Non-Combatant Corps

The Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) was a corps of the British Army composed of conscientious objectors as privates, with NCOs and officers seconded from other corps or regiments. Its members fulfilled various non-combatant roles in the army during the First World War, the Second World War and the period of conscription after the Second World War. The Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) was first established by Royal Warrant in March 1916 as a result of the Military Service Act 1916, which introduced conscription in Britain for the first time. The British Army, which had no precedents or guidelines for conscription, formed the corps to provide a military unit for a category of conscientious objectors who had been conscripted but were prepared to accept only non-combatant duties, which was guaranteed in the case of the NCC. It was commanded by regular army officers and NCOs, and its members wore army uniform and were subject to army discipline, but did not carry weapons or participate in battle. Their duties were mainly to provide physical labour (building, cleaning, loading and unloading anything except munitions) for the rest of the army, both in the British Isles and overseas. Conscientious objectors who were directed to the NCC but refused to serve were court martialled and imprisoned. Approximately 3,400 registered conscientious objectors accepted call-up into the NCC. In a House of Commons debate on 13 August 1919, Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for War, stated that with respect to the Army, the members of the NCC "must be regarded as soldiers, and not as conscientious objectors", as it was "entirely composed of men whose conscience permits them to serve as British soldiers, though it does not permit them to take human life". The NCC received lower pay than most other soldiers, and were generally held in lower esteem by British society. The Corps was disparagingly referred to as the 'No-Courage Corps' by some sections of the British press, and as the 'Pick and Shovel Brigade' by The Times newspaper.