A Collection of Awards to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

A post-war Military Division M.B.E. group of seven awarded to Warrant Officer Class I R. R. Calvert, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type, breast badge, silver; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 2 clasps, Malaya, G.VI.R., Cyprus (22237051 S/Sgt. R. R. Calvert. R.E.M.E.); General Service 1962-2007, 1 clasp, Malay Peninsula (22237051 W.O. Cl. 1 R. R. Calvert. REME) mounted court-style for wear, cleaned, and worn in places, therefore generally nearly very fine (7) £200-£240 --- M.B.E. London Gazette 11 June 1966. The original recommendation states: ‘Warrant Officer I (Artificer Sergeant Major) Calvert has been the Warrant Officer in charge of 25 and 61 Squadrons Royal Corps of Transport Combined Light Aid Detachment for a period of two years which has been a period of intense transport activity in Singapore due to Indonesian confrontation against Malaysia. That 32 Regiment has been able to maintain a very high, and at peak operating periods 100% vehicle availability has been entirely due to the exceptional devotion, leadership and skill of this Warrant Officer. The pride he takes in the rapid turn around of vehicles from this very busy Light Aid Detachment is positively intense and but for his efforts we would have been short of vehicles for operational tasks, which is unacceptable, and the Civil hiring bill would have increased alarmingly. In January 1965, with the return to Singapore of some thirty 3 ton vehicles from Labuan where they had been extremely heavily employed for the past eighteen months, there existed the unacceptable risk of wholesale replacement which would have seriously jeopardised theatre stocks. Warrant Officer I Calvert, by his tremendous drive, leadership, skill and organisation, returned all but five of these vehicles to their Troops in a taskworthy condition within ten days. This would normally have been quite outside the scope of a Light Aid Detachment, but due to Warrant Officer I Calvert’s tremendous effort it was accomplished without outside assistance. Throughout 1965 he has maintained the same exemplary standards culminating in some two-hundred vehicles, which have covered three and a half million miles this year, being found 100% taskworthy by Annual Inspection.’