9 Neither Peace nor War
Whither the Militia?
The 14th Canadian Armoured Regiment (The Calgary Regiment) officially disbanded as an active unit of the Canadian Army on 15 December 1945, leaving the wartime reserve unit to soldier on. The regiment would henceforth operate as a reserve formation (the term militia having been officially dropped),1 a status it retains three-quarters of a century later. Along with the rest of the militia, The Calgary Regiment had struggled just to survive during the interwar years. Without the Second World War, its withering away would hardly have been noticed. What would be their fate now?
It was not obvious in the immediate aftermath of World War II that there wouldn’t be another levée en masse like those of 1914 and 1939, but it became clear soon enough.2 How would Canada’s part-time army units recast their role to remain relevant and justify their continued existence? In a country where the regular army struggled to be taken seriously and frequently led a parlous existence, the reserves could face bleak times. That The King’s Own Calgary Regiment (as it would come to be known) not only survived but by reserve standards flourished in such an unpromising environment was a notable achievement. This chapter will primarily explore that story through 1960—the regiment’s fiftieth anniversary.
The Militia Reborn
By 1947 the Canadian Army, a formidable force in the latter years of World War II, had all but disappeared. Its replacement, the Active and Reserve (i.e. militia) forces, “were small, under-funded and ill-equipped.”3 Indeed, by late 1947 their respective strengths were 14,000 and 20,000, respectively, which was well below 1939 levels. But as the Iron Curtain ominously descended across central Europe, Ottawa and most of the population began taking military preparedness more seriously. While the regular army benefited the most, restrictions on the recruitment and training of part-timers eased as well.
A New Regimental Title
In the spring of 1946, the reserve unit was redesignated the 14th Armoured Regiment (The Calgary Regiment), and then within a few months the 14th Armoured Regiment (King’s Own Calgary Regiment), and finally The King’s Own Calgary Regiment (14th Armoured Regiment). Facing the anonymity of “militia” existence for the foreseeable future, the adoption of “King’s Own” in the title had been enthusiastically embraced by all of the officers. It was Lt.-Col. D. F. Rodgers’ dogged efforts that carried the day. Crucially, he won the endorsement of the new governor general, Viscount Alexander, who was all too familiar with the regiment’s performance in Italy and personally approached King George VI on its behalf. And he could also count on the fulsome support of The King’s Own Royal Regiment which had been encouraging the change for years.4
Militia Training in the Early Cold War
For the regiment’s members returning from overseas in 1945, the transition to reservist was straightforward, as they were simply asked whether they wished to continue as a regular, join the “militia”/reserves, or be demobilized outright. A fair number chose the second option. Thanks to stocks of tanks, trucks and jeeps left over from the war, training was armour-focused and was carried out at the Mewata Armoury as well as the regiment’s outposts in central Alberta. These included A Squadron in Olds (with detachments in Didsbury, Carstairs and Bowden), B Squadron in Stettler (with detachments in Big Valley and Castor), and C Squadron in Innisfail (with detachments in Red Deer and Condor). There seemed to be plenty of young men (and the necessary cadre of veterans) in central Alberta keen to soldier part-time, and the regiment took advantage of its storied tradition in those areas.5 As always with part-time soldiering, the prospect of earning some additional income was a definite attraction. The regulars’ training area near Wainwright hosted summer (and winter) camps and the Sarcee facilities on the edge of the city could accommodate live-fire exercises.6
Recruiting in both urban and rural areas drew mostly young men in their late teens, accounting for 90 percent of the ranks in 1948. Turnover was high, with men frequently finding they lacked time to train given competing family, employment or other demands. For those who could stay on, retention seemed to depend on the amount of training with actual military hardware the regiment could offer. Here the regiment’s eight Shermans, three Grizzlies, (a Canadian-built version) and single Stuart were priceless assets. Weekend exercises in basic armoured tactics were scheduled as often as could be arranged, and when possible involved other squadrons. And to gain publicity, the regiment became a fixture at “every community effort which they were able to lend their support to.”7 The few weeks of annual summer camp at Wainwright were always a highlight, with the regiment sending 100 members in 1951. That same year several dozen officers and other ranks were able to attend training courses offered by The Lord Strathcona’s Horse either locally or at the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (RCAC) School at Camp Borden, and numbers participated in the army’s own training manoeuvres. During these early years, a steady stream of reservists also drifted off to serve with the regulars.8 Fostering a strong regimental spirit with annual social events like the St. George’s Day celebrations and Brides Dinner also helped to retain members, as did the periodic visits of military and other luminaries which did double duty by heightening the regiment’s profile in the community.9 A good example of the latter occurred in May 1948 when the Indian High Commissioner to Canada, the Hon. H. S. Malik, presented The King’s Own Calgary Regiment with a traditional Mahratta warrior sword gifted by the 1/Mahratta Light Infantry (of the new Indian Army) for “their magnificent support” of its predecessors in the British Indian Army during the Italian Campaign. Dignitaries, members of The KOCR, veterans of the 14th Armoured, in addition to a large turnout of ordinary citizens, jammed Mewata Armoury for the event.10
Acknowledging the Prisoners of War
As the Army and newly established Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) moved quickly to get the freed Dieppe prisoners of war back home, the difficulties these men would encounter over the coming years was underappreciated. Achieving official recognition of their involvement would entail a long struggle, not least with the DVA, an institution which too often behaved more as adversary than advocate.11 The prisoners of the Great War received little sympathy from Canadians who felt such men, being spared the risks of combat, had had an easy time of it. It was different now, for both home front propaganda and the armed forces’ own efforts had stressed that being captured was not dishonourable and POWs had continued to do their duty under trying circumstances. Despite the widespread good intentions, the sense that the country’s 10,000 POWs—including the nearly 200 from the Calgary Regiment—were a group deserving of special attention was lost amid the hundreds of thousands of discharged servicemen (and service women) who all had their own just claims for assistance through the Veterans’ Charter, pensions and other measures.
