The Royal Newfoundland Regiment
The RNR is Newfoundland's primary contribution to the British Imperial Army. Its history dates back to 1795, when Major Thomas Skinner of the Royal Engineers raised a regiment at Fort Townshend in St. John's; several incarnations of this unit would be disbanded and reformed over the next twenty years. During the War of 1812, soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment served as marines on the Great Lakes and as regular infantry in Michigan and York (now Toronto). In 1816, the Regiment was disbanded; it would next be reformed in 1914, and has remained active ever since.
In 1914, after the outbreak of the Great War, Newfoundland, like many of her fellow Dominions, was determined to do her part for King and Empire. Despite having a population of just 240,000, Newfoundland raised and maintained a full battalion of 1,000 troops, debarking in May 1915 in Scotland, where General Sir Ian Hamilton was organizing the Northern Expeditionary Force. After Sweden entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, fighting had commenced in Finland, but had been generally inconclusive; Britain, hoping to crack open the blockade of Russia, decided that the best route to do this would be to knock Sweden out of the war.
Accordingly, on August 9, 1915, the Northern Expeditionary Force landed at Bergen and Stavanger in Norway, which promptly declared war on the Central Powers in support of Britain, its longtime protector. This force, composed of the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps (with the Australian 1st Division and the Australian & New Zealand Division), the 63rd Royal Naval Division, the 29th Division (including the Newfoundlanders and various other Imperial formations), the 42nd East Lancashire Division and the French Oriental Expeditionary Corps (centered around four battalions of Senegalese tiralleurs), was to advance through Svealand to Stockholm, forcing the Swedes out of the war. Events did not go according to plan. Though the NEF easily smashed through the militia forces hastily assembled at the unfortified Swedish border, it encountered increasing resistance as it slogged through the lakes and woods of the region. The arrival of a corps of German troops to the theater in October ended the Entente advance; for almost three years, the Northern Front would remain essentially static. Still, the 'Newfies' gave a good account of themselves, particularly in June 1918, when the NEF took advantage of collapsing Swedish morale to finally break open the front in Svealand, reaching Lake Malaren before Sweden surrendered on October 8. Four Newfies received Victoria Crosses for their actions in the summer of 1918, and the Newfoundland Regiment was designated as 'Royal' in recognition of their efforts during the campaign.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, after returning home, was initially retained as a mostly-paper formation, primarily conducting ceremonial duties. Its role expanded modestly with the formation of the British Imperial Federation, but as the situation in Europe darkened in the 1930s, preparations were made to bring the unit up to strength. To conserve manpower, the RNR began conversion into an armoured regiment in July 1939, equipped with A10 cruiser tanks built in Canada. The Regiment would ultimately be composed of two battalions of tanks, two motorized infantry companies, and supporting units. The Newfies missed out on the Battle of France, but fought in Spain from September 1, 1940 to July 24, 1941, when they were pulled off the front lines to be re-equipped with new Crusader tanks and redeployed in the Middle East.
Turkey, Iraq, and Persia had all sided with Nazi Germany shortly after the opening of the Eastern Front. Though none of these states were especially strong, colonial garrisons in the region were very weak; furthermore, several squadrons of German aircraft, along with three 'Sturmkorps' of SA troops, were deployed to Turkey in August, where they began advancing into the Caucasus alongside Turkish and Iranian troops. Reinforcements were needed, fast - Baku and Kuwait were under immediate threat, and Maikop and the Suez Canal were both in danger. Newfoundland, bringing in two squadrons of Victory Aircraft-built Warhawks along with the RNR, would be one of many to contribute.
The troops sent to the Mideast in the fall of 1941 were a truly international force. South Africa contributed the First Infantry and Sixth Armored Divisions, and four fighter squadrons. France brought in the Regiment Mixte Malagache from Madagascar and the battle-hardened 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment (amalgamated with remnants of the Tonkinese Rifles and the 3rd Colonial Infantry Regiment) to reinforce French colonial troops in Syria. Even as Indian troops began advancing into Sistan, a division was also spared for service in Mesopotamia and Syria. The provisional Free Belgian government in London committed a regiment of troops from the Force Publique; the Dutch East Indies contributed a regiment of its own, along with a mixed fighter/bomber group. A Free Polish mechanized infantry brigade, re-equipping in Egypt, was actually the first unit sent to help defend the Transjordan. All this came alongside the BIF's own troops; all fell under the command of Claude Auchinleck, appointed commander of the Army of the Mideast.
The RNR played a prominent role in the Middle East Campaign. At Karbala, RNR tankers smashed the Iraqi Fast Division in short order; at Mosul, the RNR and the 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment held off the advance of the 101st SA Division and supporting Iraqi infantry for four hours before being reinforced by the 7th Armoured Division. Even as fighting shifted into less tank-friendly terrain in 1942, the Newfies, re-equipped with American-designed Lee tanks, played a key role, providing direct fire support for the infantry and attacking enemy strongpoints.
After Soviet and Allied forces linked up near Tabriz in May 1943, the Newfies were one of the few units to be directly assigned to operate under Soviet command, giving Kirill Meretskov's 47th Army much-needed tank support. Meretskov's own tank units had been gutted during the winter offensives that led to the recapture of Baku on February 1, 1943. This arrangement would continue up to September 21, 1944, when Meretskov and Auchinleck reached Ankara and Turkey switched sides - Auchinleck needed the Newfie tankers back to help the Turks clear out German-occupied cities.
