Barracks and Battalions

A recent announcement by the Ministry of Defence has indicated that nine sites in Scotland used by the Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Defence Equipment & Support and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation are to be disposed of over the next few years as part of a nationwide reduction of fifty six MoD bases. In some cases the announcement was expected as earlier strategic reviews had already proposed the closure of some of these properties as being surplus to requirements and no longer fit for purpose for 21st Century armed forces. Fort George is Georgian, Glencorse Barracks is Victorian and Redford Barracks is Edwardian.

Forthside and Meadowforth sites in Stirling

The closure programme in Scotland starts with Craigiehall on the outskirts of Edinburgh in 2018. Perhaps it will return to its old role of being a hotel? Redford follows a few years later but it is only the old Edwardian infantry and cavalry barracks which will go; the more modern Reserves site next door which hosts several regular and reserve units - from the Army, Navy and Air Force - will remain.

Recent strategic reviews and reductions of our armed forces have left a large MoD estate with not enough units to fill them. This has happened many times in the past. The Royal Navy no longer has a presence at places like Invergordon, Port Edgar or The Royal Elizabeth Yard. When the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers are built and leave Rosyth for Portsmouth their crews go with them and MoD Caledonia will move to Edinburgh. Over the past fifty years barracks have been sold off and redeveloped in Inverness, Perth, Aberdeen, Ayr, Glasgow and Hamilton as the Army has shrunk. That’s not even taking into consideration all the drill halls across the country which have disappeared as the TA became the TAVR and then Army Reserves. Two RAF air bases in Scotland have recently been converted to army barracks when their aircraft departed - Kinloss and Leuchars, although some non-flying RAF units remain on the bases as lodger units alongside the army. Former RAF bases in Scotland now host museums, racetracks, car boot sales and annual music festivals.

There are currently four infantry barracks in Scotland – Fort George dominates the Moray Firth and the other three are all part of the Edinburgh Garrison - Redford, Glencorse, and Dreghorn. This announcement leaves only Dreghorn by 2032. So the question is not so much what happens to the buildings and land but what happens to the units occupying them?

Fort George

The Royal Regiment of Scotland has already been reduced from five regular battalions to four in the ten years it has been in existence. The 5th Battalion now only exists as Balaklava Company a public duties incremental company. Will the next sixteen years see a further reduction and a loss of the 4th Battalion and even the 3rd? The Royal Scots Borderers are in Northern Ireland and the Highlanders are in England. 3rd Bn The Rifles currently occupy Dreghorn but will the next few years see a reshuffle and disbandments of these battalions? The big battalion regiments in England have been repeatedly reduced and amalgamated. Why should the Royal Regiment of Scotland not suffer a similar fate over the next sixteen years?

It should be remembered that only five years ago Dreghorn was also to go along with Redford and Glencorse and a super-barracks was to be built at Kirknewton airfield. That plan was scrapped two years later under a further review when the army left Germany. Dreghorn has been reprieved this time round and is unlikely to be disposed of any time soon. Who is to say that in five, ten or fifteen years time another strategic review will see a requirement for units to continue to be based in Glencorse or Fort George? With continued fighting in the Middle East, a new occupant in the White House - and an old-school one in the Kremlin - who knows what future defence reviews will bring?

On a less contentious note, something else which is of particular interest to us in the Scottish Military Research Group is the war memorials currently in the barracks. Fort George is currently shared with Historic Environment Scotland and no doubt they will take ownership from the MoD when the army eventually moves out. We’ve sixteen years to find out what the Scottish Government will do with the site but it’s likely the Seaforth Highlanders’ memorials will remain. But what happens to the regimental memorials at Glencorse and Redford? Based on previous barrack sales, these estates will probably be redeveloped into housing and it is unlikely the memorials will remain. Perhaps they will relocate to Dreghorn or the Castle. We’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on what happens to them.

These are the sites being disposed of and what is happening to the current occupants:

(Click on the table to make it larger)

The Victors of Jutland return to base - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1916

It may not have been clear to them at the time but the Royal Navy ships which limped back to their home ports in Scotland on this day ninety five years ago had just won the greatest naval battle of the First World War. The Germans may have inflicted more damage at Jutland but they were the ones who ran away. The Royal Navy ruled the waves once again.

