Royal Pioneer Corps regimental mess wall plaque shield crest RPC

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Royal Pioneer Corps regimental mess wall plaque shield crest RPC:
$24.99

Royal Pioneer Corps wall plaque.

Used, not perfect, but ingood enough condition to hang on the wall with pride.

If you are offerding from overseas and are unsure about the postage please contact me first. Postage and packing to Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, or Hong Kong will be £8.00.

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History

The Royal Pioneer Corps was a British Army combatant corpsused for light engineering tasks. It was formed in 1939 and amalgamated intothe Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. Pioneer units performed a wide variety oftasks in all theatres of war, handling all types of stores, layingprefabricated track on the beaches and stretcher-bearing. They also worked underEngineer supervision on the construction of the Mulberry Harbour and laid thePipe Line Under the Ocean (PLUTO), constructed airfields, roads and erectedbridges.

The Pioneer Corps was apparently the only British unit thatenemy aliens could serve in early in the war. Many thousands of Germans andAustrians joined the Pioneer Corps to assist the Allied war efforts andliberation of their home countries. These were mainly Jews and politicalopponents of the Nazi Regime who had fled to Britain while it was stillpossible, and included the film production designer Ken Adam, writer GeorgeClare and publisher Robert Maxwell. These men - often dubbed \"The King\'sMost Loyal Enemy Aliens\" - later moved on to serve in fighting units. Somewere recruited by Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) as secret agents. Theywere instructed to choose an \"English\" name using their old initials,and some of them were parachuted behind enemy lines.

Serving as German nationals in the British forces wasparticularly dangerous, since, in case of capture, there was a high probabilityof being executed as traitors by the Germans. The number of German-born Jewsjoining the British forces was exceptionally high; by the end of the war, onein seven Jewish refugees from Germany had joined the British forces. Theirknowledge of the German language and customs proved useful; many served in theadministration of the British occupation army in Germany and Austria after thewar.