Royal Australian Regiment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Royal Australian Regiment
Cap badge of the Royal Australian Regiment
Active	23 November 1948-
Country	Australia
Branch	Army
Type	Line Infantry
Role	Mechanised Infantry (one battalion) Light Role Infantry (three battalions) Paratroop (one battalion) Commando (one battalion)
Size	Six battalions
Part of	Royal Australian Infantry Corps
Garrison/HQ	1st Battalion - Townsville 2nd Battalion - Townsville 3rd Battalion - Holsworthy 4th Battalion - Holsworthy 5th/7th Battalion - Palmerston 6th Battalion - Enoggera
Nickname	1st Battalion - The Big Blue One 2nd Battalion - Men in Black 3rd Battalion - Old Faithful 4th Battalion - The Fighting Fourth 5th/7th Battalion - The Tigers
Motto	Duty First
Colors	3rd Battalion and 6th Battalion entitled to wear US PUC streamer on Regimental Colour; 1st Battalion entitled to US MUC streamer on Regimental Colour
March	Quick - El Alamein (Band); Black Bear (Pipes and Drums) Slow - Infantry Song
Mascot	1st Battalion - Shetland Pony "Septimus" 5/7 Battalion: Sumatran Tiger named Quintus Secundus
Commanders
Colonel in Chief	HM The Queen (Royal Australian Infantry Corps)
Colonel Commandant	Major General Jim Connolly, AO, CSC
Notable commanders	Robert Nimmo (first commander)
Insignia
Unit Colour Patches
Tartan	Australian (2nd Bn & 5th/7th Bn pipes and drums) Royal Stewart (3rd Bn pipes and drums)

The Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) is the main regular infantry formation in the Australian Army.

1 Organisation
2 History
3 Battle honours
4 Unit decorations from the United States
5 Music
6 Alliances
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Organisation

The regiment currently consists of six separate battalions:

1st Battalion (1 RAR) - Light Infantry
2nd Battalion (2 RAR) - Light Infantry
3rd Battalion (Parachute) (3 RAR [Para]) - Parachute Infantry
4th Battalion (Commando) (4 RAR [Cdo]) - Commando
5th/7th Battalion (Mechanised) (5/7 RAR [Mech]) - Mechanised Infantry
6th Battalion (6 RAR) - Light Infantry

The Royal Australian Regiment is capable of providing five battlegroups for deployment. 1 Brigade can deploy two battlegroups, one of which comes from the RAR mechanised battalion, while the other is from the 1st Armoured Regiment.

At present (2005) there is a major re-organisation of the Australian Army in progress. The army wishes to operate six battalion groups within three brigades (one light, one motorised and one mechanised). Initially, it was planned that one of the existing battalions would convert to a mechanised infantry formation. The 4th Battalion, being a specialist commando unit, would have been left as it was. In December 2005, it was announced that the 3rd Battalion will convert from its current parachute role to a mechanised battalion, and that it would move from Sydney to Adelaide by 2011. However, in August 2006, a further announcement was made that two new infantry battalions would be formed. The 5th/7th Battalion will be deamalgamated into two separate battalions by 2008. The 5th Battalion will remain at Darwin, while the 7th Battalion will then be deployed to Adelaide, with both remaining in the mechanised role. The 3rd Battalion will convert to an ordinary light infantry battalion and relocate to Townsville. At the same time, it was announced that the 8th/9th Battalion would be reformed, likely to be in the motorised role.

[edit] History

[edit] Formation of the Royal Australian Regiment

The Royal Australian Regiment had its origins in the 65th, 66th and 67th battalions which were raised in late 1945 from soldiers in other units of the Second Australian Imperial Force as part of the Australian contribution to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan (these three battalions consituted the infantry component of the Australian 34th Brigade). In 1947, it was decided that these battalions would be the Australian Army's first ever standing, regular infantry units (see History of the Australian Army). The 65th, 66th and 67th battalions were regimented to form the Australian Regiment on 23 November 1948 and were re-designated the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Australian Regiment respectively. The "Royal" prefix was granted on 3 October 1949.

[edit] Overseas deployments

The regiment has served in several major conflicts. In 1951, during the Korean War, 3 RAR, with the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and supporting UN forces, defeated a whole division from the Chinese army, at the Battle of Kapyong. In 1966, during the Vietnam War, two platoons from D Company 6 RAR, with support from other Australian, New Zealand and US forces, defeated a battalion-sized Viet Cong force, at the Battle of Long Tan.

In 1988, during the Australian bicentennial celebrations, a detachment from 1 RAR mounted the guard at Buckingham Palace in London, the first Australian unit to do so since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1993, 1 RAR served with distinction in the Baidoa district of Somalia and had several firefights with armed groups.

The Regiment provided almost all of the Australian combat units deployed to East Timor between 1999 and 2004. All the current battalions in the Regiment served at least one 6-month rotation to East Timor where they were responsible for securing the East Timorese-Indonesian border.

While the Royal Australian Regiment's only representation in the Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a single commando platoon from 4 RAR, rifle companies from most of the Regiment's current battalions have been deployed to Baghdad to provide security for the Australian embassy. More significantly, a company from 5/7 RAR forms part of the Al Muthanna Task Group, with the second rotation of the Task Group being commanded by the headquarters of 5/7 RAR and the third rotation of the Task Group being commanded by 2 RAR.

Elements of 4 RAR were deployed to Afghanistan in 2005 as part of the Australian Special Forces Task Group.

In 2006 the 3 RAR Battlegroup and a company from 4 RAR were deployed to Timor Leste as part of Operation Astute. The role of this force is to restore order to the Timorese capital of Dili. Earlier in 2006 two rifle companies, one each from 1 RAR and 3 RAR, were deployed to the Solomon Islands on similar duties.

[edit] Former Battalions

2nd/4th Battalion (1973-1995)
5th Battalion (1965-1973)
7th Battalion (1965-1973)
8th Battalion (1966-1973)
9th Battalion (1967-1973)
8th/9th Battalion (1973-1997)

[edit] Battle honours

Sariwon, Yongyu, Chongju, Pakchon, Uijongbu, Chuan-Ni, Maehwa-San, Kapyong, Kowang-San, The Samichon, Korea 1950-53
Long Tan, Bien Hoa, Coral-Balmoral, Hat Dich, Binh Ba, Vietnam 1965-72

[edit] Unit decorations from the United States

1 RAR, 3 RAR and 6 RAR have all been awarded US military decorations for service alongside US troops; 1 RAR received the Meritorious Unit Commendation for its service in Vietnam, while 3 RAR received the Distinguished Unit Citation following the Battle of Kapyong during the Korean War (an honour it shares with the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry). D Company 6 RAR also received the Distinguished Unit Citation, this time in Vietnam at the Battle of Long Tan; although the respective battle honours are borne by the whole regiment, the three citations awarded by the United States are held solely by the battalions that received them, and are displayed as streamers on the respective regimental colours of those battalions.

[edit] Music

The Royal Australian Regiment has a wide variety of regimental music. In addition to regimental quick and slow marches, each battalion has its own set of marches:

Royal Australian Regiment - Quick: El Alamein (Band); Black Bear (Pipes and Drums); Slow: Infantry Song
1st Battalion - Waltzing Matilda
2nd Battalion - Ringo (Band); Back in Black (Pipes and Drums)
3rd Battalion - Our Director (Band); Heilan Laddie (Pipes and Drums)
4th Battalion - Inverbrackie
5th/7th Battalion - Dominaise (Band); Cock o' the North (Pipes and Drums)
6th Battalion - Spirit of Youth (Band); The Crusaders (Pipes and Drums)