After World War II ended, the Newfies came home to a hero's welcome. A year later, they returned to the Mideast, assigned to help police troubled Palestine. Over the next three years, however, tensions rose across Eurasia, particularly after Kirov took over the Soviet Union. In 1948, shortly after the beginning of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded, with member states pledging to defend each other against the Soviets; as part of this, the RNR was redeployed along the Turkish-Soviet border, guarding Britain's fellow NATO power against the Soviet Union.
In 1957, the RNR switched from Centurion tanks to Wessex helicopters, as the British Imperial Army inaugurated its first air cavalry units. Air cavalry involves the use of helicopters to give infantry tremendous mobility; fire support is provided by specialized STL (Short Takeoff & Landing) bomber aircraft (and later gunship helicopters), serving as 'flying artillery' that can quickly and accurately lend firepower to heliborne troops. It proved well-suited to the mountainous terrain in the region.
In 1969, new Prime Minister Enoch Powell took the BIF out of NATO's command structure. The RNR left Turkey, redeploying to Muscat, Oman, where it soon became involved in the Oman War. The Omani government was hard-pressed by a Communist-backed separatist movement in Dhofar; Powell agreed to commit troops to back the Sultan's rule, and the RNR's heliborne troops (by now using Harrier gunships) would take the lead, basing out of Salalah, the capital of Dhofar. Operations were often frustrating - in many cases, an Omani army unit would report engaging rebel troops and request support, but by the time Newfie helicopters arrived, the rebels had generally melted away into the desert. There were occasional direct battles, instances when the rebels overestimated their strength and decided to stand and fight, or to attempt an ambush.
The most notable battle of this phase of the Oman War was the Battle of Dhalqut, on June 4, 1970. Dhalqut is a coastal town near the border with Yemen. Information from captured insurgents suggested a major rebel presence outside Dhalqut. A company of Newfoundlanders was sent over to investigate, and the lead platoon flew into an ambush when a MiG-17 from al-Ghaydah Air Base in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen downed two of its helicopters, initially claiming they had crossed the border with South Yemen; the fighter fled before a pair of Omani Hunters could intercept it. The third chopper of the lead platoon, along with the choppers from the two platoons, landed near the crash sites, their troops hastily organizing a defensive perimeter and calling in air support. Four hundred rebels - including, it would become clear, eighty 'volunteers' from South Yemen - repeatedly attacked the 86 surviving troops of C Company, 1st Battalion, RNR over the next three hours; they failed to dislodge the Newfoundlanders and were ultimately forced to flee into the desert, leaving behind many of their wounded.
Dhalqut marked a turning point. Until then, evidence of South Yemen's involvement in the Dhofar Rebellion was inconclusive; though it was widely believed they were the source of rebel arms, there was insufficient evidence to prove this, particularly given the fact that many rebels were defectors from the Sultan of Oman Armed Forces. After Dhalqut, however, it was clear that South Yemen was actively supporting the Dhofar rebels; furthermore, a South Yemeni fighter jet had crossed the border and attacked the Newfoundland Regiment - had attacked British forces themselves. Enoch Powell declared war on South Yemen, opening the last phase of the Oman War.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment served well during the invasion of South Yemen, beginning with the assault on al-Ghaydah Air Base and culminating with the Battle of Aden. The attack on al-Ghaydah began with Harrier gunships and Wessex helicopters crossing the border at low altitude, as Omani and RAF Hunters escorted two squadrons of Hawker-Siddeley Liverpool bombers at high altitude towards Riyan and Aden; the air raid distracted South Yemeni air defense forces, allowing the helicopters to slip through to al-Ghaydah unmolested. There, with the gunships providing fire support, a company of Newfies unloaded from their Wessexes and rapidly stormed the base. Within twenty minutes, all resistance was subdued, with no casualties suffered by the RNR; within ten hours, al-Ghaydah became the new base of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.
The RNR, after the battle of Aden, returned to Newfoundland to re-equip with the Westland Lynx, replacing its worn-out Wessexes with a newer, faster transport helicopter. It went back to the counterinsurgency business: Oman (again) in 1972, a brief stint in Ireland in 1973 and a six-month campaign in Fiji ending in February 1974, a campaign in Jamaica from July 1974 to March 1975, and prolonged work in East Africa from 1976 to 1980. By then, however, Newfoundlanders were growing tired of their regiment being sent to police the Empire, of their men fighting and dying off in the middle of nowhere. In local elections for the House of Assembly in 1979, anti-war activists swept into power, threatening to cut funding for the Regiment if it were not pulled out of East Africa. The acrimonious negotiations between Newfoundland and the Federation - at one point, Newfoundland PM John Crosbie even threatened to declare independence - helped discredit Keith Joseph's minority government; ultimately, Crosbie and his young activist allies got their way, and the RNR left East Africa.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment continues to serve in the British Imperial Army. Its pilots now fly the Australian Aerospace Jindivik and the Hawker-Westland Snipe instead of the Lynx and Harrier. It remains permanently based at AAC Gander, though it has seen some peacekeeping deployments in the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in support of UN operations. And it remains the primary contribution of Newfoundland to the defense of the British Imperial Federation.
OOC: Something a bit different - a regiment's history.
Norway historically was very close to Britain in the Great War - Britain was Norway's main guarantor of independence.
In OTL, Kirill Meretskov was involved in the Winter War, which doesn't really happen ITTL, with the Soviets instead invading Finland as part of Operation Justinian. Here, he ends up probably replacing whoever was in charge of 47th Army after its initial failures around Baku.
I'm not sure there even is an SAS without the OTL Desert War; in any event, the BIF isn't fighting the war in Oman the way Britain did in OTL. More aggressive, less 'hearts-and-minds' and less focused on building up the Omanis.
John Crosbie's probably much more of a Red Tory ITTL, at least around 1979.