The North Riding (Fortress) Royal Engineers was a volunteer unit of Britain's

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

formed for the defence of the Tees Estuary in the

North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire is a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point is at Mickle Fell with 2,585 ft (788 metres). From the Restoration it was used as ...

. As well as serving in this role it also provided specialist engineer units in both World Wars. Its descendants continued to serve in the Territorial Army until 1999.

Origin

When Lieutenant-General Sir Andrew Clarke, Inspector-General of Fortifications 1882–6, did not have enough Regular

(RE) to man the fixed mines being installed to defend British seaports, he utilised the

Volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

Engineers for this task. After successful trials the system was rolled out to ports around the country, and a new Volunteer company was raised at

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

on 27 November 1886 to cover the Tees Estuary, entitled Tees Division Submarine Miners. It ranked 5th in the list of volunteer submarine mining divisions, moving up to 4th in 1891 when the Humber Division was converted into

Militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

.Westlake, p. 10.North Riding Fortress Engineers at Regiments.org.
/ref> It consisted of two companies with headquarters at Bright Street, Middlesbrough (shared with a section of the Coast Brigade of the Regular RE). The commanding officer was Captain (later Major) John Thomas Belk, a solicitor and local government clerk, who was succeeded by T. Belk in 1898. By 1907 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 ...

had decided to hand all submarine mining duties over to Militia units and the Volunteer submarine miners were converted into electrical engineers to continue manning the electric searchlights of the harbour defences. The Middlesbrough unit was briefly retitled the Tees Division Electrical Engineers.

Territorial Force

When the Volunteers were subsumed into the new

Territorial Force The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer component of the British Army, created in 1908 to augment British land forces without resorting to conscription. The new organisation consolidated the 19th-century Volunteer Force and yeomanry i ...

(TF) under the

Haldane Reforms The Haldane Reforms were a series of far-ranging reforms of the British Army made from 1906 to 1912, and named after the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane. They were the first major reforms since the " Childers Reforms" of the ...

in 1908, the former submarine miners were redesignated again, the Tees Division becoming the North Riding (Fortress) Royal Engineers, with a single Electric Lights Company at Bright Street.

World War I

Mobilisation

On the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the fortress engineers were mobilised and moved into their war stations in the coastal defences, releasing Regular REs for service in the field. Along with the

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

and East Riding Fortress Engineers and the

Tyne Electrical Engineers The Tyne Electrical Engineers (TEE) is a Volunteer unit of the British Army that has existed under various titles since 1860. It has been the parent unit for a large number of units fulfilling specialist coastal and air defence roles in the Roya ...

, the North Riding Fortress Engineers formed part of the North Eastern Coastal Defences. When the TF companies of the RE were numbered in February 1917, the unit became 595th North Riding Fortress Company.

Anti-Aircraft defence

As well as operating searchlights for the coastal defence guns, the RE fortress companies began to operate them in the Anti-Aircraft (AA) role as the war progressed and raids by airships and fixed wing bombers became more frequent. The North East coastal towns of England were particularly hard hit by Zeppelins during 1915 and 1916, and by mid-1916, the North Riding and East Riding Fortress Engineers had combined to provide the personnel for No 3 (Yorkshire) AA Company, RE. Later a barrage line of lights was organised up the East Coast with the North Riding Fortress Engineers providing No 36 (North Riding) AA Company at Middlesbrough. By May 1918 the Tees AA Defence Control formed part of Northern Air Defences (NAD). At this stage of the war the NAD was barely troubled by German raids, and most of the men of medical category A1 had been withdrawn from the AA defences and sent to join the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front All TF units were demobilised in 1919 after the

Armistice with Germany The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea, and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices ...

Interwar

The North Riding (Fortress) Engineers, consisting of No 1 Electric Light and Works Company, was reformed in the renamed Territorial Army (TA) in 1920, forming part of North Eastern Coastal Defences in 50th (Northumbrian) Divisional Area, with its HQ still at the RE Drill Hall in Bright St, Middlesbrough.

World War II

Mobilisation

The North Riding Fortress Engineers were mobilised in the Sunderland Coast defences on 3 September 1939. On 13 December 1941 the unit was converted into 541st Electrical and Mechanical Company, RE. Whereas the

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

(formed in 1942) maintained vehicles and complex weapons and equipment, the RE's E&M companies worked with heavy electrical engineering plant, such as generators and pumps. In July 1942 the company was assigned to First Army preparing for the landings in Algeria (

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...

). It was in North Africa by December.Watson & Rinaldi, pp. 169, 186.