It had been a terrible day for the Royal Navy. They had lost fourteen ships and thousands of men were killed and wounded. When they returned to port the injured men were taken to naval hospitals and the dead were buried.

The Battlecruiser squadrons from Rosyth shipped their casualties to the pier at Port Edgar in South Queensferry and then were taken the short distance to Butlaw Naval Hospital (The Queen Mary and Princess Christian Emergency Naval Hospital). The dead were buried in South Queensferry's Dalmeny and South Queensferry Cemetery.

Others lost in the battle were buried at Cromarty Cemetery on the Black Isle and Lyness Naval Cemetery at Hoy in Orkney.

Two of the ships erected crosses over the mass graves of the sailors who had died. HMS Barham and HMS Malaya at Hoy.

The Fleets leave the Firths - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1916

Exactly ninety five years ago, one hundred and fifty one Royal Navy warships slipped their Scottish moorings and sailed into the North Sea night to face the German High Seas Fleet.

The Admiralty had broken the German Navy codes so they knew the Kaiser's warships were leaving their bases and could be heading north to reach the Atlantic, or east to go into the Baltic. The British would head for the seas off Norway and Denmark to cover both approaches.

The 1st and 4th Battlecruiser Squadrons, and the 5th Battle Squadron left the Firth of Forth from Rosyth; the 2nd Battle Squadron left the Cromarty Firth from Invergordon; and the 1st and 4th Battle Squadrons of the Grand Fleet, and the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron left the Pentland Firth from Scapa Flow.

Whether they knew it or not Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty were about to face their opposite numbers - His Imperial German Majesty's admirals Scheer and Hipper, in the greatest naval battle of the First World War.

The two biggest naval powers of the time were about to meet in a showdown between 250 warships which would potentially change the course of the war. Whoever won the battle would control the sea lanes. If Germany won Britain's blockade of Germany would be broken and island Britain would be blockaded in return.

Scotland hears of the loss of the Hood - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1941

A nation was stunned seventy years ago today when news filtered through that HMS 'Hood' had been sunk by the 'Bismarck'. The pride of the Royal Navy had been completely outclassed by the German warship, and was sunk on 24th May 1941 with the loss of nearly all hands. Only three sailors survived out of a compliment of 1,418

The Clydebuilt battlecruiser 'Hood' had been ordered by the Navy in 1916 after losing three battleships at Jutland. She was launched from John Brown's shipyard in August 1918 and fitting out was done at Rosyth. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in May 1920 and from the start she was seen as something special. She was the only one of her class built, so there was no other warship like her. Memories of people who saw her, and served on her, talked of a powerful yet beautiful ship. The Scotsman from seventy years ago today reported her loss and recorded that she was 'The largest warship afloat by tonnage'.

John Brown's large scale model of her still exists and you can get an idea of what she looked like from that. (The model used to sit in the Transport Museum in Glasgow and I hope it is in the new museum at the Riverside when it opens)

During the 1920s and 1930s the Hood travelled all over the world flying the flag so she was well known throughout the Empire where her size and armament earned her the nickname 'Mighty Hood'. In 1935 she had sailed round Scotland and into Loch Eriboll on the North Coast. Whilst anchored there a party of sailors went ashore and on the hillside at Laid set out white painted stones in 6 foot high letters spelling 'Hood'.

In those happy times just before the Second World War no-one expected that she would be lost in so violent a manner and that the white painted stones in the remote Highlands would be one of the few mementos of her service and connection to Scotland.

In recent years children from the local primary school at Durness in Sutherland have kept alive the memory of the 'Hood' by repainting the stones and those of other Royal Navy ships which have followed her in laying out stones in the name of their ship.

The latest ship to do it was the Type 23 Frigate HMS 'Sutherland'. Although a Duke Class frigate, so named after the Duke of Sutherland, the people of the County of Sutherland have adopted her, and men from the 'Sutherland' have visited Loch Eriboll a couple of times to help repaint all the stones at Laid.