The Bermuda Volunteer Engineers was a part-time unit created between the two world wars to replace the Regular Royal Engineers detachment, which was withdrawn from the Bermuda Garrison in 1928. History The Military Garrison in Bermuda From 1895 to 1931, the only Bermudian units within the garrison were part-time infantry and artillery soldiers, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps and the Bermuda Militia Artillery, respectively. Each unit had been created under a separate Act of the colonial parliament, at the prompting of the Secretary of State for War, in London. A third act had also been passed authorising the creation of a militia engineering unit of sappers and miners. This would have followed in the pattern of The Submarine Mining Militia formed in Britain in 1878 and tasked with defending major ports. They received a minimum of fifty-five days training per year, and were recruited from experienced boatmen. In Bermuda, the unit was intended to operate boat from the Royal Army Service Corps docks in Hamilton and St. George's, tending to the underwater mine defences, but the unit was never raised. Instead, the Royal Engineers 27th Company (Submarine Mining) which had been permanently reassigned from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Bermuda in 1888 (part of the company had been split off to create the new 40th Company, which remained in Halifax), continued to maintain the mine defences unaided. This unit was not raised. Unit codes were assigned to all three legislated units for marking the stock disks of the Martini-Henry rifle: M./BER. A. for the Bermuda Militia Artillery; V./BER. for the Bermuda Volunteers Rifle Corps; M./BER. S.M. for the Bermuda Submarine Miners. Submarine mine defence was only one of many activities the Royal Engineers were involved in within Bermuda, which particularly included building forts and infrastructure. In 1900 the Royal Engineers Submarine Mining Companies also assumed responsibility for operating electric searchlights defending harbours. During the First World War, in addition to fulfilling their roles as guardians of Bermuda and its important Imperial defence assets (such as the Royal Naval Dockyard), each of these units sent two contingents to the Western Front. Numerous other Bermudians served in other regiments and corps of the British Army, as well as in the Royal Navy and the new Royal Air Force. Large numbers of regular infantry and artillery soldiers, plus various supporting units, had been stationed in Bermuda since the early 19th Century, but the UK