The Royal Armoured Corps is the component of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 Tank and the Scimitar Reconnaissance Vehicle. It includes most of the Army's armoured regiments, both the Royal Tank Regiment and those converted from old horse cavalry regiments. Today it comprises twelve regiments, eight regular and four reserve. Although the Household Cavalry Regiment provide an armoured regiment, they are not part of the RAC.
VIII Corps was a British Army corps formation that existed during the First and Second World Wars. In the latter, it took part in the Normandy Campaign in 1944, where it was involved in Operation Epsom and Operation Goodwood. It would later play a supporting role in Operation Market Garden and finish the war by advancing from the Rhine to the Baltic Sea.
The Royal Wessex Yeomanry (RWxY) is a Reserve armoured regiment of the British Army Reserve consisting of five squadrons. Formerly part of 43 (Wessex) Brigade, the regiment joined 3rd (UK) Division in July 2014, to provide armoured resilience to the three armoured regiments within the Reaction Force. In 2015 the regiment was moved from the operational command of 3rd (UK) Division to 1st Armoured Infantry Brigade, and later to 12th Armoured Brigade Combat Team, but members of the regiment still wear the 3rd (UK) Division formation badge to reflect their role in supporting the three armoured regiments in the division.
The Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry (SCLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army. It was formed in October 1959 by the merger of the Somerset Light Infantry and the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and was itself merged with three other regiments of the Light Infantry Brigade in 1968 to form The Light Infantry.
The Somerset Light Infantry was a light infantry regiment of the British Army, which served under various titles from 1685 to 1959. In 1959, the regiment was amalgamated with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry to form the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry which was again amalgamated, in 1968, with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and the Durham Light Infantry to form The Light Infantry. In 2007, however, The Light Infantry was amalgamated further with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and the Royal Green Jackets to form The Rifles.
The King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in the Childers Reforms of 1881, but with antecedents dating back to 1755. It served in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. In 1968, the four regiments of the Light Infantry Brigade amalgamated to form The Light Infantry, with the 1st KSLI being redesignated as the 3rd Battalion of the new regiment.
The 43rd Infantry Brigade was a brigade of the British Army during the First and Second World Wars, and later, as 43 (Wessex) Brigade, a regional headquarters from 1985 to 2014.
The Museum of Somerset is located in the 12th-century great hall of Taunton Castle, in Taunton in the county of Somerset, England. The museum is run by South West Heritage Trust, an independent charity, and includes objects initially collected by the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society who own the castle.
The Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars (QOOH) was a Yeomanry Cavalry regiment of the British Army's auxiliary forces, formed in 1798. It saw service in the Second Boer War with 40 and 59 Companies of the Imperial Yeomanry and was the first Yeomanry regiment to serve in Belgium and France during the Great War. After almost four years of Trench warfare on the Western Front, where cavalry had been superfluous, the QOOH led the advance during the Allies' victorious Hundred Days Offensive in 1918. In 1922, the QOOHt became part of the Royal Artillery and during World War II it served as anti-tank gunners at Singapore and in North West Europe. After a series of postwar mergers and changes of role, the regiment's lineage is maintained by 142 Vehicle Squadron, Royal Logistic Corps.
The Cheshire Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment that can trace its history back to 1797 when Sir John Leicester of Tabley raised a county regiment of light cavalry in response to the growing fears of invasion from Napoleonic France. Its lineage is maintained by C Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
In countries whose armies are organised on a regimental basis, such as the army of the United Kingdom, a regimental museum is a military museum dedicated to the history of a specific army regiment.
The Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry (DLOY) was a yeomanry unit of the British Army from 1798 to 1992. Originally raised as part-time cavalry for home defence and internal security, the regiment sent mounted infantry to serve in the Second Boer War. During World War I it carried out mounted duties in Egypt and Palestine and on the Western Front. By 1917 the reserve units at home had become cyclists and the regiment serving on the Western Front joined an infantry battalion, seeing action at the Battle of Passchendaele, against the German Spring Offensive and in the final Allied Hundred Days Offensive. At the beginning of World War II the regiment gave up its horses and formed two regiments of medium artillery, which served in the Middle East, Italy and North West Europe. Postwar it became an armoured unit. Today its lineage is maintained by B Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The North Somerset Yeomanry was a part-time cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1798 to 1967. It maintained order in Somerset in the days before organised police forces, and supplied volunteers to fight in the Second Boer War. It served on the Western Front in the First World War. At the outbreak of the Second World War, it continued to operate in the mounted role and then as a specialist signals unit. Postwar it joined the Royal Armoured Corps and later became infantry. Its lineage today is maintained by 93 Squadron 39 (Skinners) Signal Regiment.
The Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars was a Yeomanry regiment of the British Army. First raised in 1794, it participated in the Second Boer War and World War I as horsed cavalry before being converted to an anti-tank regiment of the Royal Artillery for service in World War II. In 1956 it was amalgamated with the Warwickshire Yeomanry to form the Queen's Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry. The lineage is maintained by B Squadron, part of The Royal Yeomanry.
The Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1794 to 1956. It was formed as a volunteer cavalry force in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Its volunteer companies played an active role with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boer War, but opportunities for mounted action were much more restricted during the First World War and it was temporarily converted into a cycle unit. It remained a cavalry regiment throughout the interwar years, and was the last horsed unit of the British Army to see action, in the Syria–Lebanon Campaign of 1941, finally mechanising the following year. It served as motorised infantry in the North African and Italian campaigns of the Second World War. In 1956, it merged with the Yorkshire Hussars and the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry to form the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry. Its lineage is continued today by A Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry was a unit of the British Army formed in 1902. Units of Yeomanry Cavalry were raised in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the 18th and early 19th centuries at times of national emergency: the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. These were stood down once each emergency was over. The East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry, was established in 1902, and this saw action during the First World War both in the mounted role and as machine gunners.
The Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army founded in 1794 as the Dorsetshire Regiment of Volunteer Yeomanry Cavalry in response to the growing threat of invasion during the Napoleonic wars. It gained its first royal association in 1833 as The Princess Victoria's Regiment of Dorset Yeomanry Cavalry, and its second, in 1843, as the Queen's Own Regiment of Dorset Yeomanry Cavalry.
The West Somerset Yeomanry was a Yeomanry regiment of the British Army. First raised in 1794, it participated in the Second Boer War and World War I before being converted to an artillery regiment. It served in World War II. Post-war it was gradually reduced in strength until the yeomanry lineage of the successor unit was discontinued on 9 November 1988.
The British yeomanry during the First World War were part of the British Army reserve Territorial Force. Initially, in 1914, there were fifty-seven regiments and fourteen mounted brigades. Soon after the declaration of war, second and third line regiments were formed. However, the third line regiments were soon absorbed into the Cavalry Reserve Regiments, to supply replacements for the cavalry and yeomanry. Other horsed regiments in the British Army, during the war, were the regular cavalry regiments and the three regiments belonging to the special reserve: the North Irish Horse, the South Irish Horse and the King Edward's Horse. The senior yeomanry regiments could trace their origins back over 100 years; the oldest regiment, the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, had been formed in 1794. The most junior regiment, the Welsh Horse, had only been formed on 18 August 1914, after the start of the war.
The 2nd Somerset Militia was an auxiliary military regiment in the county of Somerset in South West England. First organised during the Seven Years' War it was reformed at the start of the French Revolutionary War and continued on internal security and home defence duties in all of Britain's major wars. It later became a battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and served in South Africa during the Second Boer War, but was disbanded in 1908.
