (later Signal) Company HQ and No 1 Section at The Priory, Colleton Crescent, ExeterExeter at the Drill Hall Project. No 2 (Devon and Cornwall) Section attached to the Devon and Cornwall Brigade No 3 (South Western) Section attached to the South Western Brigade No 4 (Hampshire) Section attached to the Hampshire Brigade
The divisional Commander Royal Engineers (CRE) was Lt-Col Sidney Keen, TD.London Gazette, 2 April 1909.Becke, Pt 2a, pp. 43–8.
World War I
Mobilisation At the end of July 1914, the Wessex Division was at its annual training camp on Salisbury Plain when warning orders were received on 29 July, By the time war was declared on 4 August, the division was already at its war stations, defending the ports of southern England. Full mobilisation followed and, by 10 August, the division was back on Salisbury Plain undergoing war training.Watson & Rinaldi, p. 34.
On 31 August 1914, the formation of 2nd Line units for each existing TF unit was authorised. Initially these were formed from men who had not volunteered for overseas service, together with the recruits who were flooding in. The titles of these units would be the same as the original, but distinguished by a '2/' prefix.Becke, Pt 2b, p. 6. An additional 1/3rd (Wessex) Field Company and its 2nd Line had also been formed before the end of September. Later, the 2nd Line were sent overseas and replaced by 3rd Line or Reserve units. At least one such unit, later designated 508th (Wessex) Reserve Field Company, was formed in January 1917 but was probably absorbed into the central training organisation after August.Watson & Rinaldi, p. 61.
On 24 September 1914, at the special request of Lord Kitchener, the Wessex Division (later numbered 43rd (Wessex) Division) volunteered to serve in India in order to relieve Regular Army units for service on the Western Front. The infantry and artillery embarked on 9 October, but the divisional engineers, signallers and other support services were left in the UK.
27th Divisional Engineers During the winter of 1914–15, three new Regular Army Divisions were formed in England from the units returned from India. The Wessex Divisional Engineers were assigned to the first of these, 27th Division:Watson & Rinaldi, p. 65.Watson & Rinaldi, p. 31.Becke, Pt 1, pp. 97–103.
27th Divisional Engineers 1/1st Wessex Field Company 1/2nd Wessex Field Company 1/1st South Midland Field Company – joined from the South Midland Division, TF, on 4 December 1914; left 17 March 1915 17th Field Company – Regular unit transferred from 5th Division on 24 March 1915 1st Wessex Divisional Signal Company
Lieutenant-Colonel Keen assumed the role of CRE of 27th Division on 23 November 1914 and the engineers joined the division at Magdalen Hill Camp, Winchester, on the 27th. The division embarked from Southampton on 19–21 December, concentrating near Arques in France by 25 December.
Western Front 27th Division served on the Western Front for almost a year, taking part in the Action at St Eloi (14–15 March) and the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April–25 May). On 17 November, the division embarked from Marseille for the Macedonian front.
Salonika 27th Division completed its disembarkation at Salonika on 17 February 1916. In August the forward Allied troops were thrown into disarray by a Bulgarian attack, and the British took up positions along the River Struma. 27th Division was then ordered to destroy two railway bridges across its tributary, the River Angista, to delay the Bulgarian advance towards the Struma. A mixed party of six officers and 77 other ranks, drawn from 17th Field Company, RE, the divisional mounted squadron (Surrey Yeomanry) and the cyclist company, went out from the Struma bridgehead at Neohori, and blew up the first bridge early in the morning of 20 August. The second bridge was damaged enough to stop trains crossing. The party withdrew with only one officer and one man wounded.Falls, Vol I, pp. 158–9.
A second, larger raid, was then mounted, by a detachment of 17th Fd Co, Yeomanry, mounted infantry and cyclists, covered by 3rd Bn King's Royal Rifle Corps and two guns of 99th Battery Royal Field Artillery. The party moved out from Neohori bridge before dawn on 23 August and burned two out of three target bridges over the Angista before being attacked. A planned movement to bridges further away was abandoned, but one party of sappers and mounted infantry slipped upstream unseen and destroyed the third Angista bridge.Falls, Vol I, pp. 159–60.
