1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards

Origins

This regiment was formed in 1959 by merging the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards and The Queen's Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards), both of which dated back to 1685. Its first colonel-in-chief was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The new regiment’s main recruiting area was Wales and the border counties.

Deployments

Until 1998, the regiment alternated between Germany, serving with the British Army of the Rhine, and regular tours of Northern Ireland. But it also sent detachments elsewhere. These included a squadron sent to Borneo and then Aden from 1966 to 1967, a two-squadron detachment sent to Beirut in 1983 during Lebanon’s civil war, and a squadron sent on UN peacekeeping duties on Cyprus in 1985.

‘A’ Squadron deployed to the Gulf War (1990-91) in 1990, where it won the battle honour ‘Wadi al Batin’. The regiment as a whole then deployed to Bosnia for seven months in 1996, returning to the Balkans in 1999 on a peacekeeping posting to Kosovo.

‘C’ and then ‘A’ squadrons deployed with Operation Palatine in Bosnia from October 2000 to April 2001. On returning home, they assisted in the measures taken to control the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom.

Iraq and Afghanistan

The whole regiment served in Iraq from January to May 2003 with 1st Armoured Division, before redeploying to Germany in September the same year. It returned to Iraq in 2005 and 2006, followed by deployments to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2008-09 and 2011-12.

In 2018, the regiment deployed to Poland for battle exercises, serving as part of Nato's armoured spearhead.