During the immediate post-war years, many ex-POWs had trouble fitting in and quit the former jobs they’d returned to. Many ex-prisoners of war felt they had to make up for lost time, and often became frustrated when it didn’t happen. A majority were able to settle down, at least to society’s satisfaction, but mostly they had to do it on their own. The serious medical problems rooted in the poor medical care, malnutrition, and callous treatment prisoners had suffered took years to emerge.12 But there were slights the Dieppe prisoners had to endure that ate away at them. For example, Don Craigie always felt it was unfair that Ottawa awarded Dieppe POWs a combat bar for their WWII service medal but not the France–Germany (Campaign) Star.13 And Al Wagstaff felt a stigma as a kriegie that he was never able to shake.14 Similarly, the realization that their experience simply didn’t measure up to the excitement experienced by comrades who’d spent the war fighting and liberating took its toll. This was true even within the otherwise comfortable surroundings of veterans’ reunions. What did the Calgary Regiment’s kriegies know of Motta, San Leonardo, The Gully, Operation Honker, or a host of obscure Italian villages and towns stretching north from Rome across the Arno and into the heart of the Apennines? But that was the war for most of the veterans who gathered around the bar to swap stories, only a relative handful of whom remembered Seaford or Worthing. Life in Lamsdorf or Stargard only held meaning to men who had been there where, as the unthinking (or insensitive) might point out, they had been cut off from the real war.
Less than ten years after the war ended, the struggle to obtain special disability and pension recognition for Canadian prisoners of war was well underway, and by 1952 Ottawa began acknowledging the Hong Kong veterans’ collective claim. But for Dieppe prisoners, individual claims still remained the rule, and even these were only guaranteed if had been imprisoned by the SS or Gestapo, and not the German Army. Thane Campbell’s appointment as chief war claims commissioner began to change attitudes. His report argued convincingly that every Nazi prisoner had suffered maltreatment and deserved a special payment, with additions for incidents such as shackling and forced marches.15 Nevertheless, gaining pension justice remained a slog. When Hong Kong prisoners finally received collective supplements to their pensions (as distinct from lump-sum payments) in 1971, European Theatre prisoners pressed for similar recognition —namely the acceptance that their health problems were caused or aggravated by the conditions they had endured in German POW camps. Given the US had already accepted the principle, medical opinion in Canada and elsewhere endorsed it, and most Canadians were in sympathy, the federal government finally came onboard, though implementation of a fairer system would still take years.16 But for the Dieppe prisoners it had been a long slog, and too many never lived to see their claims validated, though at least their widows and children would gain some benefit.
Fitting in
As the Regina Leader-Post had aptly put it, for the new generation of veterans, coming home meant “the end of one long march and the beginning of another,” the former “strewn with memories” and the latter “shin[ing] bright with hope.”17 For most “vets,” including the hundreds from the Calgary Regiment, the return to civilian life went remarkably smoothly, despite some initial stumbles over the first job or housing. Some knew exactly what they wanted to do, and set about doing it, but for others it wasn’t so clear and they spent time, sometimes quite a bit of time, searching. A survey of Second War veterans completed by DVA in the summer of 1946 indicated 82 percent had already found work, the great majority within two months of their discharge. And in the long run most would enjoy a good life—it was not just the baby boomers who would flourish in post-war Canada, but their parents, too.18
But regardless of how their return to “civvy street” went, in 1945 they were all changed men from the ones who’d enlisted only a few short years earlier. The Veterans Charter and other legislation designed to assist the returning serviceman helped immensely. For those who had left a job to join one of the services, having a guaranteed job to return to was a godsend. And even more so, the smoothly managed transition of the war economy to a peacetime footing.19 Returned men in 1919 could only have dreamed of any of this. Few marriages were strengthened by prolonged separation and very different experiences neither spouse ever fully appreciated. Wives and husbands just “weren’t the same anymore”—a situation both had to accept.20 Many of the regiment’s personnel had only been married a short time before being separated, and almost had to start their marriages anew. There were children they hardly remembered (or were remembered by), and in the case of embarkation leave conceptions, hadn’t seen at all. Whether married or unmarried, some had lost parents and siblings. Others were shocked to realize that the parents of pre-war friends and school chums actually resented them for surviving, when their own sons or brothers had not. Psychological stresses added to the burdens of a great many vets, as physical disabilities did for others.21
Dieppe POW Don Craigie had dreamed of using his wartime gratuity and a loan from the Veterans’ Land Act to start farming but ended up accepting a temporary job as a butcher at Burns Meat Packing in Calgary just to put some money in his pocket. He met an army buddy there and through him, Marybelle, the chum’s sister. The couple fell in love and were married in December 1946. Utilizing the veterans’ hiring preference offered by the federal civil service, Craigie moved on to a job with the Department of Agriculture, where he built a successful career as a meat and livestock health inspector.22 For his part, Fred Ritchie experienced a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions upon demobilization. He had spent over a year as the second-in-command of an armoured regiment, and before that, led a tank squadron. “Civvy street” was bound to be a shock:
I remember the first day back at work [in Montréal] wearing a suit rather than the familiar uniform I’d worn for five years. I felt suddenly anonymous. I had been a junior salesman with Dominion Textile before the war and that was the job I went back to, even though it had no appeal for me [but] I had a growing family to feed.23
Like many combat veterans, finding out that those who’d enjoyed the comforts of the home front had little interest in hearing a veteran’s experiences was disheartening. Nonetheless, capitalizing on his wartime administrative experience, Ritchie steadily advanced at Dominion Textile to become a regional sales manager. Still, the job was gruelling, and both he and his artist wife longed for a calmer and more fulfilling life. In the end he quit the company, and they packed up and moved to Naramata in the Okanagan, where he turned an orchard into a career and relished every minute of it.
