X-Nico

71 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.

1939–45 Star

The ribbon for this medal, along with those of the other Second World War campaign stars, is reputed to have been designed by King George VI, with the three equal bands representing the equal contributions towards victory of the Royal Navy, Army, and the Royal Air Force respectively.

1996 in Northern Ireland

7 October - Thiepval barracks bombing: The IRA explodes two car bombs inside the British Army headquarters at Lisburn, killing one soldier and injuring 37 other people.

1st South Carolina Regiment

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

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.

Alfred Finnigan

Finnigan’s family emigrated to Australia when he was a boy, where he gained experience with horses that was to stand him in good stead when he joined the Army in 1914.

Amerigo Dumini

He remained in the region for more than a decade and was captured by the British Army during the North African Campaign of World War II.

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.

Bob Archer

He lied about his age in 1916 to be admitted into the Army for World War I and was later invalided back into civilian life after being gassed.

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.

Campbell's Island, Illinois

Campbell's Island was the site of the Battle of Rock Island Rapids, one of the westernmost battles of the War of 1812, when a band of approximately 500 Sauk warriors allied with the British Army clashed on July 19, 1814 with an American force led by Lieutenant John Campbell of the 1st U.S. Regiment of Infantry.

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.

Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman

The phrase was used as a charge in courts martial of the British Army in the 18th and early 19th centuries, although it was not defined as a specific offence in the Articles of War.

Cyril Bassett

However, his mother, from a family with a history of service in the British Army, convinced him to enlist in the New Zealand Military Forces.

Defence College of Communications and Information Systems

It also delivers training in military skills, command and leadership management courses alongside its technical courses, and standalone packages to Royal Signals NCOs and warrant officers from the 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.

DOT AU Vodka

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

Edwin Alexander Forbes

His paternal ancestors were soldiers for many generations in the Highland regiments 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.

Forbes George Vernon

Forbes George Vernon (21 August 1843 – 20 January 1911), Lieutenant (ret.) British Army, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Canadian province of British Columbia from 1875 to 1882, and from 1886 to 1894, representing the riding of Yale.

Fort Severn

Americans suspected that the British Army might attack the area during the War of 1812, but no conflict occurred at the fort during the war.

George E. P. Box

During World War II, he performed for the British Army experiments exposing small animals to poison gas.

George Glas Sandeman Carey

Major General George Glas Sandeman Carey (1867-1948), an officer in the British Army who, during World War I, prevented a breakthrough of the German forces to Amiens in the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918 by assembling a scratch force of British and American troops.

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).

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.

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.

Jock McLaren

During World War I, McLaren served in the British Army with the 51st Highland Division.

Khalsa Diwan Sikh Temple

The Gurudwara was built in 1901 by local Sikhs, including soldiers from the British Army, with the intent of providing religious, social, practical and cohesive support to Sikhs in Hong Kong.

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.

Light Aid Detachment

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

Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk

The Desert Hawk is also used by the 32nd Regiment Royal Artillery of the British Army as a tactical surveillance system, and has seen use in Afghanistan.

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.

Meggitt Banshee

Banshee entered service with the British Army in the mid-1980s as an aerial target for the Short Blowpipe and Javelin shoulder launched missiles.

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.

Moses Amadu Yahaya

Moses Yahaya's relationships with the British Army with assistance from the UK based organization 58AI aided him to drill 67 boreholes for 32 communities in the Tolon-Kumbungu District.

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.

Ntshingwayo Khoza

He outmanoeuvred Lt. Gen. Lord Chelmsford, diverting part of the British force, then defeating and annihilating the encamped British Army at the Battle of Isandlwana, after the epic battle he became Britain's biggest foe.

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

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.

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.

RAF Rheindahlen

Is now occupied by the British Army, as HQ United Kingdom Support Command (Germany) - HQ UKSC(G).

Ramon Tikaram

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

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.

