22nd Dragoons
The
22nd Dragoons was a
cavalry regiment of the
British Army from
1940 to
1945. Motto - Nec Aspera Terrent.
The regiment was raised 1st December 1940 from a cadre of personnel taken from the
4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards and
5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, and was assigned to
29th Armoured Brigade of
11th Armoured Division. It was later reassigned to
30th Armoured Brigade of the same division as aprt of a swap owing to the regimental loyalties of the Brigadiers commanding; this brigade was then transferred to the
42nd Armoured Division in 1942, and to
79th Armoured Division in 1943.
All three regiments of the 30th Armoured Brigade were re-equipped with
flail tanks, modified
M4 Sherman tanks with a large jib covered in chains attached to the front, intended for clearing a path through minefields at a top speed of one and a half miles per hour whilst flogging a path. Tanks thus equipped were often split up and used in large troop or squadron formations in support of organised set piece attacks rather than as organised formations.
As such, the regiment came ashore in the first wave of the
Operation Overlord landings on the morning of
June 6 1944, with A Squadron, reinforced by 2 troops of C Squadron and supported by two troops of the
Westminster Dragoons, landing on Sword Beach and B Squadron landing on Juno Beach. Later in the day the final two troops of C Squadron landed on Juno where they remained for several days on beach clearance. The regiment continued to see action sporadically once the beaches were cleared, fighting through Belgium and the Netherlands into Germany, where they were at the end of the war; the regiment was disbanded in Germany on 30th November 1945. The regiment was awarded the 10 maximum battle honours for operations in the North West Europe Theatre.
Useful books include
XXII Dragoons 1760-1945: The Story of a Regiment by Raymond Birt,
Achtung! Minen! by Ian Hammerton,
The Story of 79th Armoured Division by Anon.,
79th Armoured Division Hobo's Funnies by Nigel Duncan,
Vanguard of Victory - The 79th Armoured Division by David Fletcher,
British Tanks in Normandy by Ludovic Fortin.
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22nd Dragoons at regiments.org