The 50/14s
Founded immediately after demobilization in 1919, the 50th Battalion Veterans’ Association thrived during the interwar years, both because it met veterans’ needs and because most lived in or near Calgary and could readily participate if they chose. With the return of the 14th Armoured Regiment veterans, the now middle-aged 50th Battalion men appropriately renamed their group The 50/14 Veterans’ Association, gaining new blood (and relevance), though it is worth noting that Second War veterans proved less likely to join the Legion or regimental associations, or attend reunions, than Great War veterans.24 The membership of the 50/14s was informally divided into several groups. Among Great War veterans, there were two—the 434s or originals, men whose service numbers were drawn from the 50th Battalion’s original allotment (434001–434999), and those who enlisted later in the war.25 Among the latter, many strongly identified with their original battalions, like the 137th. For veterans of the Second War, it was those captured at Dieppe and the “D-Day Dodgers,” with “originals” found in both groups.
By the 1960s age was beginning to thin the ranks of the 50th men. Lt.-Col. Mason, for instance, had passed away in 1966. But Great War veterans continued to dominate the executive of an organization that counted over 400 members, making it one of the most active regimental veterans associations in the country.26 The reunion banquet was the yearly highlight. In 1964 it was held on August 15 at the Palliser Hotel. The program always repeated segments deeply meaningful to the veterans, included a speech to fallen comrades, a wreath ceremony, a minute of silence, and a guest speaker, who in in this case was Brig. Bradbrooke, the regiment’s first CO after it went active. There was also plenty of group singing, mostly wartime favourites with lyrics suitably cleaned up for the spouses and other guests. And of course a dance followed the formalities.
By the mid-1970s the number of Great War veterans attending, mostly due to ill-health or retirement to warmer climes, had shrunk to a mere handful.27 Yet the participation of WWII veterans had declined, too, despite being a generation younger. Moving the reunions to other centres where there were a significant number of regimental “vets” like Red Deer didn’t help noticeably. Those committed to The 50/14 Veterans’ Association, like those committed to the Royal Canadian Legion, had a hard time understanding why an organization that meant so much to them meant much less (or nothing at all) to others. The World War II veterans were also more widely scattered across the country. After the severe losses at Dieppe, the regional identity of the Calgary Regiment eroded steadily with reinforcements coming from everywhere, so that while Albertans always constituted a majority, by 1944–45 it was likely no more than a bare majority. Jim Quinn, who by the early 1990s was serving as a lieutenant general in the Canadian Forces, offered an intriguing perspective on why his generation of veterans might not have felt as drawn to the regimental association. As he viewed it, the nature of an independent tank regiment in the Anglo-Canadian system worked against the sense of regimental loyalty one would observe in an infantry regiment or even an armoured regiment that served in an armoured division. Tactically the former operated as three independent squadrons, often in quite separate actions, and it was inevitable that loyalty and identity would be less focused on the regiment.28
Assessing the vitality of The 50/14 Veterans’ Association as the years passed is a “cup half-full, cup half-empty” situation. Active membership at the end of the century was 246, plus seven widows. There were no veterans of the 50th left—the last, D. C. Archer, having died in October 1994, aged ninety-six.29 The 1998 reunion was held at the Red Deer Legion and by all accounts the 141 attendees had a fine time. As usual, music was provided by the regimental band. One of the highlights was a message Stoney Richardson had sent to his old comrades. There were toasts to the 50th Battalion, the 14th Armoured, and The King’s Own Calgary Regiment, and of course to fallen comrades. And for the twenty-four members who had passed away during the previous year, a moment of silence. When a collection was taken for the Gurkha Relief Fund, wallets were opened wide and undoubtedly memories of grim fighting in the Apennines stirred.30
Remembering
As the veterans returned in 1945, their memories of the war and the role they had played in winning it were only too vivid, and the latter was certainly a source of pride. They missed fallen comrades but at least their lives lay in front of them, in most cases full of promise. Remembering the war in formal and informal ways would come later. From the start, however, the next of kin of the fallen were immersed in remembering. All mothers were awarded the Memorial (or Silver) Cross. Mrs. Emily Hofer, whose son Richard had been killed in Holland in road accident only three weeks before VE Day, had hers approved two months later. But such awards, or compassionate letters from commanding officers (Richardson wrote to the next of kin of every man he lost) stirred up memories, too. Trying to intercede with the Army bureaucracy on behalf of the father of Tpr. William Ferguson, who was killed on 25 November 1944, a local recruiting officer and reserve padre pointedly noted “this boy’s parents have taken the loss of their son very hard and are exceedingly bitter and grieved at heart and now feel it most keenly when his old comrades are returning home.”31 Fortunately, the bureaucratic Gordian knot was cut for most next of kin by the end of 1945. But during the next few years there were periodic reminders of their loss as form letters describing the disinterments and reinterments arrived in the mail. To its credit, the Canadian Army did its best to convey to widows and parents the respectful nature of these stages, and tried to engage them, most notably by requesting personal phrases to be etched on the final gravestones, a tradition inherited from the First World War and much more commonly used by next of kin after 1945.32 Normally, photographs of the permanent resting place were also sent to next of kin. It would be decades before most of these graves could be visited, so the pictures were welcome. The mother of Sgt. Alton Allison, who was killed near Aquino in May 1944 and finally interred at the Cassino Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, received a photograph of her son’s gravesite in the spring of 1948.33 The parents of Tpr. W. M. Childress, who was killed in the San Leonardo fighting, wrote the army in 1948 that they soon hoped to visit the Moro River Cemetery “to pay our respect to our dear son [as] we can do no less than that.” But they also wanted to explore the nearby battlefields where, thanks to information received from several of his comrades, they knew the exact spot where he had lost his life. The army responded adroitly, noting that it was “perhaps somewhat soon for relatives to visit overseas graves, permanent construction work and embellishment of the cemeteries not being very far advanced as yet [but] there are no objections to relatives visiting the graves of their loved ones.”34 Quite understandably, Mr. and Mrs. Childress, who had a modest farm in the High River district, vainly hoped there might be public funds to help defray the cost of their trip.
