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Senior Under Officer Edward Bear
A famous resident of the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Collection is Edward Bear, a fourteen inch high brown teddy bear
who has served for almost the entire life of the present Academy. He was
enlisted as the mascot of the RMAS Parachuting Club in 1950 and proved
instantly popular. The club was renamed the Edward Bear Club and it adopted
an emblem of a teddy bear suspended from a parachute. Membership of the club
was confined to Officer Cadets who completed the course that qualified them
as army parachutists, so in order to qualify for membership, Edward Bear was
given the honorary title of Officer Cadet (later raised to that of Senior
Under Officer) and took part in all courses and airborne exercises in which
club members took part.
He made his 400th parachute descent on 28th May
1971 using his own small silk parachute supplied by the RAF in 1961. The
Camberley branch of Messrs Moss Bros the military tailors supplied him with
a specially made camouflage pattern smock. Attached to this are the badges
of various UK and allied special forces with whom he has jumped over the
years.
SUO Bear now resides with the Sandhurst Collection
but still takes part in airborne or other adventurous training on the rare
occasions when he is invited to do so |
