commanding officers were initially former county commandants from the disbanded usc. all were men of previous military experience, such as dublin-born desmond woods who had at one time been the youngest winner of the military cross (serving with the royal ulster rifles) and michael torrens-spence dso, dsc, afc. all were appointed lieutenant colonel on a one-year contract. however, some of these men were already past retirement age and after their year's contract was up they were replaced by lieutenant colonels from the regular army, the first of these being lt col dion beard of the 1st royal tank regiment (1 rtr) who took over at 3 udr on 15 february 1971. the policy of appointing regular officers was not universally popular within the regiment, with the public or with some politicians, but the british army persisted in replacing former usc commanding officers and by the time of amalgamation, around 400 regular army officers had served in these posts, some of whom went on to achieve general officer rank.