As the years passed, next of kin and their descendants would begin visiting the cemeteries and battlefields of both World Wars. But it would be several decades before visits by Second War veterans became regular occurrences, some organized by associations like the 50/14s, and others with the assistance of the DVA (more latterly Veterans Affairs Canada). The first major pilgrimages started in the 1960s, but they were to Holland, a theatre that didn’t especially resonate with the 14th’s veterans. Dieppe was an obvious magnet for them, and Vimy for the 50th Battalion survivors who could still manage such long trips. The fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first venture where the federal government made a significant effort to enable numbers of veterans to attend at public expense. Vimy was worth celebrating—it had always been so—but Ottawa’s largesse had more to with the rise of separatism and the severe strains it put on national unity. Commemoration of birth-of-a-nation events, no matter how artificially constructed, were in demand for reasons that overshadowed mere military significance. In 1977, the 50/14 executive put forward Percy Blain, a 50th Battalion scout sergeant in April 1917, to represent their Great War members on that occasion, a pattern that would be repeated for some years.35
Remembering took other forms, and many fell closer to home. Beginning in 1960, Victor Wheeler, one of the 434s, began tracking down other battalion veterans with the intention of writing a combination history/memoir of his and his comrades’ experiences. As he outlined to one of his contacts, his book was “not all going to be murderous fighting, bludgeoning, dying and running blood, horror scenes and the like,” but rather would “have plenty of humour, good-natured fun, and banter, good times … faith [and] hope.” After all, “to write otherwise is not to honour those who did not come back with us [nor would it contribute much] to those who may read about your exploits and mine, and many thousands like us.”36 Wheeler completed the manuscript in 1975, only to be told by every publisher he approached that the story was too long and wouldn’t draw sufficient interest. As military historian Norm Christie has caustically observed, “it was … a travesty that the Canada of 1975 cared so little for the brave Canadians of 1914–1918.”37 Ultimately the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation along with the Alberta-North-West Territories command of the Royal Canadian Legion stepped forward. The 50th Battalion in No Man’s Land reached bookstores in 1980, a year after Wheeler’s death.
There were other instances of organized remembrance of the 50th’s story, each providing an opportunity to educate a public that sorely needed educating. On 2 October 1967, in front of numerous dignitaries and a throng of citizens, a newly constructed bridge over the Elbow River was dedicated in honour of John Pattison, VC. Veterans of the 137th and 50th Battalions had proposed the idea,38 and with the support of local Legion branches and Alderman Roy Farrin’s yeoman efforts on council, they had prevailed.39 That same year members of the 137th Battalion CEF Association erected a memorial honouring their unit. For both initiatives, The King’s Own Calgary Regiment had given its wholehearted support.
How Soon Forgotten—Canadians’ Amnesia About World War II
Perhaps it had to be expected, but the Second World War had hardly ended before the majority of the Canadian public firmly turned their backs on it, leaving it to the veterans and their organizations as well as reserve units to keep the story alive. Unfortunately, what did survive in the national consciousness was generally devoid of context. The best example of this was the Dieppe raid. Despite notable Canadian accomplishments in Normandy, Italy, the North Atlantic and the skies over Germany, it was Dieppe—invariably portrayed as pure bungling and slaughter—that emerged in the public mind as the centrepiece of the Canadian military effort. Apart from being historically inaccurate, the raid’s participants were left understandably bitter at how their sacrifices could be so readily dismissed as pointless. At least remaining Great War veterans could draw solace from their war having given birth to the nation, or so a broad swathe of the public came to believe, with the Canadian Corps’ victories, not its defeats, front and centre.40
Though Not Everyone Forgot
As the years passed, though, individual veterans of both conflicts—and through them their former comrades—were reminded of their impact as liberators. News of Wheeler’s efforts to produce a history of the 50th Battalion somehow managed to reach a Flemish school master in the Passchendaele area. He wrote to Wheeler in 1971, reminding him of the orphan who had hung around their huts after the fighting had ended, and how the soldiers had fed and clothed him. Wheeler couldn’t remember the youngster—such events had not been uncommon—but he was quite overwhelmed that the boy had never forgotten his and his mates’ kindness.41
Sometimes the regiment’s men were remembered not just by individuals they’d touched but whole communities. Such was the case with Ede in the Netherlands, whose liberation in April 1945 had been the 14th’s final action. Advancing on the town with British infantry, Lt. Jack Forrest’s C Squadron tank had been knocked out by an anti-tank round that killed Tpr. R. H. Hofer. To commemorate the 45th anniversary of their town’s liberation, Ede’s citizens, a majority of whom had not even been born in 1945, were determined to mark the event in some lasting way. Funds were raised to build a memorial honouring both the Royal Scots Fusiliers and the Calgary Regiment. It would include a Sherman painstakingly restored as Lt. John Davies’ tank Cougar by members of the 8th Canadian Hussars stationed on NATO duty in West Germany. Davies, along with Dick Maltby, another veteran of the assault, and Lt.-Col. A. F. McIntosh, a former CO of The KOCR, represented the regiment at the dedication. Though the Dutch were known for never forgetting those who had freed them, the three men were overwhelmed by the gratitude they were shown.42 Over the years, veterans travelling to Italy would receive equally heart-warming welcomes.
