The Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) is the

military engineering Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics be ...

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

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

(although the word corps does not appear in their name or on their badge). The RAE is ranked fourth in seniority of the corps of the Australian Army, behind the Staff Cadets,

Armoured Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

and

Artillery Corps Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch Ammunition, munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications dur ...

. The corps was formed by the amalgamation of the various colonial engineer corps of the

states and territories of Australia The states and territories are federated administrative divisions in Australia, ruled by regional governments that constitute the second level of governance between the federal government and local governments. States are self-governing p ...

in 1902 and since then has served in various conflicts including

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 ...

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 opposin ...

and the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. The corps has also served on numerous peacekeeping operations and was heavily involved in the Australian contribution to the

war in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) *Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...

History

The origins of the Royal Australian Engineers date back to 15 November 1860, when the Corps of Engineers was founded in the colony of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Peter Scratchley Major General Sir Peter Henry Scratchley (24 August 1835 – 2 December 1885) was special commissioner for Great Britain in New Guinea 1884–1885 and defence adviser for Australia. Biography Scratchley was born in Paris, thirteenth child of Dr ...

. By 1876, five of the six colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia—had raised their own engineer units. These were amalgamated on 1 July 1902 as the Corps of Engineers. At this time, the corps consisted of field, fortress, telegraph, electric and submarine mining companies. After

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

the small regular engineer component was granted the prefix "Royal"; however, the

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 ...

remained part of the "Australian Engineers".Dennis et al. 2008, p. 464. In 1911, the Australian Corps of Signallers was absorbed into the Engineers as the RAE Signal Service. Four years later, in July 1915, all members of the Survey Section RAE, separated to form the Australian Survey Corps. During this period the School of Military Engineering was established at Moore Park in Sydney. During World War I, there were approximately 40 engineering units raised as part of the

First Australian Imperial Force The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during the First World War. It was formed as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) following Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 15 Aug ...

. These units included field engineering units, tunneling companies, railway units and signalling squadrons which served at Gallipoli, the Sinai, Palestine, France and Belgium. Following the end of the war the School of Military Engineering was disbanded. On 1 January 1925 the RAE Signal Service was separated to form the Australian Corps of Signals. This was followed in 1932 by the Survey Section separating to form the Australian Survey Corps. The regular Permanent Force and reserve Citizen Military Forces (CMF) engineer units were brought together in January 1936 as the "Corps of Royal Australian Engineers". In 1939 the School of Military Engineering was re-established at Steele Barracks in

Liverpool, New South Wales Liverpool is a suburb of Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately south-west of the Sydney CBD. Liverpool is the administrative seat of the local government area of the City of Liverp ...

During the inter-war years the RAE maintained a force of 233 regular troops and a militia force of 1,750. With the outbreak of

, however, the corps was expanded greatly, eventually reaching a peak of 32,984 men in 1945. RAE units of the

Second Australian Imperial Force The Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF, or Second AIF) was the name given to the volunteer expeditionary force of the Australian Army in the Second World War. It was formed following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany, with an initial ...

and

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 ...

served in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, Malaya,

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

and

Borneo campaign The Borneo campaign or Second Battle of Borneo was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area during World War II to liberate Japanese-held British Borneo and Dutch Borneo. Designated collectively as Operation Oboe, ...

s. Following the end of the war, the size of the corps was once again reduced. Nevertheless, the various units and sub-units of the RAE have been deployed on many overseas operations since 1945. During the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

there were no formed engineer units deployed by the Australian Army, although individual members of the RAE were deployed with the 1st Commonwealth Division. Later, RAE units deployed as part of the Australian commitment to the

Malayan Emergency The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces o ...

Confrontation Confrontation is an element of conflict wherein parties confront one another, directly engaging one another in the course of a dispute between them. A confrontation can be at any scale, between any number of people, between entire nations or cult ...

and the

. They have also been deployed overseas to carry out construction work in

. During the Vietnam War, the RAE maintained a force of about 1,000 personnel in South Vietnam where they served as part of the 1st Australian Task Force. Following the end of the war the size of the Australian Army was decreased in line with the abolition of the

national service scheme The National Service Scheme (NSS) is an Indian government sector public service program conducted by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Government of India. Popularly known as NSS, the scheme was launched in Gandhiji's Centenary yea ...

and as a consequence of this and a number of lessons that came out of the deployment to Vietnam the RAE underwent a series of changes. One of the most significant changes came in 1972 and was the decision to establish full regimental sized engineer units, as opposed to squadron or company sized units. These units were initially known as Field Regiments but have subsequently become known as Combat Engineer Regiments. As a part of this restructuring the RAE was reorganised to raise one regiment for each brigade and the Corps lost its responsibility for maintaining water transport and engineering stores. Since the late 1980s members of the Corps have been involved in combat and peacekeeping operations in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, Kurdish la ...

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

, Bougainville and

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

as well as

Timor Leste East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wester ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. On 1 July 1996 the RAE reabsorbed the Royal Australian Survey Corps.

Corps titles

Over the course of its existence, the corps has held the following titles: * July 1902 to September 1907 – "Corps of Engineers" * September 1907 to January 1936 – "Australian Engineers" * On 31 January 1936, the corps was given

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

, and was subsequently renamed the "Royal Australian Engineers".

Traditions

Motto

The motto of the Royal Australian Engineers is ''Ubique'' (Everywhere), a motto shared with RAE's parent corps, the

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 ...

