Imjin Barracks is a military installation situated near

Innsworth Innsworth is a suburb of Gloucester, it is also a civil parish and forms part of the borough of Tewkesbury, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 2,468. It contains Imjin Barracks, the h ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

that is home to

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

Allied Rapid Reaction Corps The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization High Readiness Force (Land) Headquarters ready for deployment worldwide. History The ARRC was created on 1 October 1992 in Bielefeld based on the former I (Britis ...

(ARRC). The Barracks were named after the

Battle of the Imjin River The Battle of the Imjin River ( fil, Labanan sa Ilog Imjin), also known as the Battle of Solma-ri ( ko, 설마리 전투) or Battle of Gloster Hill () in South Korea, or as Battle of Xuemali () in China, took place 22–25 April 1951 during t ...

because of the connection with the

Gloucestershire Regiment The Gloucestershire Regiment, commonly referred to as the Glosters, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 until 1994. It traced its origins to Colonel Gibson's Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1694 and later became the ...

which formed part of the United Nations contingent in the Korean War, and was thought to be an appropriate name, for ARRC which is the HQ of a multinational force."The Korean War was a United Nations campaign and it is significant that nine of our partners in the ARRC fought alongside the British under the UN flag. It is also a name that generates tremendous and understandable local pride as the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment won a Battle Honour for their part at the battle, and their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel James Carne, was awarded the Victoria Cross and the US Army's Distinguished Service Cross for his actions, and Lieutenant Philip Curtis was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.
Farewell Innsworth, welcome Imjin
An Estate and Environment news article, 24 November 2008).

History

Imjin Barracks is located at the site RAF Innsworth which was a non-flying Royal Air Force station between 1940 and 2008. Innsworth, Gloucester, map

The station opened in 1940, the first unit based there being No 7 School of Technical Training who trained engine and airframe fitters and mechanics. In December 1941, No 2

WAAF WAAF may refer to: * w3af, (short for web application attack and audit framework), an open-source web application security scanner * Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II ** Waaf, a member of the service * WAAF (AM ...

Depot was opened at Innsworth and from then on the Station became increasingly associated with the Women's branch of the service. Eventually it was decided to reserve the Station almost exclusively for WAAF training, including

barrage balloon A barrage balloon is a large uncrewed tethered balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack, by raising aloft steel cables which pose a severe collision risk to aircraft, making the attacker's approach more difficult. Early barra ...

training amongst other vital roles. In 1951 the Headquarters of the RAF Record Office which had been based nearby in Gloucester and

Barnwood Barnwood is an eastern suburb of Gloucester, lying about from the centre of the city, and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Gloucester, in the Gloucester district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Barnwood was origin ...

, moved to the station and gained Group status. Three years later in 1954 No. 5 Personnel Despatch Unit arrived, charged with the administration and processing of personnel selected for overseas service. Just after the war ended the RAF Base Accounts Office moved from

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

to Gloucester and grew into the Central Pay Office and became part of the RAF Personnel and Training Command, which formed in 1994, based at Innsworth. In 2005 it was announced that HQ Personnel and Training Command was to co-locate with HQ

RAF Strike Command The Royal Air Force's Strike Command was the military formation which controlled the majority of the United Kingdom's bomber and fighter aircraft from 1968 until 2007 when it merged with Personnel and Training Command to form the single Air C ...

RAF High Wycombe RAF High Wycombe is a Royal Air Force station, situated in the village of Walters Ash, near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England. It houses Headquarters Air Command, and was originally designed to house RAF Bomber Command in the late 1930s ...

. The new collocated HQ's were subsequently merged to form Air Command and the decision was taken to close RAF Innsworth. The drawdown took place over the next three years with elements of the Personnel Management Agency moved to

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...

and

RAF Cranwell Royal Air Force Cranwell or more simply RAF Cranwell is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire, England, close to the village of Cranwell, near Sleaford. Among other functions, it is home to the Royal Air Force College (RAFC), which trai ...

. RAF Innsworth finally closed on 31 March 2008.

Army base

The Innsworth site is now managed by the Army and has been renamed Imjin Barracks. When the RAF vacated the site in 2008, elements of AFPAA (renamed Defence Business Services in 2014) including the MoD Medal Office and Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre continued to operate from the site. In 2010 the station also became home to the

(ARRC) which relocated from the

Rheindahlen Military Complex JHQ (Joint Headquarters) Rheindahlen was a military base in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany active from 1954 to 2013. It functioned as the main headquarters for British forces in Germany and for the NATO Northern Army Group. La ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

."The former RAF Innsworth site in Gloucestershire was officially renamed Imjin Barracks at a special ceremony on Friday 21 November 2008". It was formerly known as RAF Innsworth
Farewell Innsworth, welcome Imjin
An Estate and Environment news article, 24 November 2008)."In 2010, Imjin Barracks in Gloucester (formerly RAF Innsworth) will become home to the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) - a deployable NATO HQ relocating from Germany"
Defence in the South West
MOD, retrieved 2009-12-06)

References

External links

{{commons category, Imjin Barracks
BBC Gloucestershire: Salute to the end of an era at RAF Innsworth

HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps

Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC)

Installations of the British Army Buildings and structures in Gloucester Barracks in England