The Honorary Colonel Presents a Guidon
During the winter of 1957–58, Ottawa authorized all reserve regiments to acquire new regimental colours or (for armoured regiments) guidons. Since The KOCR’s guidon would bear their battle honours, choosing theirs for World War II could no longer be put off. This task fell to the then commanding officer, Lt.-Col. A. F. McIntosh, and his second-in-command, Maj. Jack Hunter. It is not clear whether the surviving wartime commanding officers were consulted, as had been the case after World War I. The ten selected from DND’s permitted list included Dieppe, San Leonardo, the Gustav Line, the Trasimene Line, Sicily 1943, Cassino II, the Liri Valley, Arezzo, Italy 1943–45 and North West Europe, 1942–45.43 By rule, the entire regimental cap badge could not be emblazoned on the guidon, so it was decided to include the City of Calgary steer, the Big Horn ram, and the family crest of Gen. Frank Worthington, the father of Canadian armour.44
With the guidon’s design fixed, it remained to decide who might present it. A royal tour was scheduled for the summer of 1959, and since Queen Elizabeth II had assumed the role of the regiment’s colonel-in-chief after her father’s death, it was arranged she would present the new guidon personally at the same Victoria ceremony where the regular army’s 1/PPCLI received their new colours. Inevitably, the PPCLI ceremony took precedence, but in her address she praised both equally for their gallant service in two world wars, reminding them that:
The battle honours which are emblazoned on your new Colours and Guidon commemorate this service, and will remind you, and those who come after you, of the spirit of loyalty and devotion which have marked your famous regiments. They will keep before you the memory and the example of your gallant dead. I entrust these new Colours to your keeping, confident that you will always preserve them in honour and uphold the great tradition of which they are the symbol.45
Despite the regiment’s modest role in the ceremonies, it remained a great honour, not to mention a glamorous ritual of the sort reserve units, with their generally bland, underappreciated existence, understandably revelled in. More than anything, it stirred regimental pride and camaraderie.46
Whither the Army, Whither the Reserves?
In 1952 The KOCR’s strength totalled an impressive 334 active officers and men, plus thirteen COTC officer cadets and six regular force NCOs permanently attached as trainers. Keenness was never a problem, but for many balancing reserve duty with employment and/or family responsibilities was. Calgary’s (and Alberta’s) economy was entering a boom period fuelled by the development of the oil and gas industry which, despite periodic “busts,” would see employment prospects throughout the province soar over the coming decades. It was a mixed blessing for the reserves. For those who embraced part-time soldiering, training comprised basic and special-to-corps (i.e. armoured) work, but with the regiment spread out across central Alberta, co-ordinating this and maintaining a sense of regimental identity presented major challenges.47 Still, it was a great morale booster to work with some actual (if dated) tanks even if maintaining them was becoming a growing burden.48 The modest field training reserve units could undertake left commanding officers constantly seeking additional budget allotments so more of their men could participate. While the army’s Western Command helped when it could, meal allowances had to be diverted to cover pay shortfalls, with the men bringing their own food. Even money for fuel had to be conjured out of mysterious regimental sources. It was shades of the 1920s and 30s for those old enough to remember. The 1954 review of the regiment’s Calgary establishment approvingly noted that “the calibre of the man in the ranks was very satisfactory, the officers and NCOs are of good calibre and a good unit spirit was noticeable, [and] the standard of training appears to be good.”49 A year later, active strength was 290 all ranks, sixty-three of whom participated in the week-long reserve camp at Wainwright.
