Just Another Campaign
80 years ago this week: An M4 Sherman Duplex Drive medium tank of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary’s Own), 27th Armoured Brigade, reverses aboard an LST (Landing Ship Tank) at the Hardway, Gosport, 1 June 1944, in preparation for the big Channel Jump that would be Overlord, where the 13th/18th’s Shermans would be the first British tanks to operate in France since 1940.
Taken by Capt. Knight, War Office official photographer, IWM H 38977
Raised in Ireland in 1715 as Richard Munden’s Regiment of Dragoons and in combat within three months against Jacobites at Preston, the regiment earned its lucky “13” number in 1751 and, after earning a shako full of honors against Napolean– Jamaica (1795) and San Domingo (1796), Campo Maior (1811), Albuera (1811), Badajoz (1812), Vitoria (1813), Nive (1813), Toulouse (1814) and Waterloo (1815)– then taking part of the doomed in the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea (earning honors for Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sevastopol) as a light dragoons regiment, in 1861 they earned the tight breeches and dolmans of hussars.
A Private of the 13th Light Dragoons, 1812 Aquatint by J C Stadler after Charles Hamilton Smith, 1812. NAM. 1950-11-33-15
Shipping to Canada for the Fenian Raids, then to Afghanistan for the trek to Kandahar, by 1899 they were in the Boer Wars, trading in their bright breeches for khaki and pith helmets.
British 13th Hussars during the relief of Ladysmith, 1899
The Great War saw the 13th Hussars as part of the 2nd (Indian) Cavalry Division on the Western Front until they shipped to Mesopotamia in July 1916, fighting at Kut and Baghdad in 1917, then Sharqat in 1918, notably capturing Ottoman guns in a mounted charge.
Following the loss of most of the Irish regiments in 1922, the 13th merged with the 18th Royal Hussars to form the 13th/18th Hussars, earning its “Royal” and “Queen Mary’s Own” titles in 1935 while on garrison duties after the wife of George V was made their colonel in chief.
Part of the Royal Armoured Corps just before WWII, they served as a recon unit in the Phony War and Battle of France, leaving their vehicles behind at Dunkirk, then reformed with Shermans to hit the beach at Normandy, fighting up to the Rhine Crossings, which were accomplished with Duplex Drive Sherman tanks.
A long-barreled Sherman Firefly named “Carole” shown clustered with other Shermans of C Squadron, 13th/18th Royal Hussars, waiting to be loaded aboard vessels in Gosport England for the Normandy D-Day Landings – June 3, 1944. The crew in the left foreground are Fred Shaw, Doug Kay, Sgt. Fred Scamp, and Bill Humphries. The British Firefly models carried a 76.2mm/55 QF 17-pounder rather than the stubbier American 75mm/40 cal T8/M3 gun, with a much larger shell that carried 5 pounds more power, making it a much more effective anti-tank gun. Sgt James Mapham, Photographer. IWM H 38995
Operation Overlord (the Normandy landings): D-day 6 June 1944. Sherman DD tanks of ‘B’ Squadron, 13th/18th Royal Hussars support commandos of No. 4 Commando, 1st Special Service Brigade, as they advance into Ouistreham, Sword area, 6 June 1944. Laws, G (Sgt), Army Film and Photographic Unit IWM MH 2011
British Sherman duplex M4 tank of 13th/18th Royal Hussars cruises past a crashed Horsa glider near Ranville, Normandy 10 June 1944
Post-war duties saw the 13th/18th convert to an armored car regiment (Ferrets) in Libya (1948), Egypt (1950), Malaya (1950-53 then again in 1958-61), and Aden (1957-58 and 1967) along with several deployments to Northern Ireland during ’The Troubles’ and with peacekeepers on Cyprus.
In 1992, the 13/18th was merged with the already amalgamated 15th/19th The King’s Royal Hussars to form Catterick Garrison-based The Light Dragoons, which have since been in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Mali, and, as of late, Poland, with the regiment’s current (honorary) colonel-in-chief being King Abdullah II of Jordan, although they generally refrain from being termed “King Abdullah’s Own.”
Armed today with Jackals, they are a light recon cavalry unit.