145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps

145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps
Badge of the Royal Armoured Corps
Active1941–1944
DisbandedDecember 1944
Country United Kingdom
Branch British Army
TypeArmoured Regiment
RoleInfantry Support
Part ofRoyal Armoured Corps

The 145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (8th Duke of Wellington's Regiment) (145 RAC) was an armoured regiment of the British Army's Royal Armoured Corps that served in North Africa, Tunisia and Italy during World War II.

The Duke of Wellington's Regiment's two junior battalions, the 8th Battalion (8 DWR) and the 9th Battalion (9 DWR) were both simultaneously converted into armoured regiments, becoming respectively 145 RAC and 146 RAC.

Origin

145th Regiment RAC was formed in November 1941 by the conversion to the armoured role of 8th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment, which had been raised in 1940 and was serving in the 203rd Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), a Home Defence formation serving in South West England. In common with other infantry units transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps, all personnel continued to wear their Duke of Wellington's cap badge on the black beret of the Royal Armoured Corps.[1][2][3]

Service

145 RAC was assigned to 21st Army Tank Brigade, which sailed for North Africa in March 1943, and took part in the Tunisia Campaign, including the actions on the Medjez Plain in April and around Tunis in May, its Churchill tanks operating as part of a 'mixed division' with 4th Infantry Division.[4]

After a year out of the line in North Africa, 21st Tank Brigade was sent to join British Eighth Army in Italy in May 1944. There it took part in I Canadian Corps' operations to force the Gothic Line (August–September), the Rimini Line (September) and the Lamone Crossing (December). 145 RAC was disbanded in Italy in December 1944.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ Joslen 2003, p. 306.
  2. ^ Forty 1998, pp. 50–1.
  3. ^ Melville-Brown 2005.
  4. ^ Joslen 2003, pp. 36, 200.
  5. ^ Joslen 2003, p. 200.

References

  • Forty, George (1998), British Army Handbook 1939-1945, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-1403-3.
  • Joslen, Lt-Col H.F. (2003), 'Orders of Battle, United Kingdom and Colonial Formations and Units in the Second World War, 1939–1945, London: HM Stationery Office, 1960/Uckfield: Naval & Military, ISBN 1843424746.
  • Melville-Brown, A. (15 December 2005) [15 July 2000], The Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding), archived from the original on 3 January 2006, retrieved 22 August 2016