The 112th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (Foresters) (112 RAC) was an armoured car regiment of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Royal Armoured Corps 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 A ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Origin

112th Regiment RAC was formed on 1 November 1941 by the conversion to the armoured car role of the 9th Battalion,

Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for just under 90 years, from 1881 to 1970. In 1970, the regiment was amalgamated with the Worcestershire Regiment to f ...

.Forty pp. 50–1.War Diary 112th Regt RAC, November–December 1941,

The National Archives National archives are central archives maintained by countries. This article contains a list of national archives. Among its more important tasks are to ensure the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both ...

, Kew, file WO 166/1429. This was an infantry battalion raised in 1939 that had seen action at the

Battle of Dunkirk The Battle of Dunkirk (french: Bataille de Dunkerque, link=no) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on ...

, originally as part of 139th Brigade of 46th Division,'Colonel C.G. Lancaster', ''Times'' 27 July 1977. and had since been serving in the lorried infantry role in the Support Group of 1st Armoured Division. The battalion had been under orders to accompany 1st Armoured to the Middle East, but these were cancelled and the men returned their tropical uniforms to store. In common with other infantry battalions transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps, 112's personnel would have continued to wear their Foresters cap badge on the black beret of the Royal Armoured Corps, and the regiment continued to add the parenthesis '(Foresters)' after the RAC title. The first commanding officer was

Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Claude Lancaster Colonel Claude Granville Lancaster (30 August 1899 – 25 July 1977) was a British Army officer, coal industry director, and Conservative Party politician. Family and early life Claude Lancaster was born on 30 August 1899, the son of George ...

, a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

and Reserve officer who had raised 9th Foresters and commanded it at Dunkirk. He was made an Honorary Colonel in the Royal Armoured Corps when his term of command ended.''Quarterly Army List'' January 1944.

Service

112 RAC was assigned to the newly formed 42nd Armoured Division as its armoured car regiment.Joslen, p. 29. The regiment's initial equipment was the

Bison concrete armoured lorry The Bison was an Improvised fighting vehicle frequently characterised as a mobile pillbox. Bisons were produced in Britain during the invasion crisis of 1940-1941. Based on a number of different lorry chassis, it featured a fighting compartment ...

with extemporised armour and Standard Beaverette armoured cars handed over by 42nd Division's Reconnaissance Regiment, with

Daimler Dingo The Daimler Scout Car, known in service as the Daimler Dingo (after the Australian wild dog), is a British light, fast four-wheel drive reconnaissance vehicle also used for liaison during the Second World War. Design and development In 193 ...

scout cars as armoured command vehicles. 112 RAC left 42nd Division in February 1943 and later became a draft-finding unit for other armoured car regiments fighting in the

Normandy Campaign Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norma ...

. One of the regiment's last duties was to carry out trials on the 95mm gun version of the

Harry Hopkins Harry Lloyd Hopkins (August 17, 1890 – January 29, 1946) was an American statesman, public administrator, and presidential advisor. A trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before servi ...

light tank, even though no-one in the regiment had ever seen a 95mm gun.War Diary 112th Regt RAC, January–October 1944, The National Archives, file WO 166/14603. Despite personal appeals from the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel A. G. Miller, DSO, to

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

Miles Christopher Dempsey commanding the

British Second Army The British Second Army was a field army active during the First and Second World Wars. During the First World War the army was active on the Western Front throughout most of the war and later active in Italy. During the Second World War the army ...

North-western Europe Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern Europe, Northern and Western Europe. The region can be defined both geographically and ethnography, ethnographically. Geographic defini ...

, and from Colonel Lancaster to the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

, to allow the unit to go overseas, 112 RAC ceased to exist on 14 October 1944, when it reverted to the title of 9th Foresters, which was placed in suspended animation. The last entry in the War Diary notes: ::''The history of this Regiment is a pure example of the complete inefficiency of 'A' Branch at the War Office, in as much as many hundreds of officers and men have wasted valuable years of their lives training for precisely nothing.''

Notes

References

* George Forty, ''British Army Handbook 1939-1945'', Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998, . * {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Military units and formations established in 1941 Regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps Royal Armoured Corps 112 Military units and formations disestablished in 1944