The footprint in central Alberta, however, was becoming worrisome. A Squadron in Olds was the exception, turning out 151 for their annual Remembrance church parade in 1954. But for C Squadron in Red Deer, which had several troops scattered in surrounding communities, the story was far less rosy, as was also true for B Squadron, based in Stettler and Coronation, where numbers had been falling rapidly.50 Maj.-Gen. Chris Vokes, now the GOC Western Command, was convinced the wages and mobility of oil employment was at fault, and the reserves certainly couldn’t fight that. He pointed to Stettler, with a population of 3,000, where there were only a dozen boys attending high school. At the same time the booming economy meant local businessmen, who were often officers, simply couldn’t spare the time. No one had attended summer camp for two years, and at his most recent inspection only two officers and five other ranks had shown up. B Squadron was shifted to Calgary with the expectation that recruiting in a larger centre would be better—which turned out to be the case as 120 officers and men paraded at the following year’s inspection. A single troop from C Squadron was transferred to Stettler to maintain some presence in the area.51
Some of the efforts to stir recruiting and keep the reserves in the public eye were quite imaginative, including raising a twelve-strong mounted group garbed in lancers’ dress uniforms who could appear at all the regiment’s public events. The newly appointed commanding officer, Lt.-Col. W. A. Howard, a rising star in Calgary legal circles, put the case directly to Maj.-Gen. Vokes:
Realistically, it is not so much the matter of carrying on a tradition, but the very practical and immediate purpose of adding more color and zest to the Regiment in its appeal to the young people and as a very positive attraction and aid in recruiting. While naturally assistance from the Army would be most desirable, nevertheless we are prepared to carry the project.52
No fan of the reserves, Vokes passed the request on to Ottawa without a recommendation, merely observing that The KOCR had no cavalry tradition. Ottawa offered neither spare saddlery, uniforms nor funding, but Howard forged ahead anyway. When the mounted unit debuted in the spring of 1955, Calgary media gave it prominent coverage, but Vokes was furious, lashing out at the “polyglot uniforms” (the men were wearing their regular dress uniforms and black RCAC berets) and “flagrant disregard” for traditions.53 Though highly popular with the public, which after all was the point, the experiment enjoyed a brief life. By 1956, the total strength of The KOCR stood at just over 300 men and while in gradual decline, it wasn’t yet a cause for worry. The regiment’s attendance at the Wainwright summer camp, always a bell-weather of Alberta reserve units’ health, was a robust 121.54
While the reserves felt themselves successful, certainly given the constraints they faced, the army’s senior command disagreed. When 27 Brigade, Canada’s initial contribution to NATO, had been cobbled together in 1951 almost entirely from reservists, the army had been shocked to find they required as much training as raw recruits off the street, and hadn’t forgotten.55 By 1952, the chief of the general staff, Lt.-Gen. Guy Simonds, considered that due to administrative and training inefficiencies, the reserves were failing in their primary task—producing the combat-ready soldiers needed for any rapid expansion of the army. The existence of numerous understrength reserve units hampered overall training, recruitment and retention, and each deficiency fed the others in a vicious circle. Virtually all senior regular force officers shared Simonds’ low opinion, including the CO of Western Command under whose administrative oversight The KOCR functioned. Not surprisingly, Vokes dismissed the reserves a “wasteful, top-heavy and outmoded organization” plagued with too many anemic units and a pathetic training record, and noted that it was high time to disband the numerous failing units.56 Yet as Vokes lamented, “the great snag [in attempting to do so] with certain armoured and infantry units is that we run smack into … the locally named [or ethnically based—namely Scottish, regiments], all of which have built up traditions in peace and war” and would command strong public and political support.57
The convictions of reserve inadequacy led to the 1954 Kennedy Report,58 which outlined ways unit training could be improved and the whole enterprise made more cost effective. A smattering of modest but useful reforms followed. Chronically understrength units would be amalgamated, absorbed or simply shut down, but the regimental system would be retained. To supply the modest numbers of trained soldiers now expected by the army, basic training in the reserves would be extended to four years but given the steady turnover of part-timers in the ranks, this would produce fewer, not more, trained men. Moreover, senior reserve officers feared that accepting what amounted to inferior training standards would open the door for the army to provide inferior training equipment.59 Even with the reforms mandated, DND’s opinion remained fundamentally unchanged: the reserves would still operate with a bloated, inefficient organization and fail to train their men to a satisfactory standard.60
Speaking in the House of Commons in June 1956, the Liberal minister of national defence, Ralph Campney, made clear the federal government’s view of what constituted Cold War military preparedness:
The fact is, today, [war] is far too complex and too technical a matter to be left to the amateurs—only professionally trained and experienced servicemen can cope quickly with the weapons and tactics of modern war. To meet our commitments … we must provide forces in being, completely trained, equipped and immediately ready.61
Later in the year, Lt.-Gen. Charles Foulkes, chairman of the Chiefs of Staff committee, confirmed where DND stood, opining that “it is going to be increasingly difficult to justify … expenditure … on a force [for] which we cannot clearly demonstrate any need that appears very realistic.”62
A New Task for the Reserves
In December 1956, Brig. W. A. B. Anderson was commissioned to conduct yet another study of the organization, namely, equipping and training of the Canadian reserves. NATO’s adoption of massive (nuclear) retaliation in place of conventional force as its deterrent policy reinforced the forces-in-being view.63 From Anderson’s perspective—which also happened to be the army’s—only a fraction of reservists would ever be sufficiently trained to reinforce regular units, with the remainder providing a partly-trained civil defence force to be deployed if Canada suffered an atomic attack.64 Because this new role wouldn’t require their being trained or equipped for operations in the field, the reserves’ budget could be reduced. And so could the demands on the army for training assistance. On the other hand, the thinner the training regimen, the more likely the keenest men would drift away. And while the regimental structure would survive, the institution of the reserves would have to fundamentally change its identity.65
Released in early 1957, the Anderson Report was embraced by the army, which saw its role as fighting wars, not digging Canadian civilians out of radioactive rubble.66 By and large the reserves’ leadership accepted it, too, for despite some yawning questions, the recommendations at least gave their units a clear role, and hence justified their existence. However, the timing could not have been worse since in June 1957, after twenty-two years out of power, the Progressive Conservatives under John Diefenbaker won a minority government that only nine months later they turned into a smashing majority. The new defence minister, George Pearkes, had won a Victoria Cross in World War I, and neither he nor his colleagues had been consulted by the army on any of these policy changes. Pearkes was sympathetic to the reserves, but he also saw the wisdom of their proposed civil defence role. And like most federal politicians he wanted to avoid stirring up a political hornet’s nest in the form of the “militia lobby.”67
In 1958 the Conservative government made official its intention “to provide a trained nucleus [of] militia units capable of assisting Civil Defence Organizations in the event of a national disaster or emergency.”68 In other words, a nuclear World War III. At long last, here was a role for the reserve forces in sync with Ottawa’s appreciation of Canada’s military priorities. Senior army ranks were convinced that the reserves would resent their new mandate as insufficiently military, given, as one senior army officer put it dismissively, they were always “ready to lick their weight in wildcats.”69 Resentment there was, but not over the civil defence mandate per se, for the reserves/militia had a history not being consulted by the regulars and then being given roles without the resources to carry them out. There was, of course, inevitable disappointment among the junior officer and enlisted ranks over the obvious dilution of their traditional military role.
