REME Destination
Phil Loder travels to Wiltshire to explore the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Museum
“ The REME keep the punch in the Army’s fist,” stated Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, recognising early on the importance of the corps’ responsibility for maintaining and repairing the Army’s equipment. The scope and reach of that responsibility have expanded over the 80 years since its formation, but REME’s (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) purpose remains the same.
The origins of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers can be found in the early stages of World War Two. The Army needed tradesmen with mechanical and electrical skills to maintain and repair the growing volume of increasingly complex equipment being brought into use, but these men were distributed across the Royal Engineers, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC).
In addition, a government report published in 1941 recommended that existing skills held by recruits should be identified and used when they joined the forces, rather than expertise often being ignored during the allocation of personnel. In 1942, a second report stated: “Until the Army gives to mechanical …
