Cap badge of the Army Service Corps, c1901.
NAM. 2001-07-888Introduction
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was the unit responsible for keeping the British Army supplied with all its provisions barring weaponry, military equipment and ammunition, which were under the remit of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
Army transport in the British Army’s first century was provided by civil contractors and the first uniformed unit to attempt these duties was the Royal Waggoners. The attempt proved unsuccessful and the Waggoners was disbanded in 1795, less than a year after its formation.
With the French Revolutionary Wars continuing, a second attempt was not long in coming, arriving in 1799 with the Royal Waggon Corps, later renamed the Royal Waggon Train. This proved longer lived, being downsized after the end of the Napoleonic Wars but only fully disbanded in 1833.
It took the poor supply chains of the early stages of the Crimean War (1854-56), and the ensuing public outrage, for another army supply unit to be set up in 1855, this time known as the Land Transport Corps then the Military Train.
Army supply overall, however, was still in the hands of a unit of uniformed civilians known as the Commissariat, which was in 1869 merged with the Military Train’s officers to form the Control Department. This made the Military Train a unit solely made up of other ranks commanded by officers from the Control Department and in 1870 the Military Train was renamed the Army Service Corps.
Army Service Corps supply convoy, Western Front, c1915.
NAM. 2007-03-7-161In 1875 the Control Department split into the Commissariat and Transport Department (CTD) and the Ordnance Store Department (OSD), with the latter forming the predecessor to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. In 1880 the CTD was renamed the Commissariat and Transport Staff (CTS) and the other ranks’ Army Service Corps renamed the Commissariat and Transport Corps (CTC).
In 1888, the CTS, the CTC and the War Department Fleet merged to form a second Army Service Corps, bringing officers and other ranks back together into one unit. That unit went on to absorb some of the Royal Engineers’ transport duties and to be given the honour of the ‘Royal’ prefix in recognition of its major work in supplying troops during the First World War.
In 1965, the RASC was merged with the Transportation and Movement Control Service of the Royal Engineers to form the Royal Corps of Transport. In 1993 it became part of the Royal Logistic Corps.
Key facts
Motto:
- 'In Arduis Fidelis' (meaning 'Faithful in Adversity')
Nicknames:
- The Moke Train
- The Commos
Titles to date:
- Royal Waggoners
- Royal Waggon Corps
- Royal Waggon Train
- Land Transport Corps
- Military Train
- Army Service Corps
- Commissariat and Transport Corps
- Army Service Corps
- Royal Army Service Corps
- Royal Corps of Transport
- Royal Logistic Corps
Find out more
Regimental Museum
Regimental Merchandise
National Army Museum Collection
3 April 2012, 3.11pm
THE NAMES OF RASC COMPANYS IN
THE NAMES OF RASC COMPANYS IN BERLIN 1948 50 CANT REMEMBER MINE I KNOW IT WAS STATIONED IN AN EX LUFTWAFFE BARRACKS
30 April 2012, 3.57pm
my dad was a driver in the r
my dad was a driver in the r a s c from 1944 till 1946 and was in the middle east from 1941 till 1942
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