X-Nico

75 unusual facts about British Army


1915 FA Cup Final

Vivian Woodward an amateur and England international who played for Chelsea in peacetime but was currently serving in the British Army, had been given leave to play in the final.

1915–16 Blackpool F.C. season

With a large number of British Army personnel based in the town, many of the Blackpool players during the four seasons of wartime football were soldiers.

1917–18 Manchester United F.C. season

On 9 October 1917 while Fighting in France during the First World War, United former player Arthur Beadsworth was killed while serving as a Sergeant in the Seventh Battalion of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment of the British Army.

2nd South Carolina Regiment

The regiment was captured by the British Army at Charleston on May 12, 1780, together with the rest of the Southern Department.

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

The best friend of Adrian's son Glenn and a private in the British Army, through which he is deployed to Iraq.

Amba Alagi

The initial attacks on the approaches to Amba Alagi by British troops under Major-General Mayne from the north, commenced on May 4 with a pincer from the eastern and western sides.

Army Officer Selection Board

Army Officer Selection Board (AOSB) is an assessment centre used by the British Army as part of the Officer selection process for the Regular and Territorial Army and related scholarship schemes.

Arthur Guy Empey

He left the United States at the end of 1915 frustrated at its neutrality in the conflict at that point and travelled to London, England, where he joined the 1st London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), Territorial Force, of the British Army, going on to serve with it in the 56th (London) Infantry Division on the Western Front as a bomber and a machine-gunner.

Bacon Grill

Bacon Grill was a standard element of rations in the British Army.

Battle of Morlaix

Initially, Edward III of England could do little to help the de Montforts, he had his own problems at home, but eventually he felt able to send a small force under Sir Walter Mauny to aid them.

Berets of the United States Army

Although it is unusual for American units to wear distinctive headgear, it is the norm in the British Army, where most regiments wear headdress which reflects regimental history.

Bonapartism

The death knell for Bonapartism was probably sounded when Eugène Bonaparte, the only son of Napoleon III, was killed in action while serving as a British Army officer in Zululand in 1879.

Camp Roberts, California

Camp Roberts is host to annual training to almost every California Army National Guard unit and it is also used by the British Army.

Capel Curig

It is also home to a youth hostel, Army training camp, a camp site, several cafes and hotels and outdoor activity gear shops.

CCGS Edward Cornwallis

Named after Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis, British Army officer and founder of Halifax, Nova Scotia (home port of this ship as well).

Combat stress reaction

However, in the British Army, since most of the World War I doctors were too old for the job, young, analytically trained psychiatrists were employed.

Courtney Hodges

The 21st Army Group usually consisted of divisions from the British Army and the Canadian Army.

Deir Yassin

Many inhabitants were employed outside the village in the nearby British Army camps as waiters, carpenters, and foremen; others as clerks and teachers in the mandatory civil service.

Diplomatic Dan

When, in 1970, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Raschen is posted to Stockholm as Military Attaché for three years he claims it must be because the British Army can't think of anything else to do with him.

Drambuie

In 1916, Drambuie became the first liqueur to be allowed in the cellars of the House of Lords, and Drambuie began to ship world-wide to stationed British soldiers.

Eirjet

29 March 2006 - Eirjet issued an apology after a flight it operated from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to City of Derry Airport on behalf of Ryanair landed at the wrong airfield, touching down at Ballykelly Airfield, a former RAF base and more recently an Army base some 4 miles away from its intended destination.

Emma Drummond

Drummond was born in a Military Hospital, as her father was a member of the British Army.

Exercise Cambrian Patrol

In 2006 the event which ran from 27 October to 5 November 2006, attracted 95 teams from the British Army (regular and territorial) and Royal Air Force.

Fearless Nadia

She was the daughter of Scotsman Herbertt Evans, a volunteer in the British Army, and Margret.

Feldwebel

The word Feldwebel is usually translated as sergeant, being rated OR-6 in the NATO rank comparison scale, equivalent to the British Army Sergeant and the US Army Staff Sergeant.

Florence of Arabia

The title of the novel is a play on "Lawrence of Arabia", a popular name for the British Army officer T. E. Lawrence, who became famous for his exploits in the Middle East, particularly as a liaison during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918.

Flushing Bay

On September 21, 1776, the Colonial patriot Nathan Hale was captured by the British Army near a tavern at Flushing Bay after being fingered as a spy.

Fort de l'Île Sainte-Hélène

After the British Army left the fort for ruin, it became part of the City of Montreal.

Forty Foot

It has been speculated that it may have been called the Forty Foot after the 42nd Highland Regiment of Foot (now known as the Black Watch), a regiment of the British Army, which is said to have been stationed here.

Garrison FM

Garrison FM is a network of radio stations in the United Kingdom serving British Army bases around the country.

