Sapper

A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses, and road and airfield construction and repair. Sappers are also trained and equipped to serve secondarily as provisional infantry. Sappers facilitate and support the movement, defense, and survival of superordinate and allied forces, and impede those of enemies. The term "sapper" is used in the British Army and Commonwealth nations, the U.S. military, and the militaries of other countries.

Historical origin

Sapper

A sapper, in the sense first used by the French military, was one who dug trenches to allow besieging forces to advance towards the enemy defensive works and forts over ground that is under the defenders' musket or artillery fire. It comes from the French word sapeur, itself being derived from the verb saper (to undermine, to dig under a wall or building to cause its collapse). It also has a Proto-Indo-European etymology to try and the latin root to know or be wise. This digging was referred to as sapping the enemy fortifications. Saps were excavated by brigades of trained sappers or instructed troops. When an army was defending a fortress with cannons, they had a height and range advantage over the attacker's guns. The attacking army's artillery had to be brought forward, under fire, so as to facilitate effective counter-battery fire. This was achieved by digging what the French termed a sappe (derived from the archaic French word for spade or entrenching tool). Using techniques developed and perfected by Vauban, the sappers began the trench at such an angle so as to avoid enemy fire enfilading the sappe by firing down its length. As they pressed forward, a position was prepared from which a cannon could suppress the defenders on the fort's bastions. The sappers would then change the course of their trench, zig-zagging toward the fortress wall. Each leg brought the attacker's artillery closer until the besieged cannon would be sufficiently suppressed for the attackers to breach the walls. Broadly speaking, sappers were originally experts at demolishing or otherwise overcoming or bypassing fortification systems.

Miner

An additional term applied to sappers of the British Indian Army was "miner." The native engineer corps were called "sappers and miners," for example, the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners. The term arose from a task done by sappers to further the battle after saps were dug. The saps permitted cannons to be brought into firing range of the besieged fort and its cannons, but often the cannons themselves were unable to breach the fort walls. The engineers would dig a tunnel from the forward-most sap up to and under the fort wall, then place a charge of gunpowder and ignite it, causing an explosion that would destroy the wall and permit attacking infantry to close with the enemy. This was dangerous work, often lethal to the sappers, and was fiercely resisted by the besieged enemy. Since the two tasks went hand in hand and were done by the same troops, native Indian engineer corps came to be called "sappers and miners".

Specific usage

Commonwealth of Nations

Sapper (abbreviated Spr) is the Royal Engineers' equivalent of private. This is also the case within the Indian Army Corps of Engineers, Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, Royal Canadian Engineers, Royal Australian Engineers, South African Army Engineer Formation, Jamaica Defence Force Engineer Regiment, and Royal New Zealand Engineers. The term "sapper" was introduced in 1856, when the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners was amalgamated with the officer corps of the Royal Engineers to form the Corps of Royal Engineers. During the course of the First World War, some Royal Marines also took the rank of sapper. This was adopted as tradition in the Royal Marine Divisional Engineers of the Royal Naval Division.

Australia

During the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I, Australian sappers repaired a bridge at the historic crossing of the Jordan River at Jisr Benat Yakub (also known as Jacob's Ford). Here the retreating Ottoman and German rearguard had blown up the bridge's central arch, which was repaired in five hours by sappers attached to the Australian Mounted Division. While the light horse brigades forded the river, continuing the Desert Mounted Corps' advance to Damascus, the sappers worked through the night of 27/28 September 1918, to repair the bridge to enable the division's wheeled vehicles and guns to follow on 28 September.

Canada

In the Canadian Forces, sappers exist both in the regular force and reserve force. The rank of sapper is used instead of private trained to signify completion of the basic Engineer training course. Canadian sappers have been deployed in many major conflicts in recent history including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the War in Afghanistan. The roles of a sapper entail: Bridging with the ACROW or Medium Girder Bridge as well as non-standard bridge construction; obstacle and defensive construction; enemy obstacle reduction and clearance, mine warfare; explosive ordnance disposal; water supply using the reverse-osmosis water purification unit; building and maintaining roadways and airfields; combat diving; tactical breaching; and camp construction. Additionally, within the Canadian Combat Engineer trade, there are Armoured Engineer Operators who utilize the Wisent AEV II—a specialized armoured breaching vehicle—for obstacle construction and clearing tasks. Ultimately, the objective of the sappers is to facilitate the living, moving, and to fight for friendly troops on the battlefield and denying the same to enemy forces. The motto of the Canadian Military Engineers is Ubique (Latin: everywhere) a motto shared with the Royal Canadian Artillery.

Indian Army

The term "sappers", in addition to the connotation of rank of engineer private, is used collectively to informally refer to the Engineer Corps as a whole and also forms part of the informal names of the three combat engineer groups, viz. Madras Sappers, Bengal Sappers and the Bombay Sappers. Each of these groups consist of about twenty battalion-sized engineer regiments and additional company-sized minor engineer units. The three sapper groups are descended from the sapper and miner groups of the East India Company and later the British Indian Army of the British Raj.

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