2nd Dragoon Guards

The 2nd Dragoon Guards was a Cavalry Regiment that would have had an MG Section as part of its Regimental Headquarters.

Prior to the start of the Great War, Lieutenant AJR Lamb of the 2nd Dragoon Guards was one of the first members of the British Army to attend, and qualify from, a Vickers Gun course run by the School of Musketry at Hythe between 25 October and 15 November 1913.

Great War

As a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division, it will have taken part in the following battles and engagements.

The Cavalry Division had no permanent existence before the outbreak of War. The units of which it was composed on mobilization were quartered at various stations in England and Ireland, viz:- the 1st Cav. Bde., VII. Bde., R.H.A., 1st Field Sqd., R.E., 1st Signal Squadron, and No. 1 Signal Troop, at Aldershot; the 2nd Cav. Bde. and No. 2 Signal Troop, at Tidworth; the 3rd Cav. Bde., II. Bde., R.H.A., 4th Field Troop, 4th Cav. Bde., and No. 4 Signal Troop, were stationed at Canterbury, Shorncliffe, and London. The division crossed to France between the 15th and 18th August, concentrated to the East and South-east of Mauberge between the 18th and 20th August, and began to move forward on the 21st.Throughout the War the 1st Cavalry Division served on the Western Front in France and Belgium, and was engaged in the following operations:-
1914
23 and 24 August	Battle of Mons.
24 to 05 September	RETREAT FROM MONS.
24 August	Elouges.
25 August	Solesmes.
26 August	Battle of le Cateau [under II. Corps].
01 September	Nery.
06 to 09 September	Battle of the Marne.
12 to 15 September	BATTLE OF THE AISNE.
12 October to 02 November	Battle of Messines [Cav. Corps].
1915
BATTLES OF YPRES
09 to 13 May	Battle of Frezenberg Ridge [Cav. Corps, until 12 May, then Cav. Force, Second Army].
24 May	Battle of Bellewaarde Ridge [Cav. Corps, Second Army].

The MG Section was brigaded into the 1st Cavalry MG Squadron on 28 February 1916.

Inter-War Period

In 1922, the Machine Gun Corps was disbanded and the guns returned to the Cavalry Regiment as a Machine Gun Platoon and then formed as a Machine Gun Company in the early 1930s.

This remained until the formation of Divisional Machine Gun Battalions in 1936 where guns were brigaded once again. As Cavalry regiments were largely mechanised, their use would have been as per the Royal Armoured Corps.