AN Army squadron which played a key role in the Battle of Sebastopol is set to parade for the final time before disbanding.

Hundreds of personnel and families based at RAF Leeming, near Bedale, North Yorkshire, will watch 10 Field Squadron, Royal Engineers march across the base on Wednesday, after it was axed as part of the Future Army 2020 reorganisation.

Personnel in the 181-member squadron, which has provided support to combat units and search teams in Afghanistan and recently completed a construction tour in Kenya, will be redeployed to other units of the Royal Engineers.

Thousands of Northallerton residents turned out in force to cheer the squadron in 2010 for its homecoming march through the town, after a tour of Helmand Province.

Councillor Tony Hall, who helped organise the parade, said: “The whole of Northallerton welcomed them back and the response from schoolchildren was phenomenal.

“They have been valued for many years in this community.”

The squadron was formed in 1806, when the companies of the Corp of Military Artificers, which later became known as the Royal Sappers and Miners, were given numbers by Royal Warrant.

During the Crimean War, the field squadron constructed a bridge out of gravestones pillaged from local graveyards and fought at the siege of Sebastopol in 1855, during which its Colour-Sergeant Henry MacDonald was awarded the Victoria Cross.

The squadron formed part of a force in the Second Opium War which twice attacked Peking in 1858 and led a mission to recover prisoners taken by the King of Abyssinia in 1867.

In the late 19th century, 10 Field Squadron, which included many railwaymen from Tyneside, attempted to build a railway in Sudan and repaired damaged tracks during the Boer War.

The squadron was deployed to the Western Front in 1914 and to North Africa during the Second World War.

A spokeswoman for RAF Leeming said following the parade, personnel would be invited to a display of squadron’s modern-day equipment.