Page 273 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
Two RAVC Vets from the Corps’ Pool volunteered and were selected on the basis of their consid- erable experience in Veterinary Public Health and agriculture, especially in livestock husbandry and meat inspection. Their backgrounds made them extremely practical people who, very usefully, were skilled in advising authoritatively in sensitive situations. War and its aftermath inevitably lead to the degrading of a country’s infrastructure and, ‘then the other horsemen of the apocalypse ride in’.
The RAVC TA at the time made a significant contribution to animal health at low cost. For the TA Vets this resulted in the RAVC Pool being established for fourteen Officers and another two in the Civil Affairs B Group. During 1992 and 1993 UKLF (UK Land Forces) issued two directives describing the Command-and-Control arrange- ments for the TA. Subsequently, on 9th February 1993, Major Dougie Macdonald RAVC, sent a routine letter emphasising the need to address the war role and Special to Arm training of the RAVC TA, and sought the opinions of Commander CVHQ and SVO TA.
Training Weekends
The inaugural training weekend was held from 2nd – 5th April 1987 and proved a great success. Later, Major Julia Kneale RAVC, in the new appointment of Training Major, up-graded the content of the bi-annual training weekends. The RAVC TA Officers’ Pool belonged to group A, but as a Specialist Pool, with the lower annual training commitment of nineteen days. The TA Vets were administered by the RAVC CVHQ based, conven- iently, at the Defence Animal Centre (DAC) in Melton Mowbray where the Commandant at the time was also the Commander RAVC TA. Julia Kneale made a successful bid for Lt Col Koder to attend the TA Staff and Command Course in 1995 at the then Staff College, located at Camberley. As the Senior TA Officer, Koder had the honour to be formally presented to Her Majesty the Queen on her visit to the DAC on 28th June 1996 and with this he took the opportunity to explain the diverse veterinary background of RAVC Officers and the specialist skills they could offer Defence.
Training for role was vital, as it has always been, in order to maintain efficiency, and there were only nineteen days in which to achieve it. It was made attainable by setting spring and autumn training dates well in advance, at exactly the same time every year so that the busy Profes- sionally Qualified Officers could plan well ahead to attend. The first, covering four days-worth of
annual military training needs, and the former four-day period covering Special to Arm Training. CPD and VO attachments made up the rest of the commitment. Another strength in the Pool was the continuity in recruitment. It had become very stable through attracting and retaining both ex-regulars – and the five direct entrants at the time. The RAVC TA Officer Recruits, with no previous military experience underwent the TA Officer Selection process and, if successful, attended the two-week course at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS).
The RAVC TA Officers were a diverse group, both in military and civilian veterinary qualifica- tions. Between them they held a variety of quali- fications and experiences in General Practice, academia, the Home Office, the pharmaceutical industry, and the Department of Agriculture, Northern Ireland. Most importantly they made that all important link between the Regular Army and the general public. Virtually every aspect of the profession was represented amongst the recruited TA Pools’ strength, something which helped maintain a close association and access to expertise in the profession at large.
By the spring of 1988 four Officers who joined without any previous Corps experience, attended the Young Officers Course at RAMC Mychett and all passed. They were Captains Daglish, Parry- Smith, Paterson and Chhaya. The senior members of the RAVC TA Pool were variously involved in Exercises, and giving presentations to the USVC, at Mychet in July the same year. This was where Lt Col John Bleby and Major Peter C Koder, attended a symposium majoring on the increasing reliance of the Regular Forces upon Reserve Forces to meet mobilisation plans.
TA Attachments
It was during this time in the 1980s that TA Veterinary Officers were deployed on attachments to Germany, Cyprus, Hong Kong, and to Gibraltar where they ensured the welfare of the two troops of Barbary Apes whose presence signified the continuity of this, sometimes controversial, British Overseas Territory at the foot of Spain. The more routine duty was visiting MOD Dog Units, both military and Ministry of Defence Police (MDP), throughout the UK and to report on the health and welfare of the dogs and comment on the state of the kennels. The regular RAVC often had difficulty in keeping up with the necessary frequency of these liaison visits on behalf of AVRO since there were so many widely scattered locations.
Much of this activity was organised by Lt Col
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