Training for Armageddon
During these tumultuous few years, the regiment, now formally called The King’s Own Calgary Regiment (RCAC), managed to soldier on. By 1958, however, the presence in central Alberta had appreciably weakened. A lone troop of the now Calgary-based B Squadron remained in Olds and a much understrength C Squadron in either Red Deer or (one troop) Innisfail. A Squadron was now based entirely in Calgary. The combined strength at year’s end amounted to thirty-two officers, eighty-two non-commissioned officers, and 132 men. However, it was a worrying sign that a mere eighteen had been able to attend the June camp at Wainwright. That year’s St. George’s Day celebration, which coincided with the annual inspection, saw 120 all ranks parade in the city.70 In 1959, DND relocated The South Alberta Light Horse from Calgary (and its various outposts east of the city) to Medicine Hat, with The KOCR’s A Squadron taking their place in Gleichen and Strathmore.71 Concentrating The KOCR in Calgary and its immediate area, which it would now only have to share with the Calgary Highlanders, offered better recruiting prospects.
That same year, the Diefenbaker government formalized aiding the civil power in the aftermath of a nuclear war as the reserves’ principal role. In fact it had been the regiment’s guiding principle for a year, though Lt.-Col. McIntosh was quick to point out that armoured corps training had continued, albeit at a reduced pace. The KOCR’s CO was putting an optimistic gloss on things, for starting in 1958, the infantry, armoured and artillery units comprising the bulk of the Canadian reserve forces no longer received instruction in their combat specialization from regular force personnel. With this change, the disheartening process of surrendering the bulk of their related military equipment had commenced.72
Greggsville
Training of reserve units for nuclear civil defence was in full swing by the summer of 1959, with countless strategies and syllabi arriving on CO’s desks from Ottawa. Injured pride aside, the 280-odd officers and men of The KOCR did their duty. The week-long assembly at Camp Sarcee, which focused on national survival, attracted a single officer and four other ranks from the regiment, while a dozen other ranks were able to attend a course on bulldozer operations at Camp Chilliwack. In both instances, the attendees were to return as instructors.73 Amid the whirlwind changes being imposed on everyone, Her Majesty’s presentation of their new regimental guidon mentioned earlier was a welcome reminder of their proud roots.74
Although dark days lay ahead, the publicity their new mandate generated in Calgary initially proved a spur to recruiting (and retention). Parade strength rose to 357 in 1960, with seventeen officers and ninety-one other ranks participating at Wainwright and three officers completing the Militia Officers Staff Course. But the great achievement of Lt.-Col. I. H. Dearness’ first year in command was undoubtedly the construction of Greggsville75 on a parcel of unused land at Sarcee Camp. Through spring and early summer, numerous local reserve personnel volunteered their weekends and evenings to help construct the training site, with The KOCR providing the largest contingent. Its aging Shermans even provided the bulk of the motive power needed to drag various derelict structures into position. Once completed, Greggsville was suitably apocalyptic, with two streets of faux bombed buildings, each partly demolished so its interior replicated a rescue scenario, and the surrounding area littered with burned cars, trucks, and every sort of debris.76 As a training facility it proved first rate, and the army could not complain about the cost, which was next to nothing.
Within a year, the reserves’ role changed again when the Diefenbaker government de-emphasized the civil defence focus, partly because of the reserves’ general unhappiness with it and partly because US/NATO doctrine shifted away from massive nuclear retaliation to a more flexible response that required a conventional warfare capability.77 In 1963 voters put the Liberals, with their much-ballyhooed plans for armed forces unification, back into power. While the new regime trumpeted more effective, co-ordinated defence policies, it was the promise of considerable savings in the defence budget that worried the reserves. Under the new defence framework they would take up various roles augmenting the army’s domestic role, of which aid to the civil power was but one. Talk of increasing the reserves’ combat readiness was generally seen for what it was—political posturing to calm the disgruntled (and still politically feared) “militia lobby.” The reserves’ authorized strength was cut almost by half, with cutbacks, amalgamations and outright disbandment of a number of units as well as the shuttering of armouries following. Finally, most telling of all, DND abolished all reserve headquarters, leaving command and administration to be handled by Army District Headquarters, with senior reserve officers henceforth acting as mere advisers.78
A Regimental Postscript
From the 1960s onward, along with the rest of the Canadian reserve units, The King’s Own Calgary Regiment would endure arguably its greatest trials. As an informal history of the regiment written in 1985 noted sardonically, “the past twenty-five years … have been noteworthy in terms of the Regiment surviving the several reorganizations of the Militia in Canada.” 79 Indeed, repeated role changes and reduced budgets would do much harm. Nor was their situation helped by the apathy exhibited by the majority of the Canadian public toward matters military, particularly during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.80 When Lt.-Col. L. A. Gilchrist assumed command in 1972, The KOCR’s strength had plummeted to eleven officers and ninety-four other ranks, and two months later it stood at fifty-eight all ranks, this despite an intensive recruiting effort. This marked the nadir, but despite a gradual recovery, recruitment and parading numbers remained chronically low.81 The problems historically plaguing militia/reserve units—members’ inability to balance jobs/careers, education, and family commitments with part-time military service to the inevitable cost of the latter—were insoluble. This, along with shortages of modern equipment and unclear (and frankly often unappealing) roles, undermined training, morale, and recruitment and retention efforts.82 The primary civil defence role faded away by 1965, with The KOCR reverting to armoured training with its aged (but much loved) Shermans until these were taken away two years later. Thereafter the role shifted to reconnaissance (using jeeps) and then, beginning in 1979, back to the armoured role, although in practice a mix of the two continued even after they acquired a handful of Cougar light armoured vehicles in 1981.83