27th Division's first offensive action was on 30 September 1916 when it made a dawn attack across the River Struma to capture the villages of Karajakoi Bala and Karajakoi Zir. 1/1st Wessex Fd Co then erected Wire entanglements around the captured villages before Bulgarian counter-attacks came in after dark. The attack was then continued to extend the position to include the village of Yenikoi, by 4 October.Wakefield & Moody, pp. 99–109.
The next attack was across the Virhanli Stream against Tumbitza Farm on the night of 16/17 November. 10th Battalion Cameron Highlanders was ordered to attack across a pontoon bridge laid by No 4 Section of 1/2nd Wessex Fd Co, but in the dark they found the stream was too wide. The infantry were already exhausted from carrying the pontoons, which had to be left hidden when the force withdrew. A second attempt was made in thick fog on the morning of 6 December by 2nd Bn Gloucestershire Regiment. No 4 Section erected the bridge in 10 minutes, but the attackers were beaten back. A renewed attack at dawn on 7 December also failed, the bridge being destroyed by Bulgarian shellfire, even though the Wessex sappers discovered that the stream was only waist-deep and could be forded.Wakefield & Moody, pp. 114–8.
The TF field companies were numbered on 1 February 1917, the two in 27th Division becoming 500th (1st Wessex) and 501st (2nd Wessex) respectively.
27th Division was not involved in the Second Battle of Doiran, and little else happened on the British part of the Macedonian Front in 1917. 27th Division spent almost two years in the malarial Struma Valley, the only significant action occurring when the division took part in the capture of Homondos on 14 October. The front became active again in September 1918 when the Allies began the final offensive and 27th Division was engaged in the capture of the Roche Noire Salient, followed by the passage of the Vardar and pursuit to the Strumica Valley.
Black Sea The Armistice of Salonica was signed by Bulgaria on 29 September 1918, ending hostilities on the Macedonian Front. 27th Division withdrew back down the Struma, but in December it embarked for the Black Sea, the first brigade accompanied by 17th Fd Co reaching Batum on 22 December. The rest of the division arrived by the end of January. The force was part of the British intervention in the complex situation of independent regimes that had emerged in the Caucasus region following the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman Turkish empires. Detachments of the division were scattered across the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Democratic Republic of Georgia and First Republic of Armenia. British troops began to withdraw in August 1919 and 27th Division was disbanded between 7 and 24 September after handing over to an Inter-Allied force at Batum.Allen & Muratoff, pp. 498–99.
45th (2nd Wessex) Divisional Engineers See main article 58th Divisional RE The divisional engineers for the 2nd Wessex Division duplicated those of the 1st:Becke, Pt 2a, pp. 55–60. 2/1st Wessex Field Company 2/2nd Wessex Field Company 2/1st Wessex Divisional Signal Company
The division was rapidly recruited, and it followed the 1st Line division to India in December 1914 (where it was later renumbered 45th (2nd Wessex) Division). Once again, the engineers and other support troops were left behind, and on 23 February 1916, 45th Divisional RE joined 58th (2/1st London) Division, becoming part of 58th Divisional RE for the rest of the war. The field companies later received the numbers 503 and 504, and the signal company became the 58th. They served with the division on the Western Front from February 1917 until the end of the war.Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 9–15.Martin.
57th (2nd West Lancashire) Divisional Engineers See main article 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division A new 1/3rd Wessex Field Company was raised in September 1914 and the 2/3rd by the end of the year. They were eventually assigned to the 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division, 1/3rd joining from Christchurch, Hampshire on 9 December 1915, and 2/3rd from Taunton in Somerset on 26 February 1916. In February 1917 they were numbered 502nd and 505th respectively. They served with the division on the Western Front from February 1917 until the end of the war.Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 1–7.
Interwar 43rd (Wessex) Division was reconstituted in the renamed Territorial Army (TA) in 1920. The divisional engineers were organised as follows:Titles and Designations.Watson & Rinaldi, pp. 90, 91. HQ at Upper Bristol Road, Bath 204th (Wessex) Field Company at Bath 205th (Wessex) Field Company at Weston-super-Mare 206th (Hampshire) Field Company at Portsmouth