George Windle Read

After three of his divisions were transferred to take part in the Saint-Mihiel Offensive, Read continued to command the other two as a corps under the British Army in the Ypres area, participating in the September offensive that breached the Hindenberg Line.

German occupation of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovak units and formations with overwhelming majority of Czechs (cca 82–85%) served with the Polish Army (Czechoslovak Legion), the French Army, the Royal Air Force, the British Army (the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade), and the Red Army (I Corps).

Giuseppe Wilson

He was born in Darlington to a Neapolitan woman Lina Di Francesca and Dennis Wilson, a Briton who worked as an iron and steel worker at the local factory, but had met Lina while serving with the British Army.

Gremmendorf

After the Second World War, the barracks originally intended for German soldiers were taken over and utilized by British occupational forces (Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the country was divided into 4 separate sectors: American, French, British, and Soviet, which would eventually be known as East Germany ), who ended up constructing even more barracks.

Hengsberg

From 1945 to 1955, it remained part of the zone occupied by the British Army in Austria.

Henry Tyrell-Smith

In the late 1930s he worked for Excelsior motor-cycle company and when the War broke out, joined the British Army and served in the D-Day landings with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME).

James Lingan

Approached by distant cousin Samuel Hood and offered £10,000 and a commission in the British Army if he agreed to switch sides in the conflict, Lingan was reported to have replied "I'll rot first".

Jean Thierry du Mont, comte de Gages

When Marshal Saxe defeated the British Army at Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 and overran the Low Countries, the Spanish Crown granted du Mont the county of Gages, near his birthplace until then occupied by the Austrians since 1713.

John Jeremiah Bigsby

In 1816, he joined the British Army as an assistant surgeon and was stationed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1817.

Light Aid Detachment

These units provide dedicated logistic support to every field unit of the British Army or Canadian Army.

Loudon's Highlanders

Loudon's Highlanders, or the 64th Highlanders, or Earl of Loudon's Regiment of Foot, was an infantry regiment of the British Army.

Luke Kerr

Kerr has a background in professional sport and is a qualified full England ABA boxing coach, FA and UEFA football licensed coach as well as a tutor and assessor, he spent several years in the British Army as a PTI (Physical Training Instructor), where he represented the British Army at both boxing and football.

Martin Middlebrook

This is a detailed study of the single worst day for the British Army.

Mary Herring

In 1918 she had met Edmund Herring, then a young Australian captain in the British Army on leave from the Macedonian front of the Great War, and they were married on 6 April 1922 at Toorak Presbyterian Church.

Michael McPartland

At the age of 15, McPartland left school and worked for five years as a salesman before joining the British Army in 1960, serving for eleven years after which he worked for British Rail.

Miquon, Pennsylvania

The Marquis de Lafayette and 2,200 Continental troops escaped capture by some 16,000 British troops by retreating through Miquon, fording the river, and returning to Valley Forge.

Mir Hasan Vazirov

When the Commune was toppled by the Centro Caspian Dictatorship, a British-backed coalition of Dashnaks, SRs and Mensheviks, Vazirov and his comrades were captured by British troops and executed by a firing squad between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma of Transcaucasian Railroad.

Norval Marley

He travelled to England where he joined the British Army in August 1916 at Liverpool, enlisting in the non-combatant Labour Corps (serving in the United Kingdom); he had previously been employed as a ferro-concreter in Cuba.

Oath of office

All recruits to the British Army, Royal Air Force must take an oath of allegiance upon joining these armed forces, a process known as "attestation".

Oliver Bulleid

World War I intervened; Bulleid joined the British Army and was assigned to the rail transport arm, rising to the rank of Major.

Pacific Star

The Royal Navy (and Merchant Navy), Army, and Royal Air Force are represented by stripes of dark blue, red, and light blue respectively.

Patterson Park

The high ground at the northwest corner of Patterson Park, called Hampstead Hill, was the key defensive position for U.S. forces against British ground forces in the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812.

PULHHEEMS

PULHHEEMS is tri-service, which is to say that it is used by the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.

Quetta District

On the advance of the British Army of the Indus in 1839, Captain Bean was appointed the first Political Agent in ShalKot, and the country was managed by him on behalf of Shah Shuja-ul-mulk.

Rae McGrath

In 1968 he joined the British Army, where he served for 18 years as a military engineer.

RAF Brawdy

It was operational between 1944 and 1992 being used by both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy before the site was turned over to the British Army and was named Cawdor Barracks.

Rayner Hoff

During World War I he was in the British Army and fought in the trenches in France, an experience from which he was to draw most passionately in the creation of his various war memorials.

Second-in-command

The second-in-command (2i/c or 2IC) is the deputy commander of any British Army or Royal Marines unit, from battalion or regiment downwards.