Regimental Aid Post

In the British Army, Canadian Forces and other Commonwealth militaries, the RAP is a front line military medical establishment incorporated into an infantry battalion or armoured regiment and designed for the immediate treatment and triage of battlefield casualties.

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.

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.

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.

St. George's Anglican Church, Berlin

The church served as the garrison church of the British Army during the Allied occupation, and reverted to civilian control in 1994.

Stylianos Lenas

In a battle with the British Army in the area of Potamitissa on 17 February 1957, Stylianos Lenas was seriously wounded and captured.

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 Place of the Dead

Initially, the soldiers are shown training while a voiceover by expedition leader Lt. Col. Robert Niell (Simon Dutton) tells us that there will be five British Army soldiers, two Territorial Army soldiers and three Hong Kong Chinese soldiers on the expedition.

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.

Whiggism

The opposing Tory position was held by the other great families, the Church of England, and most of the landed gentry and officers of the army and the navy.

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.


Ancroft

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

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.

Besa machine gun

It was considered by BSA and the Ministry of Supply that the industrial, technical, and logistical handicap of converting the design to the .303 round was more onerous than retaining the original calibre, especially given that the chain of supply for the Royal Armoured Corps was already separate from the other fighting arms of the British Army.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Edward Kinder Bradbury

Bradbury was an officer in the British Army during the First World War where as second-in-command of L Battery, Royal Horse Artillery he led the battery during an engagement at Néry during the Retreat from Mons on 1 September 1914, where he was killed in action.

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.

Fearless Nadia

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

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.

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.

Grog

Honoring the 18th century British Army regimental mess and grog's historical significance in the military, the United States Navy, United States Air Force, and United States Army carry on a tradition at its formal dining in ceremonies whereby those in attendance who are observed to violate formal etiquette are "punished" by being sent to "the grog" and publicly drink from it in front of the attendees.

Harsha Abeywickrama

Air Marshal Harsha Abeywickrema, RWP, RSP, VSV, USP, rcds, psc, qfi, SLAF is a Sri Lankan fighter pilot and the current Commander of the Sri Lankan Air Force.

Henry George Farmer

He was born in Birr Barracks, Crinkill, King's County now County Offaly, Ireland, where his father (also named Henry George Farmer, d. 1900) was serving in the Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment of the British Army.

Henry Martyn Lazelle

After serving as an inspector for the Division of the Pacific and the Department of the Columbia, Lazelle represented the U. S. Army as an observer during the maneuvers of the British Army in India from November 1885 to March 1886.

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.

John Folan

He was a private in the 3rd Battalion, Connaught Rangers, British Army during World War I when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the DCM.

Mark Sutcliffe

Mark Sutcliffe MBE (born 29 July 1979 in Peterborough, England) joined the British Army in 1997 aged 17, enlisting into the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment The Poachers, initially joining C (Northamptonshire) Company.

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.

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.

Order of St. Patrick

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

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.

Pearl Vardon

She was arrested there when she enquired how to obtain new identity papers and she was then held by the British Army at Esterwegen Internment Camp, the former Esterwegen concentration camp, where she was interrogated.

Prize of war

This included two Agusta A109 helicopters captured by the British Army from the Argentine Army which were used by the Army Air Corps until 2007.

Service Prosecuting Authority

It was formed on 1 January 2009 by the merger of the separate prosecuting authorities of the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and is headed by Andrew Cayley QC, a civil servant, as Director Service Prosecutions.

Sir Benjamin Slade, 7th Baronet

He was married (from the late 1970s to 1991) to Pauline Myburgh (daughter of Major Claude Myburgh) and divorced.

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.

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.

Stokes mortar

The Stokes mortar was a British trench mortar invented by Sir Wilfred Stokes KBE that was issued to the British, Commonwealth and U.S. armies, as well as the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps (CEP), during the latter half of the First World War.

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.

Tim Barlow

He lost his hearing in the 1950s when testing a high Muzzle velocity Rifle for the British Army, until recently, when surgery to fit a cochlear implant allowed him to recover some of his hearing.

Veterinary corps

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