149th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (149 RAC) was an armoured 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 ...

that served in the Burma Campaign during

World War II 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 opposing ...

Origin

149th Regiment RAC was formed on 22 November 1941 by the conversion to the armoured role of 7th Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI).Joslen, p. 497. Raised in 1940, 7th KOYLI had been serving with 207th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), a Home Defence formation in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

that was broken up in August 1941 and its battalions transferred to the RAC. In common with other infantry units transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps, all personnel would have continued to wear their KOYLI cap badge on the black beret of the RAC.

Burma Campaign

7th KOYLI arrived in India on 24 October 1941, and was assigned for conversion to the Heavy Armoured Brigade, which was soon afterwards redesignated 50th Indian Tank Brigade. 149 RAC moved to the Manipur Road area in April 1944, and came under the command of 254th Indian Tank Brigade in July, when it was equipped with

Grant Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom * Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama * Grant, Inyo County, ...

Mk II tanks. The Brigade fought with the 5th Indian Division and the 7th Indian Infantry Divisions in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and was involved in the Battles at

Imphal Imphal ( Meitei pronunciation: /im.pʰal/; English pronunciation: ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Manipur. The metropolitan centre of the city contains the ruins of Kangla Palace (also known as Kangla Fort), the royal seat of the f ...

Kohima Kohima (; Angami Naga: ''Kewhira'' ()), is the capital of the Northeastern Indian state of Nagaland. With a resident population of almost 100,000, it is the second largest city in the state. Originally known as ''Kewhira'', Kohima was founded ...

, Kyaumaung Bridgehead,

Meiktila Meiktila (; ) is a city in central Burma on the banks of Meiktila Lake in the Mandalay Region at the junctions of the Bagan-Taunggyi, Yangon-Mandalay and Meiktila-Myingyan highways. Because of its strategic position, Meiktila is home to Myanmar Ai ...

, and

Rangoon Road Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government r ...

. In August 1944 149 RAC returned to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

in India, and then in April 1945 moved to Ahmednagar where it came once again under command of 50th Indian Tank Brigade and remained in India for the remainder of the war. 149 RAC was disbanded in 1946.

Notes

References

* Forty, George. (1998). ''British Army Handbook 1939-1945''. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. . * * Steven J. Zalgoa, Hugh Johnson, ''M3 Lee/Grant Medium Tank 1941-45''. {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Military units and formations established in 1941 Regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps Royal Armoured Corps 149 Military units and formations disestablished in 1946