Sharpe's Tiger

Rather than do this, he adopts a "prequel" approach and uses an earlier campaign period in the history of the British Army, that of colonial India.

Southern Rhodesian general election, 1980

British Army forces then set up 16 assembly points throughout Southern Rhodesia where Patriotic Front guerillas could disarm and return to civilian life; 18,300 did so by the deadline of 6 January.

Steimatzky

He had originally came to the British Mandate of Palestine on a short visit for the opening of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and decided to stay after he saw the potential in opening a foreign language bookstore that would serve a growing immigrants' market as well as British Army soldiers serving under the British Mandate.

Sulu Archipelago

In the second half of the 18th century, Great Britain became a new player in the archipelago After occupying Manila from 1762 – 64, during the Thirty years war between Spain and Great Britain, the British Army withdrew to the south and established trading alliances between the Sulu Sultanate and the British East India Company.

Tetbury Woolsack Races

Most competitors come from local rugby teams or the British Army; many of the course records are held by Tetbury Rugby Club.

Thales Watchkeeper WK450

Watchkeeper WK450 is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for all weather, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) use by the British Army, provided under an £800 million contract awarded in July 2005 to Thales UK.

The Consultant

At the British Army M*A*S*H where the artery resides, Trapper and Hawkeye talk with a pompous and talkative British CO who is cordial enough, but takes his time signing over the artery.

The Egyptian Gazette

At the end of the war and with the departure of most of the British Army stationed in Egypt, the market for English-language newspapers shrank dramatically.

The Funniest Joke in the World

The British Army test the joke on Salisbury Plain against a rifleman (Terry Jones), who snickers and falls dead on the range, then translate it into German.

The Place of the Dead

It is a 'true story' account of a British Army expedition in Malaysia that made headlines in 1994 when it went badly wrong.

Thomas Storrow Brown

In November, Brown was wounded and partially blinded in one eye during the street fight between the Société des Fils de la Liberté and the Doric Club but nevertheless in December he still fought against the British Army at the Battle of Saint-Charles.

Trevor Meredith

He was conscripted into the British Army at the age of 17, and was playing semi-professional football for Kidderminster Harriers when he was scouted by Burnley.

Turlough O'Carolan

In addition, O'Carolan's Concerto has been used as a neutral Slow March by the Foot Guards of the British Army during the ceremony of Trooping the Colour.

Vagrancy Act 1824

Nine years after the end of hostilities with France, the British Army and British Navy had undergone a massive reduction in numbers.

Valley Creek

In 1777, the forge and mills were destroyed by the British Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Veterinary corps

Royal Army Veterinary Corps -an administrative and operational branch of the British Army

Yamnuska Mountain Adventures

:Yamnuska has supplied mountaineering and rock instructors for the British Army for 14 years (in 2010) and provides instruction and logistical support for the Royal Canadian Army Cadets - Rocky Mountain National Army Cadet Summer Training Centre (RMNACSTC) in the Canadian Rockies.


Africa Star

The sand of the desert is represented by pale buff, the Royal Navy (and Merchant Navy), British Army, and Royal Air Force are represented by stripes of dark blue, red, and light blue respectively.

Ancroft

Boots were also made for the British army - the Duke of Marlborough's troops marched to victory shod in Ancroft boots.

Anti-Structures Munition

The Anti-Structures Munition is a developmental program for the British Army to provide a man-portable shoulder-launched weapon capable of destroying hardened structures such as buildings or bunkers.

Army Navy Match

The Army Navy Match is the annual rugby union match played between the senior XV teams of the Royal Navy and British Army.

Bower Manuscript

The Bower Manuscript is named after Hamilton Bower, the British Army intelligence officer who obtained it from a local inhabitant in Kucha early in 1890, while on a confidential mission for the government of British India.

C. H. Fernando

Major General C.H. Fernando, VSV, psc, SLAC (1930 - ) is a Sri Lankan general, who was the former Director of Operations, General Staff; GOC, 2 Division; Commander, Northern Command.

Cambridge University Association Football League

This gives Cambridge University county status (separate from Cambridgeshire), with the same voice in English football's governing body as such associations as London, the Army and Women's football.

Castlemartin Training Area

In 1962 there was a shortage of suitable tank training areas in Northern part of Germany for the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), an agreement was made whereby armoured training for German recruits was undertaken in the UK so the Bergen-Hohne Training Area could be freed for use by the British Army.

Continental Army

The command would be based on the 18th-century military works of Henry Bouquet, a professional Swiss soldier who served as a colonel in the British army, and French Marshal Maurice de Saxe.

DOT AU Vodka

The recipe was traded with a Scottish soldier in the British Army, who took it back to Scotland.