Italian campaign

After the completion of the North African campaign, the Allied forces in the Mediterranean moved on to invade Sicily and then mainland Italy. During the Italian campaign the re-establishment of electric power supplies was critical. Power stations in the south of the country were quickly captured intact, but north of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

Foggia Foggia (, , ; nap, label= Foggiano, Fògge ) is a city and former ''comune'' of Apulia, in Southern Italy, capital of the province of Foggia. In 2013, its population was 153,143. Foggia is the main city of a plain called Tavoliere, also known ...

the Germans had destroyed everything to do with electricity supply: power stations, sub-stations, hydro-electric dam sluices, transmission lines and pylons were all wrecked. Repair was a collaborative effort of the British Royal Engineers and Royal Navy with US and Italian engineers, under an Electric Power Committee set up in December 1943. Once the Allies reached Rome in mid-1944 they discovered that less than 10 per cent of the 800,000 kW generating capacity of central Italy was in working order. Over the succeeding months 541st E&M Company was engaged in re-establishing transmission lines, alongside 540th (formerly the Renfrewshire Fortress Engineers), 542nd (formerly East Riding Fortress Engineers), 543rd and 544th (Palestinian) E&M Companies. The company was disbanded after September 1945.

Postwar

When the TA was reconstituted in 1947, the North Riding Fortress Engineers was reconstituted as:118–432 RE Rgts at British Army 1945 on.
/ref>Watson & Rinaldi, p. 294. 118 Construction Regiment, RE * HQ at Middlesbrough * 308 Construction Squadron * 541 Construction Squadron * 542 (East Riding) Construction Squadron at Hull – ''formerly East Riding Fortress Engineers'' * 307 Plant Squadron The regiment was assigned to 21 Engineer Group. In 1955, 307 Plant Sqn became an independent unit. Then in a wider reorganisation in 1961, the unit was reorganised as 118 (Tees) Corps Engineer Regiment; 308 and 541 Sqns were disbanded and 542 Sqn was transferred to 129 Corps Engineer Regiment, while 508 Field Sqn was transferred in from 105 Engineer Rgt and a new 333 Field Sqn was formed. In 1967 the TA was reduced into the

Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve The Army Reserve is the active-duty volunteer reserve force of the British Army. It is separate from the Regular Reserve whose members are ex-Regular personnel who retain a statutory liability for service. The Army Reserve was known as the Ter ...

(TAVR), and the regiment became the single 118 (Tees) Field Sqn in 72 (Tyne Electrical Engineers) Engineer Rgt. From 1976 to 1982 118 Sqn had the role of supporting the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Hawker Siddeley Harrier The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a British military aircraft. It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft and was developed in the 1960s as the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and ...

s. The squadron was finally disbanded when 72 Rgt was reduced to a single air support squadron in 1999.Watson & Rinaldi, p. 314.

Honorary Commandant

* Major J. T. Belk, the former commanding officer, was appointed Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the Tees Division Submarine Miners on 25 May 1898.

Footnotes

Notes

References

* Maj A.F. Becke, ''History of the Great War: Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 2b: The 2nd-Line Territorial Force Divisions (57th–69th), with the Home-Service Divisions (71st–73rd) and 74th and 75th Divisions,'' London: HM Stationery Office, 1937/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2007, . * Ian F.W. Beckett, ''Riflemen Form: A study of the Rifle Volunteer Movement 1859–1908'', Aldershot: Ogilby Trusts, 1982, . * Capt Joseph Morris, ''The German Air Raids on Great Britain 1914–1918'', first published 1925/Stroud: Nonsuch, 2007, . * Maj-Gen R.P. Pakenham-Walsh, ''History of the Royal Engineers'', Vol IX, ''1938–1948'', Chatham: Institution of Royal Engineers, 1958. * Maj O.M. Short, Maj H. Sherlock, Capt L.E.C.M. Perowne and Lt M.A. Fraser, ''The History of the Tyne Electrical Engineers, Royal Engineers, 1884–1933'', 1933/Uckfield: Naval & Military, nd, . * ''Titles and Designations of Formations and Units of the Territorial Army'', London: War Office, 7 November 1927. * Graham E. Watson & Richard A. Rinaldi, ''The Corps of Royal Engineers: Organization and Units 1889–2018'', Tiger Lily Books, 2018, . * R.A. Westlake, ''Royal Engineers (Volunteers) 1859–1908'', Wembley: R.A. Westlake, 1983, {{ISBN, 0-9508530-0-3.

External sources

British Army units from 1945 on

The Long, Long Trail

Fortress units of the Royal Engineers Military units and formations in the North Riding of Yorkshire Military units and formations established in 1908