Royal Army Ordnance Corps

Royal Army Ordnance Corps
Coat of Arms of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (in the reign of George VI) from CWGC headstone.
Active	1918 – 1993
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Role	Storage and issuing of ordnance
Garrison/HQ	Woolwich Arsenal
Motto(s)	Sua tela tonanti (literally "His [i.e. Jupiter's] Missiles to the one who is Thundering", but commonly translated as "To the Warrior his Arms")
March	The Village Blacksmith
Insignia
Tactical Recognition Flash

The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equipment, ammunition and clothing and certain minor functions such as laundry, mobile baths and photography. The RAOC was also responsible for a major element of the repair of Army equipment. In 1942 the latter function was transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) and the vehicle storage and spares responsibilities of the Royal Army Service Corps were in turn passed over to the RAOC. The RAOC retained repair responsibilities for ammunition, clothing and certain ranges of general stores. In 1964 the McLeod Reorganisation of Army Logistics resulted in the RAOC absorbing petroleum, rations and accommodation stores functions from the Royal Army Service Corps as well as the Army Fire Service, barrack services, sponsorship of NAAFI (EFI) and the management of staff clerks from the same Corps. On 5 April 1993, the RAOC was one of the corps that amalgamated to form The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC).

The permanent establishment of an Ordnance Office long predated that of a standing army in Britain; it has therefore been claimed that 'in a wide sense, as heirs to the master-bowyers, master-fletchers, master-carpenters and master-smiths who, in mediaeval days, were responsible as Officers of Ordnance for the care and provision of warlike matériel, and to their successors the storekeepers, clerks, artificers, armourers and storemen of the Board of Ordnance, the R.A.O.C. can claim a far longer continuous history and more ancient lineage than any other unit of the British Army'.^[1]