'Old fashioned' White Helmets display team wound up as Army looks to promote more high tech role

For 90 years they have travelled the country displaying some of the skills that have stood the British Army in good stead on the battlefield.

But after this weekend the White Helmets motorcycle team will ride no more.

Army chiefs have decided that daring two wheeled displays no longer reflect the reality of the high-tech on-screen communications of today’s conflicts.

The Royal Corps of Signals’ motorcycle display team is being wound up and its members returned to duties behind their computer and radar screens after a farewell series of displays at the Chatsworth House country fair, in Derbyshire.

Members of the White Helmets, the Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team
Members of the White Helmets, the Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team Credit:  Danny Lawson/PA

Members of the team yesterday spoke of their “sadness” and “disappointment” at the decision to scrap what was one of the most popular Army display teams to perform in public.

White Helmets Team Captain John McLelland, 31, told The Daily Telegraph: “I’m personally sad and disappointed it’s coming to an end. We all are. We are all very proud to have worn the white helmets and to have ridden the bikes.”

But Mr McLelland, who joined the Royal Signals on a Sandhurst commission in 2011, said he understood the rationale behind the decision.

The team have begun their final month of shows before they are disbanded
The team have begun their final month of shows before they are disbanded Credit: Danny Lawson/PA

“The Royal Signals today are very much about the use of cutting-edge technology and cyber communications. We don’t use motorbikes to move messages around the battlefield any more,” he said.

The White Helmets were founded in 1927 to show off to the British public the precision horsemanship and motorcycle riding skills required of Royal Signals’ soldiers, in the days when the use of dispatch riders to ferry communications between units was still a vital element of warfare.

Indeed their entry on the British Army website still states: “Respected and consulted throughout the world, and envied by many, the Royal Signals White Helmets is a popular element of the Corps and makes a valuable contribution to keeping the Army in the public eye, showing off the Corps, and indeed representing Britain at events throughout the world.”

A member of the White Helmets motorcycle display team makes a jump during the Chatsworth House country fair 
A member of the White Helmets motorcycle display team makes a jump during the Chatsworth House country fair  Credit: Darren Staples/Reuters

Since the were formed the highly-trained team, who are seconded to the White Helmets from their regular Royal Signals jobs, has thrilled audiences, forming motorcycle human pyramids, cycling backwards while juggling, bursting through rings of fire and riding their 750cc bikes round a field with a colleague up a ladder.

The team appeared on the Texaco advert in the 1980s and were a regular feature of the Royal Military Tournament.

But earlier this year the Ministry of Defence took the decision to wind up the team after senior officers pointed out it failed to reflect the modern-day cyber communication skills in which the Royal Signals are trained.

One senior officer said at the time: “The problem is that, when you look at the Royal Signals today, it’s about cutting-edge cyber warfare. The image of chaps performing stunts on motorbikes is fun, but really doesn’t speak to modern-day youth who have grown up in a digital age.”

An Army spokesperson said: “The Royal Corps of Signals have come far since using motorbikes to carry messages across the battlefield, and are now highly trained ‘Leaders in a Digital Age’ with expertise in cyber operations. This modernisation means that 2017 will be the last season for the iconic ‘White Helmets’ Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team.”

A pyramid by the Royal Signals Display Team, The White Helmets
A pyramid by the Royal Signals Display Team, The White Helmets Credit: Alamy

History of the Royal Corps of Signals 

1870: 'C' Telegraph Troop, Royal Engineers, founded under Captain Montague Lambert to provide communications for the army by visual signalling, mounted orderlies and telegraph

1908: The Royal Engineers Signal Service formed, going on to provide communications during the First World War using motorcycle despatch riders and wireless

1920: Winston Churchill, the war secretary, signs the Royal Warrant for the creation of a Royal Corps of Signals

1927 The Corps’ White Helmets motorcycle display team founded at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire

1935-1938: The White Helmets use a Triumph Tiger 70 motorbike for the displays. This is now housed along with other models at the Royal Signals Museum, Blandford Forum, Dorset

1939: Special Wireless Units formed to carry out secretive communications work on the front line

1939-45: 4,362 members of Royal Signals are killed in action during World War Two

1942: A number of women from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) with special skills are selected for training as radio operators with the Corps

1944 Corporal Thomas Waters, 5th Parachute Brigade Signal Section, awarded the Military Medal for laying field telephone line under heavy enemy fire across the Caen Canal Bridge during the Allied invasion of Normandy

1945-2017: Soldiers from the Royal Signals deliver communications for the British Army in all the main theatres of modern conflict, including in the Falklands War, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, the second Gulf War and Afghanistan.

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