Royal Engineers
Military force unitWikipedia
99
MENTIONS
45
EPISODES
40
PODCASTS
Search complete. 99 mentions across 45 episodes found for "Royal Engineers".
Oct 30, 2026
Danita GohilNARRATOR
Dooley, a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard and a soft Devon accent, grew up in the military.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
His father was in the Royal Engineers, doing bomb disposal.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
In recent years, he had acquired the nickname the Doom Watch, because every time he was on duty, the phone didn't stop ringing.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
His record was 11 call-outs in a single week.
7 MINS LATER
Danita GohilNARRATOR
Britain wasn't ready for the Blitz, and the early assumption was that police or air raid wardens could simply deal with any bomb that failed to go off.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
But as delayed-action mechanical fuses, those ticking time bombs, became more common, it was clear that targeted intervention was needed.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
As the historian James Owen details in his 2010 book Danger UXB, in May 1940, the War Office handed the problem to the Royal Engineers, who formed 25 bomb disposal sections armed with little more than picks, shovels and stethoscopes.
Danita GohilNARRATOR
By September 1940, they were dealing with more than 3,000 bombs a month.
Al MurrayHOST
So welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland for a two part series that we are calling Hurrah for the CRE.
Al MurrayHOST
CRE meaning Corps of Royal Engineers, of course, just in case.
Al MurrayHOST
Of course, everyone knows that now.
Al MurrayHOST
But also Commander Royal Engineers, because that's what we're going to be looking at here.
Al MurrayHOST
As you know, if you're a regular listener, if you're not a regular listener, if you're new, we have on this podcast talked about Operation Market Garden rather a lot.
Al MurrayHOST
And that's my fault.
Al MurrayHOST
these soldiers about, and I'm in particular talking about the armoured soldiers, without a massive engineering effort.
Al MurrayHOST
In this episode, we have two episodes here about the sappering involved in really in the armoured thrust side of Market Garden.
Peter HartHOST
4th Gordon Island, this fine body of men, Gary.
Gary BainHOST
What does he say? Just after dark, the commanding officer came round with a youngest-looking officer, whom I took to be a royal engineer.
Gary BainHOST
He began to criticise a sandbag traverse which my men had built, and which I was rather proud of, and as I was feeling fed up at the time, I suggested that the people who lived in the trenches ought to be the best judges of how to build them.
Gary BainHOST
Perhaps you're right, said he, and off he went with the CO.
12 MINS LATER
Gary BainHOST
But there's another side to Hunter Weston.
Peter HartHOST
There is, and this is what we covered before.
Peter HartHOST
He'd been a bright and heroic young sapper officer during the Boer War, Royal Engineer.
Peter HartHOST
He was described, he led commando raids, didn't he, behind the line? They weren't called commando raids, were they? No,
Joel ThomasHOST
Now, it was the highest temple of the ancient world, and it was sitting at a little over 9,000 feet above sea level.
Joel ThomasHOST
Now, Sir Charles Warren And he was a British Army officer of the Royal Engineers, and he was actually one of the earliest European archaeologists of the biblical Holy Land.
Joel ThomasHOST
What's also interesting, too, he was the commissioner of the police of the metropolis in London during the Jack the Ripper murders.
Joel ThomasHOST
So he's got a whole other side quest where he was this commissioner during the Jack the Ripper murders.
speaker_8NARRATOR
Now the cover operation supporting Project Trojan was undertaken.
speaker_8NARRATOR
A battalion of the Royal Engineers was detailed to practice at secret installations with wooden mock-ups of the projector.
speaker_8NARRATOR
A lance corporal in this detachment, a volunteer afterwards awarded the George Medal, was court-martialed and sentenced to seven years hard labour for revealing information about the project while drunk on a three-day leave to Tynecastle.
speaker_8NARRATOR
This particular aspect of Project Trojan has been in the news recently, inasmuch as several backbench Labour members of Parliament have asked questions in the House as it came out that the corporal served the full seven years and wasn't released until 1951.
Timothy FergusonNARRATOR
The British Military Balloon Department was inaugurated at Chatham under Captain Templer in 1879.
Timothy FergusonNARRATOR
It was devoted essentially to the employment of captive balloons in war, and in 1880 a company of the Royal Engineers was detailed to the care of this work in the field.
Timothy FergusonNARRATOR
Six years previously, the French military department had adopted the captive balloon under Colonel Lousadotte, who was assisted, among others, by the well-known Captain Renard.
Timothy FergusonNARRATOR
Germany was somewhat later in the field.
LucyNARRATOR
Huge quantities of sandstone.
LucyNARRATOR
The man entrusted with designing the new barracks was Lieutenant Colonel George Barney of the Royal Engineers, and George Barney was not simply another military officer carrying maps beneath his arm, because he was already a man who'd spent years learning difficult lessons across the British Empire.
LucyNARRATOR
Born in England in 1792, Barney had entered military life at an extraordinarily young age and served in places including Gibraltar and the West Indies, where he witnessed something deeply important.
LucyNARRATOR
Poor soldiers die not only from battle but from poor living conditions.
Jim HaynesHOST
I talk a lot about Barney the Builder and he was truly a character.
Jim HaynesHOST
He arrived out, he was in the Royal Engineers and he was the British Empire's Mr. Fix-It.
Jim HaynesHOST
Whenever there was a problem, Jamaica, anywhere in the empire, he was sent to sort it out.
Jim HaynesHOST
He built harbours in Jamaica.
speaker_3HOST
Now I work on hybrid threats and dual-use technology in Brussels.
speaker_3HOST
And I'm Luke Irving, former Royal Engineer, humanitarian in the United Nations, 15 years working in complex environments around the world.
speaker_3HOST
Opinions and thoughts are my own.
speaker_3HOST
One civilian, one military, one question.
DanHOST
Whereas there's other roles, which I think presents an interesting leadership challenge.
DanHOST
If you go to the Royal Engineers or the RIMI, you are not an expert in whatever your soldiers are.
DanHOST
Like, do you know what I mean? So you've got to have a different, I wouldn't say style of leadership, but a different understanding of that type of world.
DanHOST
Whereas in the infantry, most of the time, you know the job that is meant to happen.
35 more episodes mention Royal Engineers.
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