Page 132 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
installations which included dog handlers, under RAVC control; Labour Service under the auspices of the Royal Pioneer Corps; Transport Services under the auspices of the Royal Army Service Corps/Royal Corps of Transport. The MSO Dog Handlers Unit consisted primarily of those of Polish and Serbian origin, but also included around 10% Ukrainian and 30% Lithuanian personnel.
Those who had been in their respective Officer Corps became Superintendents and Senior Foremen – NCOs became junior grades. The organisation’s uniform consisted of the standard battledress (No 2s) dyed blue with 1937 pattern webbing. They were also trained in weapon handling and were therefore an Armed Force. Members of the MSO were known affectionately as “Mojos” by British servicemen. From the mid – 1970s the Unit became even more cosmopolitan with recruits hailing from Pakistan, Netherlands, Turkey and other non-EU countries.4
All MSO personnel had living quarters in the various BAOR Barracks. The organisation had its own kitchen and dining halls, entertainment halls and their own places of worship. The MSO Super- intendents had Officer status which included their own Officers’ Mess. The Organisation had specified periods of service, of five and ten years (indicated by a red or green cloth badge respec- tively, worn on the right arm) and fifteen, twenty and twenty-five years (denoted by a metallic badge worn on the right breast pocket of the battle dress jacket).
MSO Dog Handlers
Early in 1947 HQ WDTU RAVC Sennelager formed with the MSO Watchman Service Unit and commenced their Guard Dog Handler course there.
The MSO Dog Handler Units were organised and structured in a similar way to HQ and Detachment Units RAVC – with an MSO Staff Superintendent who was initially responsible for the management of MSO Dog Handlers. The MSO Dog Handlers’ detachments were organised into sub-sections i.e. A Group was a Polish Dog Unit, B Group was a Serbian Dog Unit, C Group was a Lithuanian and Ukrainian Dog Unit and D Group was a mixed dog unit RAVC. Unit name changes were frequent, for instance; No. 1 War Dog Training Unit, 1 Army Dog Training Unit and Defence Animal Support Unit.5 As an example of manpower numbers in any given unit, 1 ADTU had six hundred and forty MSO personnel on its books in 1979.6
“It is the dog handler branch that is of most interest to our Corps’ readers,” said MSO Super- intendent D Stefanovic in 1992, “because it is the one remaining branch,7 apart from one MSO RCT section in Bielefeld, that is functioning much as it did in the early days. However, there have been many changes...” What the Superintendent was referring to was a situation where the established strength dropped due to revised needs and also due to the steady decline of the founder members retiring because of older age. In the mid-1950s, a new treaty was signed and the MSO and many other civilian working groups then came under the German economy and subject to West German civil law as opposed to British military law. This system of governing remained in place until 1992.
In the 1970s, the strength of the MSO dropped to dangerous levels and recruitment was broadened to include the Asian community, most of whom had been granted political asylum in West Germany. Some two hundred and fifty Pakistani personnel were employed and a smaller number from Portugal and other countries. In the 1980s, many of the men returned to their homes in Pakistan leaving vacancies for a number of Turkish men waiting to replace them. At this time, the MSO became become truly multi-national employing seven hundred people from many countries including Britain, Germany, Turkey, Holland, Portugal and America not forgetting those from Yugoslavia and other Baltic States. There was another important change – the uniform became the same as that issued to the British Army, although grade cap and Service badges remained the same. Even the name of the Unit changed from 1 WDTU to 1 Army Dog Training Unit to DASU but the civilian dog handlers and their Superin- tendents still wore the badge of the MSO.
Mark Harrow joined the MSO in Sennelager in May 1987. It was the start of a journey with the MSO that took him from the rank of Corporal in the RAVC to Chief Dog Handler with the MSO: “Gaining experience in various NATO Exercises meant that I was posted straight into DASU as a dog handler and looked after various dogs until I was posted after promotion to Senior Dog Handler in 1988 to Depot 90 as Guard Commander. By this time, I was full-time RAVC TA doing up to sixteen days per month in DASU and at the same time conducting Guard Commander duties with the MSO in Depot 90.”
After completing various upgrade courses Mark
4 Wikipedia.
5 ‘The MSO' by Superintendent D Stefanovic Chiron Calling, Issue 9 dated October 1992. 6 Chiron Calling, Issue 9 dated March 1979.
7 The MSO by Superintendent D Stefanovic Chiron Calling, Issue 9 dated October 1992.
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