Sapper v Pioneer

[Jon Shattock]

Please can someone explain the difference between the rank sapper and the rank pioneer. I had thought they were used in different RE units for the lowest rank. For instance tunnelling companies tended to have sappers whilst special companies had pioneers. But now I've noticed that, for instance, signal companies appear to have both. Were sappers skilled workers whils pioneers labourers, or what.

Jon

[Captain Dave]

Generaly speaking a Sapper was a trained man (ie carpenter etc) and a Pioneer was not. Your comparison of sappers being skilled workers whilst pioneers were labourers, is pretty accurate.

With the British Army Order of 1914, many infantry battalions were converted to Pioneer Battalions, these Bns held a high proportion of pick and shovel men that had been recruited from working class areas.

[Old Tom]

Hello,

To add a little to Captain Dave's remarks. Sapper is the name given to the lowest rank in the Royal Engineers equivalent to private, gunner, trooper etc. It's origins lie with siege warfare and the digging of saps, that's to say trenches arranged to let the besieging forces get closer to the fortification. Pioneer was, I think, not a rank but rather a description of soldiers employed as manual workers. In WW2 and for some years later there was a Royal Pioneer Corps, once again workers without particular skills. Sapper is an ancient term. It may be of interest to add that the French refer to their firemen/firefighters as 'Sappeur Pompier'

Old Tom

[Barry Hayter]

FYI I have examples of Pioneers supporting attacks or engaging the enemy directly with arms i.e. although mainly labour related they did fight too.

It may be that roles changed over the years, Sapper as you probably know comes from the French Sappe which was an ancient technique to undermine \ dig beneath enemy fortifications. I don't know if with the growth in RE activities the name just stuck and didn't truely reflec their work come the Great War?

[joseph]

Hi,

I’m not too sure what the difference was between a Pioneer and a Sapper but I do know a Pioneer was paid 2d a day more than a standard Private, quite a substantial pay rise?

Regards Charles

[pietro]

My Grandfather was a Sapper in the RIR and I always wondered what he did - he was a carpenter by trade.

[squirrel]

Currently, Royal Engineer soldiers are called Pioneer during training and Sapper when they have completed their training and qualified for their trade.

[Hoplophile]

The distinction between 'sappers' and 'pioneers' is complicated by the three separate uses of the word 'pioneer' in the British Army of World War I.

Prior to the outbreak of the war, each infantry battalion had a small pioneer section. Consisting of a sergeant and a dozen or so men, this section spent most of its time doing relatively simple engineering work. In barracks, this seems to have been mostly a matter of maintaining the buildings, grounds and furniture. In the field, the pioneers built and removed obstacles, built small bridges and other aids to movement and did any sort of woodwork needed to improve a camp. While many of these men had some background in the building trades, they do not seem to have been not specially enlisted as tradesmen. (Indeed, a qualified tradesman would have done much better, in terms of pay, length of enlistment and terms of service, to join the RE as a a sapper.) Rather, they were appointed to the pioneer section from their companies in much the same way as members of the machinegun section or the scout section.

The pioneers of the pioneer section of an infantry battalion wore a special badge.

On the eve of the war, the Royal Engineers found itself faced with a shortage of recruits who could pass the trades test required of a sapper. They therefore created, on an experimental basis, the rank of 'pioneer'. This rank would to allow young men with the right sort of talent to train for jobs (such as wireless operator) that had no well-established counterpart in civilian life. Once they qualified, these 'pioneers' would be promoted to the rank of 'sapper'. As most of the jobs that lacked civilian counterparts were in signals units, signals units were chosen as the test bed for the new rank.

As might be expected from their status as 'apprentices', the pioneers of the Royal Engineers were paid less than sappers.

Once the war broke out, Kitchener decided to import the Indian Army institution of the pioneer battalion into the British Army. The idea was to give each division a thirteenth infantry battalion that, in addition to being organised and trained as an infantry unit, could also do simple engineering tasks under fire. To that end, care was taken (or, at the very least, instructions were issued) to ensure that only men who had experience with heavy manual labour (pick-and-shovel men, miners, quarrymen, construction workers) were assigned to these units.

As has been noted before, the men of pioneer battalions (who were styled as 'privates') got 2d a day in extra pay.

By the way, pioneer battalions were, like all other infantry battalions, provided with pioneer sections.

Also, the men of labour units of the Royal Engineers were not styled as 'pioneers'. Rather, they bore the rank of 'private'.

[Pete1052]

The British Army would have been better off if they had put all the construction guys in the same units, without the distinction between "skilled" and "unskilled." That would have given the unskilled guys better chances at upward mobility in rank and status. I'm thinking of the WW II U.S. Navy Construction Battalions, the "SeaBees," who did just that. One of them who I knew as a kid was at Guadalcanal. When his uniform wore out and was rotted away, he put on Marine Corps utilities. After his unit was pulled out of Guadalcanal and his unit had a formation aboard a ship, a naval officer asked, "What is that thing in the back rank?" The discussion went back and forth--"You're a Marine." "No sir, I'm not, I'm a SeaBee," etc. The man was a SeaBee and eventually was issued a naval uniform.

(The man, who had a 10th grade education, died recently as a millionaire.)

[Dan Brock]

As a former Seabee (Urinal Technician Third Class) I'd like to add that by the time of my service (1972-1976) we all wore USMC "greens" - with perks such as short sleeves and pants depending on command and climate.

Also, in the Army National Guard, the shovel and axe combo attached to every vehicle were called the "Pioneer Tools".

[jhill]

As has been alluded to, the organisation of the 'pick and shovel' people changed throughout the war. The Engineering Field Companies of each Division were responsible for supervision of construction, but other units such as the Pioneer or other Infantry Battalions had to provide the labour to get the work done. There were other units from time to time, such as the Entrenching Battalions. There were also Labour Battalions, but they were composed of class "B" men and could not work efficiently in the front areas.

By the end of the war, things had changed. The Canadian Corps was perhaps first off the mark. In May of 1918 the Engineers of each Division were reorganized into three Engineer Battalions. These were made up of the men of the existing Field Companies, Pioneer Battalions, and Tunneling Companies. The justification for this change was basically that in the open warfare then developing, the main task of the Engineers was to push communications forward. Working parties from infantry and other units were said to be able to do only a quarter the work of dedicated units of similar size.

Of course, one reason why the Canadians could go first was that they had early on abolished special pay. Pioneers just became sappers with the same pay and benefits.

Or so it seems to me.

[BatterySergeantMajor]

The distinction between 'sappers' and 'pioneers' is complicated by the three separate uses of the word 'pioneer' in the British Army of World War I.

Prior to the outbreak of the war, each infantry battalion had a small pioneer section. Consisting of a sergeant and a dozen or so men, this section spent most of its time doing relatively simple engineering work. In barracks, this seems to have been mostly a matter of maintaining the buildings, grounds and furniture. In the field, the pioneers built and removed obstacles, built small bridges and other aids to movement and did any sort of woodwork needed to improve a camp. While many of these men had some background in the building trades, they do not seem to have been not specially enlisted as tradesmen. (Indeed, a qualified tradesman would have done much better, in terms of pay, length of enlistment and terms of service, to join the RE as a a sapper.) Rather, they were appointed to the pioneer section from their companies in much the same way as members of the machinegun section or the scout section.

When did these pioneer sections in the battalions cease to exist?

Erwin

[Hoplophile]

Many of the war establishments in effect for infantry battalions during World War II called for the creation of pioneer elements. One can find lots of examples on this site.

http://niehorster.orbat.com/017_britain/39...iv_inf_inf.html