Tag Archives: King’s Dragoon Guards

KDG checking his mount

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Some 80 years ago today, a dicky White M3 25-pounder GMC (Gun Motor Carriage) being inspected by a trooper of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards (note the KDG badge on his sleeve) while operating as part of “Porter Force” on the Adriatic coast near Ravenna, 1 December 1944. The “woolly pully” sweater worn under his jacket is a must when touring the Italian countryside in winter as the Royal Armoured Corps black beret does nothing to keep in the heat.

Photo by Bowman (Sgt), No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit, IWM NA 20341

The senior line cavalry regiment of the British Army, the KDG was formed in 1685 and has campaigned all over the world.

Its WWII the “Welsh tankies” were deployed to Egypt as an armored car regiment using Marmon Herringtons, Daimlers, and Humbers along with AT portees in November 1939. It fought extensively in North Africa and Italy for the next five years, earning 17 battle honors in the former campaign and eight in the latter, before being shifted to Greece, which was sliding towards civil war.

By the last couple years of the war, they had shifted from Britsh hulls to Yank armor, using Staghounds and half-tracks.

Two M3 half-tracks mounting 75mm guns of the King’s Dragoon Guards, 7 May 1944. Photo by Menzies (Sgt), No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit, IWM NA 14653

In 1959, the KDG merged with The Queen’s Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards) to form “The Welsh Cavalry,” 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards (QDG) which has gone to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. It remains one of six Light Cavalry regiments in the British Army along with two other Regulars (The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and The Light Dragoons) and three reserves (Royal Yeomanry, The Queen’s Own Yeomanry and Combat Recce, The Scottish & North Irish Yeomanry.)

Today, the Robertson Barracks (Dereham) based QDG rides Jackal 2s, which are probably about as reliable as a 1944 White M3 but much less lethal.

Curiously, the regimental cap badge and flag of the QDG is the Hapsburg double-headed eagle. It was granted to the KDG by Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria when he became colonel-in-chief in 1896.

Some peculiar Englishmen, their hound, and their umbrella, 74 years ago today

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Part of the five-man crew of a MkI Staghound armored car “Frascati” of 1st King’s Dragoon Guards shelter from the sun and take a brew-up beneath a parasol fitted to the turret of their vehicle, somewhere in Italy, 13 July 1944.

Note the camo netting and packs tied to the hull. Via IWM

Chevrolet made 3,844 4×4 T17s between 1942-44 and, capable of making 55mph on good roads, they were fast and had decent range (longer than most tanks, anyway).

Most– some 2,844– were sent to the UK (designated Mk I) armed with a 37 mm M6 gun good enough for poking holes in anything that wasn’t a tank, a coaxial .30 cal Browning M1919A4 machine gun, and a British-pattern 2-inch smoke mortar in a rotating turret, another M1919A4 in the hull, and an option to add a third M1919 or similar up top on the turret.

As for the KDG’s, they traced their lineage back to 1685, fought in both World Wars and were amalgamated with the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays) in 1959 to form the seniormost (line) cavalry regiment in the British Army: 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards (QDGs, “The Welsh Cavalry”) which endure today riding Jackal armored vehicles which are very much like the old Staghound.

As for Englishmen and umbrellas, that is a whole other thing.

But since you have come this far, how about some more umbrellas on tanks, IFVs, and APCs:

Officers of the 11th Hussars rest under the shade of a beach umbrella with their Morris CS6 during a patrol of the Egyptian/Libyan frontier, 26 July 1940

Trooper John Weire of Mentone, Vic, uses an umbrella to shelter from the shower of rain, during Operation Ballarat which began 4 August 1967 and ended 16 August 1967, while the remainder of the crew, Sergeant John Murphy of Cressy, Vic (left), and Craftsman Terry Parker of Launceston, Tas, keep a sharp lookout for Viet Cong (VC) from their armoured personnel carrier (APC) from A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment. South Vietnam. AWM Photo EKT 67 0063A VN 

A US M48A1 tank crew in Vietnam, March 1971. Note the track links used as extra armor, the non-standard twin .50 caliber machine guns mounted at the commander’s hatch, and the beach umbrella

Bovington Tank Museum’s visiting Leopard C2, complete with Jolly Roger and umbrella