The General Service Corps (GSC) is a

corps Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...

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 ...

Role

The role of the corps is to provide specialists, who are usually on the Special List or General List. These lists were used in both World Wars for specialists and those not allocated to other regiments or corps. In

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 ...

, they were used for male operatives of the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(female operatives joined the FANY).

History

The General Service Corps itself was formed in February 1942. From 2 July 1942, army recruits were enlisted in the corps for their first six weeks so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs. A similar role, holding some recruits pending allocation to their units, continues today. Bermuda Militia Infantry soldiers absorbed into the

Bermuda Militia Artillery The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were in ...

before demobilisation in 1946 wore the General Service Corps cap badge instead of the Royal Artillery cap badge.

Insignia

Bermuda Militia Infantry soldiers in camp

From 1914, for the General List and later the General Service Corps, the cap badge has been the Royal Arms, with variously a king's or a queen's crown, depending on the reigning monarch. It bears the motto of the monarch ''

Dieu et mon droit (, fro, Deu et mon droit), which means "God and my right", is the motto of the monarch of the United Kingdom. It appears on a scroll beneath the shield of the version of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The motto is said to have first ...

'' and the Order of the Garter motto ''

Honi soit qui mal y pense (, , ) is a maxim in the Anglo-Norman language, a dialect of Old Norman French spoken by the medieval ruling class in England, meaning "shamed be whoever thinks ill of it", usually translated as "shame on anyone who thinks evil of it" It ...

''. As a result, a GSC nickname was 'Crosse and Blackwell' after the firm whose tins and jar labels had a prominent royal coat of arms. The same capbadge has been used for other British Army regiments and corps for which no unique badge has been authorised, including the

Royal Reserve Regiments The Royal Reserve Regiments were reserve infantry and cavalry regiments of the British Army in existence from 1900 to 1901. The Second Boer War broke out in South Africa in October 1899. By December, the British army had seen several defeats in ...

, the later

Royal Garrison Regiment The Royal Garrison Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army that formed in 1901 and disbanded in 1908. The regiment was originally formed from personnel of the Royal Reserve Regiments, a reserve force composed of veteran soldiers fo ...

, and the Bermuda Militia Infantry.

Notable personnel

Notable members of the General List/General Service Corps include: *

Terence Atherton Arthur Terence Atherton (3 August 1902 – 15 July 1942) was a British journalist, War correspondent and a newspaper proprietor of various English language publications in Belgrade between 1931 and 1941. He was also a British Special Operations ...

Walter Freud Anton Walter Freud (3 April 1921 – 8 February 2004) was a chemical engineer and a member of the Royal Pioneer Corps and the British Special Operations Executive. He was a grandson of Sigmund Freud and escaped with him and other family members f ...

* Peter Lake * T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) * Bob Maloubier *

John Pendlebury John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury (12 October 1904 – 22 May 1941) was a British archaeologist who worked for British intelligence during World War II. He was captured and summarily executed by German troops during the Battle of Crete. ...

Tracy Philipps James Erasmus Tracy Philipps (20 November 1888 – 21 July 1959) was a British public servant. Philipps was, in various guises, a soldier, colonial administrator, traveller, journalist, propagandist, conservationist, and secret agent. He served ...

* Arthur Staggs

Order of precedence

The corps is twenty-second in the British Army's order of precedence.

References

British administrative corps Military units and formations established in 1914 {{UK-mil-stub