Edwin St Hill

During the Second World War, he joined the British Army and took part in the Dunkirk evacuation before returning to England; he resumed his league career and played many wartime charity games.

Eyre Massey, 1st Baron Clarina

Eyre Massey, 1st Baron Clarina (24 May 1719–17 May 1804), was an Irish British army officer of the 18th century, known primarily for his successful action at La Belle-Famille during the French and Indian War.

George Stuart Henderson

Henderson was 26 years old, and a captain in the 2nd Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, British Army during the 1920 Iraqi revolt, than called Mesopotamia when the following deed took place on 24 July 1920 near Hillah, Mesopotamia for which he was awarded the VC.

George Walters

The British Army alone was an all-volunteer force, whose soldiers enlisted for an initial period of ten years in the Infantry.

The battle fought in heavy fog at Inkermann proved to be a testament to the skill and initiative of the individual men and officers of the British Army of the day.

Ike Webb

Webb retired from the game in 1910 and joined the Army, serving as a catering orderly in the West Yorkshire Regiment.

Inspector of Regimental Colours

The Inspector of Regimental Colours is an officer of arms responsible for the design of standards, colours and badges of the British Army and of those Commonwealth states where the College of Arms has heraldic jurisdiction.

John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington

William, the eldest, became Chancellor of the Exchequer; John was a Major-General in the British Army; Daines was a lawyer, antiquarian and naturalist; Samuel was a Rear-Admiral in the Royal Navy; and Shute became Bishop of Salisbury and Bishop of Durham.

John Cavendish, 5th Baron Chesham

He fought in the Second World War as a Captain in the Army, also briefly serving as an Air Observation Post pilot with No. 664 Squadron RCAF.

Lads' Army

Shown on ITV, Bad Lads Army is based on the premise of subjecting today's delinquent young men to the conditions of conscripts to British Army National Service of the 1950s to see if this could rehabilitate them.

Moosa Ali Jaleel

MSc ndc psc was the former Chief of Defence Force of the Maldives National Defence Force and most senior military officer in the country at his time.

Ngwane National Liberatory Congress

Golden Highlanders were sent by the British Army in the early sixties due to pressure of the party’s protest actions in demanding political reforms for an Independent state and class struggle for a minimum wage.

Old Lyme, Connecticut

John McCurdy (b.1724), whose home was the resting place for George Washington on April 10, 1776 while traveling to New York City to take on the British Army and Navy (source: Papers of George Washington, Connecticut State Library); grandfather of Connecticut Supreme Court judge Charles McCurdy

Order of St. Patrick

Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggested reviving the Order in 1943 to recognise the services of General The Hon.

RAF Dishforth

The airfield opened in 1936 as use by Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1943 when the Royal Canadian Air Force took over but the airfield was returned in 1945 before the site was handed over to the British Army in 1992 and became Dishforth Airfield.

RAF Swanton Morley

The site is now occupied by the British Army, and is now known as Robertson Barracks in honour of Field Marshal Sir William Robertson, the first Field Marshal to rise from the rank of private and who was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1916 to 1918.

Ralph Leigh

Educated at Raine's School for Boys in Bethnal Green, Queen Mary College, London, and the University of Paris (Sorbonne), he served in the British Army during the Second World War from 1941, was commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1942, promoted Major, 1944, and returned to civilian life in 1946, when he was appointed a lecturer in the Department of French at the University of Edinburgh.

Ramon Tikaram

Born in Singapore, Tikaram is the son of Fijian-Indian British Army soldier Pramod Tikaram and Sarawakian mother Fatimah Rohani.

Reavey and O'Dowd killings

RUC SPG officer John Weir, in his affidavit made to Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, named those involved in the Reavey shootings as Robert McConnell (a soldier of the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment), Laurence McClure (an RUC SPG officer), James Mitchell and another man.

Sir Charles Monro, 1st Baronet

General Sir Charles Carmichael Monro, 1st Baronet of Bearcrofts, GCB, GCSI, GCMG, (15 June 1860 – 7 December 1929) was a British Army General during World War I and Governor of Gibraltar from 1923 to 1929.

Sophia Kingdom

Sophia Kingdom, Lady Brunel (c. 1775 – 1854) was the daughter of William Kingdom, a contracting agent for the navy and the army, born in Plymouth.

The Devil in Amber

Since then he served in the British Army, specifically during action on the border of France and Switzerland which caused him to suffer a mental breakdown.

The Robin Flies at Dawn

"The Robin Flies at Dawn" is a special edition of the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses, filmed specifically for the British troops serving in the 1990-91 Gulf War.

William Nicholas Willis

He had become a supplier of horses and fodder to the British Army in South Africa and he recruited Australian bushmen as scouts and sharpshooters during the Boer War.