A FIELD COMPANY, AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS.
A Field Company, Australian Engineers, is almost exactly the same as the corresponding unit of the Royal Engineers. There are three Field Companies to a Division, grouped under the command of the C.R.E. (Commanding Royal Engineers), who accompanies Divisional Headquarters.
Each Field Company is normally commanded by a Major, with a Captain as Second in Command, and includes 5 Subalterns, 9 Warrant Officers and Sergeants, 14 Corporals and Second Corporals, 46 mounted rank and file (mostly drivers), and 139 sappers. As this last total has to supply all unit details, such as cooks, etc., it will be seen that the “man power” of a Field Company is comparatively small even when at full strength. There are 75 horses (some of which may be replaced by mules) on the establishment, and also 29 bicycles.
The unit is organised into a Headquarters and 4 equal sections. Each section, commanded by a subaltern, has a special double tool cart (4 horses), containing a large assortment of engineer tools and stores of all kinds, a G.S. limbered wagon (two horses), and a pack animal. A considerable quantity of explosives is carried by each section, also a lift and force pump and hose.
Company Headquarters has a G.S. wagon for technical stores (four horses), a water cart (two horses), a mess cart (one horse), and three bridging wagons (six horses each). Two of these carry a pontoon each, together with superstructure, and the third carries two Weldon trestles and superstructure. Altogether enough material is carried for five spans of 15 feet each of bridge to carry Field Artillery.
Sappers are armed with rifle and bayonets, drivers with rifle only. Towards the end of the war each Company was issued with five Lewis guns.
Printed by Meggy, Thompson, & Creasey,
98 High Street, Chelmsford.
Transcriber Note:
Except as noted below, dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged. Inconsistent hyphenation was not changed. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
The following were changed:
— Removed duplicate ‘of’ from ‘… little village of Recquebrœucq …’
— In Appendix IX, Other Ranks: changed ‘Waymf W.’ to ‘Way, F.W.’; and ‘T’ransf’d’ to ‘Transf’d’;
— The tables in Appendix IX. were split in parts so that the data would display more readily on handheld devices.