Sapper
A sapper, in the sense first used by the French military, was one who dug trenches to allow besieging forces to advance towards the enemy defensive works and forts over ground that is under the defenders' musket or artillery fire.
It comes from the French word sapeur,[3] itself being derived from the verb saper (to undermine, to dig under a wall or building to cause its collapse).
[8] During the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I, Australian sappers repaired a bridge at the historic crossing of the Jordan River at Jisr Benat Yakub (also known as Jacob's Ford).
Here the retreating Ottoman and German rearguard had blown up the bridge's central arch, which was repaired in five hours by sappers attached to the Australian Mounted Division.
Ultimately, the objective of the sappers is to facilitate the living, moving, and to fight for friendly troops on the battlefield and denying the same to enemy forces.
JGSDF Shisetsu-ka (施設科 [ja], "施設" literally means "facilities"), or Engineer Branch in English, is equivalent to the IJA Kōhei-ka.
Its members were called sappers if their function was to destroy enemy fortifications by using trenches or sape and miners if they engaged in tunnel warfare or mine.
In 1814, the companies of miners were integrated into the sapper battalions, themselves organized in Engineers Regiments (régiments du génie).
In 1909, the Engineering Arm of the Army Staff was entrusted the burgeoning Air Service (Aérostation militaire), its personal was titled sapper-airman (sapeur-aérostier).
This company was tasked with the protection of the Imperial palaces after the tragic fire of the Austrian embassy in Paris on 1 July 1810.
Since the 18th century, every grenadier battalion in the French Army had a small unit of pioneers, sometimes called sappers-pioneers (sapeurs-pionniers).
A sapador NBQ (NBC sapper) is an engineer branch soldier specialized in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
The largest unit of this type is the Regimento de Bombeiros Sapadores ("sapper-firefighters regiment") maintained by the Lisbon municipal council.
Initially part of the Indian Corps of Engineers, it dates back to 1780 but came to its modern form in 1947 following the Independence of Pakistan.
The corps is taking part in Operation Zarb-e-Azb In the United States Army, sappers are combat engineers who support the front-line infantry, and they have fought in every war in U.S. history.
For example, after the Battle of Yorktown, General Washington cited Louis Lebègue Duportail, the chief of engineers, for conduct that afforded "brilliant proofs of his military genius."
The Sapper Leader Course is a demanding 28-day leadership development course for combat engineers that reinforces critical skills and teaches advanced techniques needed across the army.
It is also designed to build esprit de corps by training soldiers in troop-leading procedures, demolitions (conventional and expedient), and mountaineering operations.
The course culminates in an intense field-training exercise that reinforces the use of the battle drills and specialized engineer techniques learned throughout the course.
The course is open to enlisted soldiers in the grades of E-4 (P) (Army specialists and corporals on the list for promotion to sergeant) through E-7, cadets, and officers O-3 (Captain) and below.
[14] PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) and Viet Cong sappers, as they were called by US forces, are better described as commando units.
Thousands of specially trained elite fighters served in the PAVN and Viet Cong commando–sapper units which were organized as independent formations.
While not always successful due to lack of appropriate personal weapon types for combat and assault like other special forces, they were still capable of inflicting heavy damage with their non-firearms arsenal.
These elite units served as raiders against American/ARVN troops, and infiltrated spearheads during the final Ho Chi Minh Campaign in 1975, where they seized key road and bridge assets, destroyed installations, attacked command and control nodes located deep inside enemy territory, planted explosives on U.S. water craft, and otherwise helped the PAVN's rapid mobile forces advance.
[15] An instance of a successful sapper attack conducted by the Viet Cong was the during the Battle of Fire Base Mary Ann.
A small number of sappers, through surprise and deft coordination, conducted a successful attack on a superior US force.
The battle was described as a "rampage of VC who threw satchels at the command bunker, knifed Americans in their sleep and destroyed all communications equipment.
In Warsaw (Poland) there is memorial honouring sappers (Pomnik Chwała Saperom) In the 1978 song by Australian rock band Cold Chisel, "Khe Sanh", the narrator (a fictional Australian army Vietnam War veteran) says "I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh".
