Indian Army Corps of Engineers
Encyclopedia
The Indian Army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

 Corps of Engineers
has a long and illustrious history dating back to the mid-18th century. The earliest existing subunit of the Corps (18 Field Company) dates back to 1777 while the Corps officially recognises its birth as 1780 when the senior most group of the Corps, the Madras Sappers were raised.

The Corps consists of three groups of combat engineers, namely the Madras Sappers, the Bengal Sappers and the Bombay Sappers. A group is roughly analogous to a regiment of Indian infantry, each group consisting of a number of engineer regiments. The engineer regiment is the basic combat engineer unit, analogous to an infantry battalion.

Besides the combat engineers, the Corps mans and operates major engineering organisations such as the Military Engineering Service (MES), the Border Roads Organisation
Border Roads Organisation
The Border Roads Organisation maintains roads that serve the borders areas of India. It is staffed with a combination of Border Roads Engineering Service officers from the General Reserve Engineer Force and officers from the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The organisation develops and...

 (BRO), the Married Accommodation Project
Married Accommodation Project
Consequent to the promise made to the Indian Armed Forces by the Government of India, the Married Accommodation Project, or MAP, was begun to construct married accommodation for the three services, with a view to remove over a period of time the complete deficiency of married accommodation for...

 and the Survey of India
Survey of India
The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying. Set up in 1767 to help consolidate the territories of the British East India Company, it is one of the oldest Engineering Departments of the Government of India...

.

History

The Corps of Engineers is one of the oldest arms of the Indian Army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

. The origin of the Corps dates back to 1780 when the two regular pioneer companies were raised in the Madras Presidency Army
Madras Army
The Madras Army was the army of the Presidency of Madras, one of the three presidencies of the British India within the British Empire.The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 transferred all three...

. Subsequently, the Group of Madras
Madras Engineer Group
Madras Engineer Group are a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The Madras Sappers draw their origin from the erstwhile Madras Presidency army of the British Raj. This regiment has its HQ in Bangalore...

, Bengal
Bengal Engineer Group
The Bengal Engineer Group or the Bengal Sappers or Bengal Engineers as they are informally known, are remnants of British Indian Army's Bengal Army of the Bengal Presidency in British India; now a regiment of the Corps of Engineers in the Indian Army. The Bengal Sappers have their regimental...

 and Bombay Sappers
Bombay Engineer Group
The Bombay Engineering Group, or the Bombay Sappers as they are informally known, are a regiment of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers. The Bombay Sappers draw their origin from the erstwhile Bombay Presidency army of the British Raj. This regiment has its centre in Khadki, Pune in...

 were formed in their respective presidencies. These Groups came together when the British Indian Army was formed after 1857 and were later merged on 18 November 1932 to form the Corps of Indian Engineers. Engineer Groups initially consisted of field companies (a sub-unit organization that exists to this day).

In every major campaign fought by the British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

, the Indian Sappers performed with distinction, made valuable contributions and were awarded many battle
Battle honour
A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags , uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible....

 and theatre honours.

Till 1911, the Sappers also had the onerous charge of passing battlefield messages. Between 1911 and 1920, they handed this burgeoning task to a batch of their own kinsmen who then formed the Corps of Signals
Indian Army Corps of Signals
Indian Army Corps of Signals is a corps and an arm of the Indian Army, which handles its military communications. It was formed on the 15 February 1911 as a separate entity under Lt Col S H Powell, and went on to make important contributions to World War I and World War II...

. The Sappers also contributed the first batch of airmen when the Indian Air Force
Indian Air Force
The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...

 was raised in 1932. From 1942-1945 officers of the Indian Railways were recruited into this Corps to participate in Britain's Burma Campaign
Burma Campaign
The Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily between British Commonwealth, Chinese and United States forces against the forces of the Empire of Japan, Thailand, and the Indian National Army. British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from...

.

Combat Engineers

In war, Combat Engineers provide mobility to own forces by constructing bridges, tracks and helipads; on the other hand the Corps denies the same to the enemy by creating obstacles such as laying mine-fields and demolition of bridges. The need for accurate survey arose before combat engineering. Vast holdings had to be carefully delineated and mapped out, to plan the correct form of commercial extraction. By 1780, serious attention began to be given to the art of sapping and mining.

Forts abound in the subcontinent, and to the forts the main defences withdrew for a protracted stand. On being invested, the siege (heavy) artillery including trench mortars or bombards went at it. The real work, not for the faint-hearted, went to the sappers who had to do the 'sapping
Sapping
Mining, landmining or undermining is a siege method which has been used since antiquity against a walled city, fortress, castle or other strongly held and fortified military position.-Antiquity:...

' or mining. Sapping is the technique of accurately digging trenches, usually covered or zigzag, to cover one's approach to the point of assault.

Military Engineering Service

The Military Engineering Services, or the MES, are responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of all works, buildings, airfields, dock installations, etc.,. together with accessory services such as military roads, water and electricity supply, drainage, refrigeration, furniture, required by the Army, Navy and Air Force in India.

