Combat Engineering

On this date in 1944, the CO and two soldiers of the 3^rd Field Company, RCE won awards for their gallantry in forcing a crossing of the Moro River prior to the Battle of Ortona.

On this date in 1944, Lt Frederick Weight Philpot, 12^th Field Company RCE, was awarded a Military Cross for supporting the British Army's 27^th Lancers thrust towards Ravenna as part of the hastily organised Porterforce.

On this day in 1944, in support of Porterforce operations to capture Ravenna, Sergeant Archibald Everitt Critchley, 12^th Field Company, RCE was awarded the Military Medal leading a mine clearing party while under constant enemy observation and mortar fire.

Background

On this day in 1915, Lieutenant Duncan Bell-Irving, 6 Fd Coy, CE, was killed by a sniper while working with his men in the front lines

A memorial at Driel in the Netherlands commemorates the British and Canadian sappers in a little-known Second World War operation called Operation BERLIN. That operation was the evacuation of the remnants of British and Polish airborne troops back across the Rhine River on the night of 25/26 September 1944 after the failure of Operation MARKET GARDEN.

The Rock of Gibraltar is the key to the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Thrusting 1300 feet above the Spanish plain on the Bay of Algeciras, the Rock of Gibraltar has been a great British fortress and an important defensive outpost since its acquisition in 1704. Through the years the Royal Engineers had excavated tunnels and galleries in the rock for defensive purposes.

Two young Canadian Engineers, J.A.D. McCurdy and F.W. Baldwin, piloted the first military demonstration of aircraft flight in Canada at Camp Petawawa, ON. Conducted in July-August 1909 using the Silver Dart and the Baddeck 1, these were the first such flights in the British Commonwealth by a member of the British Commonwealth.

The Korean War presented a major challenge to military engineers because of the nature of the terrain. Korea was a land of mountains interlaced with rice patties in the valleys and there were few roads capable of carrying sustained heavy military traffic. The area was also subject to heavy monsoon rains that seemed to destroy roads and bridges annually.

During conflict, a poor water supply can cause even more casualties than the enemy and there are examples where soldiers have died in the thousands due to unsanitary camp conditions and from drinking contaminated water. Good quality drinking water is one of the basic necessities that is critical to humanitarian operations. The task of providing potable water falls to the Military Engineers. The treatment of raw water used to be based on the processes of coagulation and settlement.