. This motto was bestowed by King William IV in 1832 in recognition that both Sappers and Gunners were not entitled to carry Regimental Colours and typically served as small detachments instead of a whole unit. The original motto of the RAE, adopted at Federation was ''Facimus et Frangimus'' (We make and we break) and appeared on the engineer hat badge up until 1947 when it was replaced by ''Honi soit qui mal y pense''. It now only appears on the Corps Cipher. The current engineer hat badge features a leather garter adorned with a crown and the motto ''Honi soit qui mal y pense'' (Evil be to him who evil thinks), mirroring the motto of the

Order of the Garter The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. It is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George C ...

. This honour was awarded to the RAE in 1947 for their efforts during World War II.

Sappers

The Royal Australian Engineers also adopted the Royal Engineers practice of calling their

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

soldiers "

Sapper A sapper, also called a pioneer (military), pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefie ...

s", in recognition of the fact that the very earliest engineers had been primarily concerned with driving saps (tunnels) both towards the enemy lines, and underneath fortifications.

Colours

Although the Corps does not carry official regimental colours such as those carried by infantry units, the basic Royal Australian Engineers colours are red (primary) and blue. Typically, however,

unit colour patch Unit colour patches (or simply known as colour patches) are a method of identification used by the Australian Army, used to indicate which unit a soldier belongs to. It is believed that the Australian system of colour patches is based upon the ...

es, consist of a red feature on a purple field. The banner or flag depiction of the colours consists of a red field with two horizontal blue bands near the top and bottom of the field. This, in keeping with the Corps of Royal Engineers, represents two rivers shown in blue with the red background representing all the lives lost to achieve the crossing. If a unit title is shown it is shown in yellow.

Waterloo Dinner

The Waterloo Dinner is an annual dinner for commissioned officers held by units of the Royal Australian Engineers, although some smaller units may permit other ranks to attend. It is traditionally held on or about 18 June in commemoration of the first dinner, held by members of the corps at

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

in 1915 to celebrate the completion of Watson's Pier at Anzac Cove. In recognition of the officer who led the construction of the pier, Lieutenant Stanley Watson, a signals officer within the Royal Australian Engineers, an officer of the Royal Australian Signals Corps attends each dinner as a guest. The name Waterloo was used because the first dinner was observed on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

Current roles

The RAE provides

combat engineering A combat engineer (also called pioneer or sapper) is a type of soldier who performs military engineering tasks in support of land forces combat operations. Combat engineers perform a variety of military engineering, tunnel and mine warfare task ...

, construction, and other technical support to the

Australian Defence Force The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Forc ...

. Its main roles are to provide mobility and counter mobility capabilities to the Australian Army and its allies. This means enhancing the ability of friendly forces to move while denying movement to enemy forces. In order to provide these capabilities, engineers are required to conduct many tasks, including penetrating minefields, locating and disarming booby traps, clearing unexploded ordnance, conducting explosive demolitions, purifying water, surveying, and building and maintaining roads, airfields, and bridges. The Corps also performs the majority of the Australian Army's demolition tasks and is trained to fight as

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

if needed.

Current structure

The corps has both Regular and

Reserve Reserve or reserves may refer to: Places * Reserve, Kansas, a US city * Reserve, Louisiana, a census-designated place in St. John the Baptist Parish * Reserve, Montana, a census-designated place in Sheridan County * Reserve, New Mexico, a US vi ...

units, which are situated across the country within the Army's three regular manoeuvre brigades – the 1st,

3rd Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

and 7th Brigades – and within the Reserve 2nd Division. The current Regular units are: * 1st Combat Engineer Regiment ( Darwin) ** 1st Field Squadron ** 9th Field Squadron ** 23rd Support Squadron ** Operational Support Squadron * 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment (

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

) ** 2nd Combat Engineer Squadron ** 7th Combat Engineer Squadron ** 24th Support Squadron ** Operational Support Squadron * 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment (

Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...

) ** 16th Combat Engineer Squadron ** 18th Combat Engineer Squadron ** 25th Support Squadron ** Operational Support Squadron * 6th Engineer Support Regiment (Amberley and Brisbane) ** 17th Construction Squadron (Amberley) ** 21st Construction Squadron (Amberley) ** 20th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron (Brisbane) * School of Military Engineering (Sydney, Holsworthy), Combined Arms Training Centre * 19th Chief Engineer Works (Sydney, Randwick) *

Special Operations Engineer Regiment The Special Operations Engineer Regiment (SOER) is a specialised unit of the Australian Army. The regiment forms part of the Special Operations Command. The unit was formed in 2002 as the Incident Response Regiment (IRR), they are deployed to r ...

(SOER)

1 CER laying down barbed wire in Queensland 2009-07-09

The current Reserve (part-time) units are: * 5th Engineer Regiment (Newcastle/Sydney/Canberra) * 9th Combat Engineer Regiment (Adelaide) – one squadron only ** 3rd Field Squadron *

11th Engineer Regiment 11 (eleven) is the natural number following 10 (number), 10 and preceding 12 (number), 12. It is the first repdigit. In English, it is the smallest positive integer whose name has three syllables. Name "Eleven" derives from the Old English ', w ...

(Brisbane/Greenbank/Rockhampton/Townsville) **11th Combat Engineer Squadron **35th Combat Engineer Squadron **104th Construction Squadron * 13th Engineer Regiment (Perth) **13th Field Squadron **22nd Engineer Squadron * 22nd Engineer Regiment (Ringwood East, Victoria)

Order of precedence

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * *