Gunner (Gnr) is a rank equivalent to private in the British Army Royal Artillery and the artillery corps of other Commonwealth armies. [1] [2] The next highest rank is usually lance-bombardier, although in the Royal Canadian Artillery it is bombardier. [3] Historically, there was an inferior rank, matross.
There is a bronze statue of a gunner called "The Ammunition Carrier" as part of the Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park Corner, commemorating the Royal Artillery Regiment's service and memorializing its losses in World War I. The other bronze figures are "The Captain" (at the front), "The Driver" (at the left side), and "The Fallen Soldier" (at the rear) and it is topped with an elevated stone howitzer. The statues were done by Charles Sargeant Jagger and the stone monument was designed by Lionel Pearson. The gunner statue, along with the officer, the bombardier and the unknown soldier, are characters in Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart . [4]
A private is a soldier, usually with the lowest rank in many armies. Soldiers with the rank of Private may be conscripts or they may be professional (career) soldiers.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises thirteen Regular Army regiments, the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and five Army Reserve regiments.
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.
Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase capo corporale. The rank is usually the lowest ranking non-commissioned officer.
Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organisations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer (NCO), usually equivalent to the NATO Rank Grade OR-3.
This is a table of the ranks and insignia of the Canadian Armed Forces. As the Canadian Armed Forces is officially bilingual, the French language ranks are presented following the English.
Bombardier is a military rank that has existed since the 16th century in artillery regiments of various armies, such as in the British Army and the Prussian Army. Traditionally the bombardier tended the vents at the top of breeches, handled the final assembly of ammunition and placed the ammunition in the muzzles for the gunners to fire. It is today equivalent to the rank of corporal in other branches. The rank of lance bombardier is the artillery counterpart of lance corporal.
"Other ranks" is the term used to refer to all ranks below officers in the British Army and the Royal Marines. It includes warrant officers, non-commissioned officers ("NCOs") and ordinary soldiers with the rank of private or regimental equivalent. Officers may, in speaking, distinguish themselves from those "in the ranks".
The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tanks in combat and was subsequently turned into the Tank Corps, later called the Royal Tank Regiment. The MGC remained in existence after the war until it was disbanded in 1922.
The Royal Artillery Memorial is a First World War memorial located on Hyde Park Corner in London, England. Designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger, with architectural work by Lionel Pearson, and unveiled in 1925, the memorial commemorates the 49,076 soldiers from the Royal Artillery killed in the First World War. The static nature of the conflict, particularly on the Western Front, meant that artillery played a major role in the war, though physical reminders of the fighting were often avoided in the years after the war. The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund (RAWCF) was formed in 1918 to preside over the regiment's commemorations, aware of some dissatisfaction with memorials to previous wars. The RAWCF approached several eminent architects but its insistence on a visual representation of artillery meant that none was able to produce a satisfactory design. Thus they approached Jagger, himself an ex-soldier who had been wounded in the war. Jagger produced a design which was accepted in 1922, though he modified it several times before construction.
The South African National Defence Force's rank system is largely based on the British system, with the Air Force sharing the Army rank titles. Rank titles changed over time as did the insignia.
The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps.
Like the British Army, the Australian Army does not use the term 'enlisted' to describe its non-commissioned ranks. Instead, personnel who are not commissioned officers are referred to as other ranks. These are soldiers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and warrant officers (WOs). Warrant officers are appointed by a warrant which is signed by the Chief of the Army. The insignia for non-commissioned ranks are identical to the British Army up to the rank of warrant officer class two. Since 1976, WO1s and the WO in the Australian Army wear insignia using the Australian Coat of Arms.
Before Unification as the Canadian Armed Forces in 1968, the Canadian military had three distinct services: the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Army. All three services had a Regular (full-time) component and a reserve (part-time) component. The rank structure for these services were based on the services of the British military, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the British Army. The change to a "Canadian" rank structure meant that many of the traditional (British) rank titles and insignia were removed or changed.
The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, also known as The Boy David, is a memorial to the casualties of the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War. It is located on the north side of the traffic island at Hyde Park Corner in London, near the Wellington Arch, an Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, the Royal Artillery Memorial, the New Zealand War Memorial, and the Australian War Memorial.
The New Zealand War Memorial in London is a memorial to the war dead of New Zealand in the First and Second World Wars, unveiled in 2006. Officially named "Southern Stand", the memorial was designed by architect John Hardwick-Smith and sculptor Paul Dibble, both from New Zealand.
The Cavalry of the Empire Memorial, also known as the Cavalry Memorial, is a war memorial in Hyde Park, London. It commemorates the service of cavalry regiments in the First and Second World Wars. It became a Grade II listed building in 1987, and was promoted to Grade II* in November 2014.
The Royal Artillery Boer War Memorial is located on the south side of The Mall in Central London, close to the junction with Horse Guards Road at the northeast corner of St James's Park. Unveiled in 1910, it marks the deaths of the 1,083 soldiers of the Royal Artillery who died in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902 It has been a listed building since 1970.
The Albert Communal Cemetery Extension is a war cemetery with dead from both World War I and World War II located in the French Commune of Albert in the Somme Region.
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