The Tank Museum is the Corps Museum for the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC). It was relocated to its present site in 1947 when the Armoured Fighting Vehicle School in Bovington, was redesignated the Royal Armoured Corps Centre, now the Combat Manoeuvre Centre for the British Army. The RAC’s distinctive red/yellow colours featuring a Mailed Gauntlet can be seen flying daily from the Museum’s flagpole.
Formation of the RAC
The Royal Armoured Corps was officially established on Tuesday 4 April 1939. It originally comprised of 18 regular Cavalry regiments, and the 8 Regular and 7 Territorial Army battalions of the ‘amalgamated’ Royal Tank Corps.
Wartime expansion during WWII saw the Corps expanded further to 96 regiments including the Militia and Armoured Yeomanry, as well as converted infantry battalions. In 1944 the further 27 regiments of the Recce Corps regiments were added.
Currently the Royal Armoured Corps consists of 10 Regular and 4 Reserve regiments. Along with the infantry, they are the fighting arm which is expected to close with and destroy the enemy through close combat.
Origins in the Second World War
The RAC’s illustrious history starts in the Second World War, when units from the RAC were deployed in all theatres that British forces were engaged in.
From action against the German Blitzkrieg and retreat to the Channel ports in 1940, to the see-sawing battles against Italian and German forces in the hot, dusty deserts of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
1943 saw landings in Sicily and the Italian mainland, with RAC units fighting their way up all the way into Austria by May 1945. The D-Day landings in Normandy, saw the RAC battle through the bocage and fields and liberate joyous populations through France, Belgium and Holland before grinding their way across the Rhine and into Germany as part of 21st Army Group. The RAC also saw action in Burma in 1942 and was instrumental in supporting 14th Army’s defeat of the Japanese in 1944-45.
1945 to the Present Day
The Post-War period witnessed a reduction in the size of RAC to a peacetime regular component of 20 Cavalry units and 8 RTR.
Since the Second World War, this regular component has been engaged in the wars in Korea, Suez, the Gulf, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and latterly Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as being stationed in Hong Kong and in German as part of the British Army of the Rhine. They also had peacekeeping roles in Sumatra, India, Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus and Aden.
As well as providing recruit training for the Driver & Maintenance and Gunnery & Signals schools, the RAC base at Bovington has been home since 1952 to the Boys Squadron RAC, and the Junior Leaders Regiment RAC since 1958. Both these fondly remembered training establishments offered sixteen and seventeen-year-old boys an RAC specific initiation into the technical training doctrines of the Corps training 700 to 850 boys at any one time.
Since 2016 female soldiers have been allowed to serve in combat roles within the RAC.
RAC Memorials
The re-development of The Tank Museum in 2009 saw the addition of the Household Cavalry and RAC Memorial for those who have died on operations since 1945.
In 2023 the RAC Benevolent Fund was re-opened with an updated design to honour those who were killed during WWII.
Just a short drive up the hill from the Museum is The RAC Memorial Hall. Erected in 1968 this includes a Peter Barker-Mill sculpture with the abstract number ‘283’ which represents the number of RAC badged servicemen who were killed in WWII.
The Tank Museum is the regimental museum of the Royal Tank Regiment and the corps museum of the Royal Armoured Corps. Our purpose is to tell the story of tanks and the crews who served in them. Find out more about the history of the Royal Tank Regiment here.
