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| Page revised: Sat 16-Jan-2010 |
Royal Engineers Divers |
| Colonel (later General Sir) Charles Pasley (1780-1861),
Director of the Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham (now the Royal
Military School of Engineering) and inventor of the electric detonator,
was responsible for the introduction of diving into the Royal Engineers
in 1838. He recognised the military potential of a diving apparatus developed by Messrs Siebe and Gorman and became the first service diver in the world when he experimented with the equipment at Woolwich. In 1839 Pasley's divers carried out underwater explosive clearance of the wrecks of the William and the Royal George from Portsmouth Harbour and the Edgar from the entrance to Chatham dockyard. |
 Clearing the wreck of the Royal George (1839) a tasked supervised by Colonel Pasley but carried out by a Royal Engineer Officer and a detachment of Royal Sappers and Miners. |
 Royal Engineer Divers c1900's |
Divers were an integral part of the Royal Engineers Submarine Mining Service which was formed in 1871 in Chatham. However, when responsibility for submarine mining was devolved to the Royal Navy in 1905, the Royal Engineers divers became part of the Royal Engineers Transportation Service, working during the First (1914-18) and Second (1939-45) World Wars with the Inland Waterways and Port Operating units. |
In the Second World War divers were heavily involved in the Normandy landings, constructing the Mulberry harbours and repairing to dock facilities. Engineer transportation units continued to use divers after the Second World War (1939-45), but in 1963 a Royal Engineers Diving Unit was formed at Marchwood to train divers to support field units in amphibious crossing operations with reconnaissance and recovery. In order to meet the diver continuation training requirements in BAOR, The Royal Engineers Diving Wing at Kiel was formed in 1965. A major reorganisation of diving in the Corps took place in 1977 culminating in the formation of the Royal Engineer Diving Establishment which was colocated with the Royal Navy diver training facility at Vernon in Portsmouth. |
| Virtually every combat and field unit in the Corps has a small diving team, the size and composition depending on the precise role of the unit. Divers are trained to carry out combat engineer and artisan tasks underwater and explosive ordnance disposal tasks in inland waterways. In peacetime Royal Engineer divers also assist the police, public authorities and other civil agencies whether in routine tasks such as the demolition of wrecks or in disaster relief. |  Royal Engineers Divers trade badge. |
The Royal Navy and the Royal Engineer Diving Establishment combined their diver training assets to form the Defence Diving School (DDS) at Horsea Island in September 1995. This was not the first time the RE and RN had joined forces at Horsea, as the facility itself is centred on a former torpedo test range, which was built by the Royal Engineers on behalf of the Admiralty in the 1880s |
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Links to further reading:
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Royal Engineers Museum main site
