SCW - Compañia de Mar

[Leo Niehorster]

Greetings!

What exactly did a "Compañia de Mar" at that period of time?

--
Leo

[Ironmachine]

Probably you already know this, but despite their name they were Army units, not Navy's. They operated some small boats and mostly they loaded and unloaded ships (carrying both men and material from ship to port and viceversa), supplied the garrisons of the small Spanish islets on the African coast, and provided security and surveillance services in ports and some coastal areas.

[Leo Niehorster]

Good morning,
Thank you. Sounds very much like the Japanese landing engineers. The floating element connecting ship-carried army units with those on the land, including sea-land communications, carrying the troops to be landed, etc..

Were they a separate combat arms? Or separate service?
--
Leo

[Ironmachine]

They were not a separate combat arm, that's for sure. I don't know their exact consideration, but I think they were considered service troops (like supply services or medical services, for example). I don't know if they were considered a separate service or not, probably not because they were too small (just two companies in the whole Army), but they did (and still do) have some differences with other units (like a different uniform or different names for some ranks).

[Leo Niehorster]

Thank you. Interesting units.

--
Leo

[Ironmachine]

Yes, they are indeed interesting units. The Compañía de Mar de Melilla was created around 1497, so it is probably the oldest unit of the Spanish Army (and one of the oldest in the world), the Compañía de Mar de Ceuta was originally a Portuguese unit (Ceuta was originally part of the Portuguese kingdom, but chose to become Castillian when Portugal raised against Philip IV), during their history they have been at times part of the Navy,... Lots of interesting facts about those two units that are still active in the Spanish Army.