The Military Engineering Services is the largest construction agency in the country. As the premier engineering arm of the Ministry of Defence, the MES primarily provides for the three arms of Defence forces, the Army, Air Force and Navy and also to other Defence related departments and organisations. It was founded in 1851 to provide rear-line-engineering support to the erstwhile British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

.

Border Roads Organisation

The Border Roads Organisation
Border Roads Organisation
The Border Roads Organisation maintains roads that serve the borders areas of India. It is staffed with a combination of Border Roads Engineering Service officers from the General Reserve Engineer Force and officers from the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The organisation develops and...

 has made its own contribution to the nation by constructing national highways, airfields, buildings and bridges. The Border Roads, by constructing a large number of roads in once inaccessible areas of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

, Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

 and North Eastern States have contributed significantly to their economic development.

Decorations

General PS Bhagat
Premindra Singh Bhagat
Lieutenant General Premindra Singh Bhagat VC, PVSM was an officer in the Indian Army during World War II and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, and the PVSM,...

 of the Corps remains the first Indian Officer to have won the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....

 in the Second World War. Another first in the same war, Subedar Subramaniam was awarded the George Cross
George Cross
The George Cross is the highest civil decoration of the United Kingdom, and also holds, or has held, that status in many of the other countries of the Commonwealth of Nations...

. Later, during Kashmir operation
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
The India-Pakistan War of 1947-48, sometimes known as the First Kashmir War, was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four wars fought between the two newly independent nations...

 soon after Independence, Major Rama Raghoba Rane
Rama Raghoba Rane
Second Lieutenant Rama Raghoba Rane, was born on 26 June 1918 at Chendia, Karwar, Karnataka, India. He comes from Konkan Kshatriya Maratha community of Karwar. His statue has been erected in Karwar. He was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers on 15 December 1947. He retired as a Major from the...

 was awarded the Param Vir Chakra
Param Vir Chakra
The Param Vir Chakra is India's highest military decoration awarded for the highest degree of valour or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy. It can be, and often has been, awarded posthumously....

 for making a passage through enemy mine fields while crawling in front of a tank. Engineer units have been deployed abroad as part of UN Missions.

The Corps of Engineers has to its credit one Param Vir Chakra
Param Vir Chakra
The Param Vir Chakra is India's highest military decoration awarded for the highest degree of valour or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy. It can be, and often has been, awarded posthumously....

, one Ashoka Chakra
Ashoka Chakra
The Ashoka Chakra is depiction of the Buddhist Dharmachakra, represented with 24 spokes. It is so called because it appears on a number of edicts of Ashoka, most prominent among which is the Lion Capital of Sarnath which has been adopted as the National Emblem of the Republic of India.The most...

, one Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...

, 38 Param Vishisht Seva Medals, two Maha Vir Chakra
Maha Vir Chakra
The Maha Vir Chakra is the second highest military decoration in India and is awarded for acts of conspicuous gallantry in the presence of the enemy, whether on land, at sea or in the air. It may be awarded posthumously. Literally Maha Veer means extraordinarily brave.-Appearance:The medal is made...

s, 13 Kirti Chakra
Kirti Chakra
The Kirti Chakra is an Indian military decoration awarded for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the field of battle. It may be awarded to civilians as well as military personnel, including posthumous awards. It is the peacetime equivalent of the Maha Vir Chakra...

s, three Padma Shri
Padma Shri
Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...

s, 88 Ati Vishisht Seva Medals, 25 Vir Chakra
Vir Chakra
Vir Chakra is an Indian gallantry award presented for acts of bravery in the battlefield. Award of the decoration carried with it the right to use Vr.C. as a postnominal abbreviation Vir Chakra is an Indian gallantry award presented for acts of bravery in the battlefield. Award of the decoration...

s, 93 Shaurya Chakra
Shaurya Chakra
The Shaurya Chakra is an Indian military decoration awarded for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice while not engaged in direct action with the enemy. It may be awarded to civilians as well as military personnel, sometimes posthumously. It is the peacetime equivalent of the Vir Chakra...

s, six Yudh Seva Medals and many other awards.

9 Engineer Regiment became one of the youngest Engineer Regiment in world history to enter the battlefield and got as many as 12 decorations including 01 Mahavir Chakra, 03 Vir Chakra, 04 Sena Medal, 04 Mention in Dispatch at the "Battle of Basantar" in 1971.
107 Engineer Regiment gained an Indian Institute of Bridging Engineers award for constructing a bridge in Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...

 in 2001.
268 Engineer Regiment was raised in 1964. As of 2009 it is based 'somewhere in the western sector'. 69 Engineer Regiment was raised in 2005. As of 2006 it is based at Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Chandigarh is a union territory of India that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name Chandigarh translates as "The Fort of Chandi". The name is from an ancient temple called Chandi Mandir, devoted to the Hindu goddess Chandi, in the city...

.

Engineer regiments that served with the Indian Peace Keeping Force
Indian Peace Keeping Force
Indian Peace Keeping Force was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990...

in Sri Lanka included the 3,4,8,16,51,53,110,115, and 270.

External links

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