The 1960s also saw the end of the regiment’s scattered outposts, and its concentration in Calgary as A (operational) and B (training) Squadrons. In 1979 Ottawa substantially increased the authorized strength (from 157 to 226). Funding realities often prevented the regiment recruiting to the new ceiling (or carrying out desired training), though it did make it possible to add a headquarters squadron.84 In 1981 negotiations between the Tsuut’ina Nation and DND culminated in the loss of the Sarcee training facilities, a major blow to all Southern Alberta’s reserve units since live-fire and other critical field training now required them to use the regular army’s facilities at Wainwright or Suffield.85 Still, it was not all setbacks. From the 1970s onward the regiment took advantage of the opportunities for those of their officers and other ranks to fill “call-outs” (officially called augmentation) for the regular force. These included tours in UN peace-keeping operations or with the Canadian Army in Germany, as well as stints in Canada with The Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), the armoured school at Camp Borden or DND Headquarters in Ottawa.86 As declining defence budgets squeezed the regular force, such opportunities steadily increased, especially in the post–Cold War years. Of course as was always true for part-time soldiers, only those who could temporarily free themselves from their other obligations were able to take up such opportunities.87 Interestingly, despite the initial gap between reservists’ and regulars’ training, a gap regularly used to dismiss reservists’ competence, the Canadian Forces admitted that after both groups completed three months of pre-deployment training, there was no observable difference in their efficiency. While it didn’t eliminate the superior attitude of regulars, it had a positive impact on many. It was also brought home to the Canadian Forces that reservists brought skills that were otherwise in short supply. Impressively, during the 1990s, reservists made up one-sixth of the soldiers sent on overseas missions, and there was a comparable involvement in domestic deployments such as disaster relief, although sadly this received little public acknowledgement.88 Among those keen to take up these opportunities were The KOCR’s female officers and other ranks. The country’s changing human rights framework required that the regular forces gradually open up the full gamut of opportunities to women. The reserves had followed suit in 1970, to their credit often showing more open-mindedness than their Canadian Forces peers when it came to integrating female personnel.89
While the regiment’s annual reports during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries invariably commented that “there were no major changes in function, organization [or] equipment,” the record in taking up augmentation roles was impressive.90 For example, in 1988–89, ten members (out of a regimental strength of 145) participated in peace-keeping operations in Cyprus, while in 1994 twenty-two served in UN operations in the former Yugoslavia, with many others following as part of a succession of UN/NATO involvements there.91 Since the governments of the day preferred it that way, few Canadians understood how frequently these so-called “peace enforcement” operations could and did degenerate into fighting. This was followed by Afghanistan where combat was the norm and the public knew it, and where several dozen KOCR members served with distinction as individual soldiers in regular units, but always proudly representing their home regiment. A few were badly wounded, including Cpl. Mark Fuchko, who lost both legs when the tank he was driving was blown up by a roadside IED in 2008. A year earlier, Cpl. Nathan Hornburg was killed by a Taliban mortar round as he tried to repair the damaged track of an armoured recovery vehicle, becoming the first member of the regiment to be killed in action since 1945. And there were other, more traditional peace-keeping and -monitoring operations, equally demanding if nominally less dangerous. Maj. Joseph Howard participated in two of these, first in 2000 as a military observer in the Republic of the Congo and subsequently in 2005 as part of Operation Safari in war-ravaged Sudan.92 There’s no question that the participants in these deployments made notable contributions to their country and humanity, but at the same the extended absence of some of the best officers and other ranks placed a heavy strain on the regiment whose strength—the band excluded—generally hovered between 100 and 150.93
Conclusion
The fifteen years following the end of the Second World War exhibited many parallels with as well as some significant differences from the regiment’s interwar years experience. Although far from perfect, the demobilization of the new wave of veterans and their subsequent reintegration into civilian life was generally well planned and executed. The hundreds of men from the Calgary Regiment (along with their current and future families) benefited from this, as did the rest of the nation. Similarly, the sustained efforts of former Canadian POWs, including the 170-odd members of the regiment captured at Dieppe, eventually won pension justice for that group. The bonding of Second War veterans with their Great War predecessors in the 50/14 Association was as successful as could have reasonably been expected. Members quietly provided emotional comfort and material assistance to other veterans in need and devoted themselves to completing the memorialization of their own and their former comrades’ achievements on the battlefields of two world wars. While there was little they could do to reverse the growing disinterest of post-war generations in their country’s military history, they never ceased trying.
And what of the regiment itself? The post-war decade and a half principally covered in this account saw The King’s Own Calgary Regiment quickly revert to reserve status. As bleak as funding and public esteem were during the interwar years, at least the militia had known its purpose—to mobilize as part of a major expeditionary force. Such clarity was lacking during the Cold War years. With both the regular army and government embracing a forces-in-being doctrine, there would be no mass mobilization in the nuclear age. Merely being the repositories of the country’s military tradition and the army’s supposed footprint in the community didn’t justify diverting even modest resources to the reserves. From the 1950s onward, investigation followed investigation, with the recommendations mostly circling around perceived problems or gathering dust. Ottawa never came to grips with the simple truth that units comprised of part-time citizen soldiers by their very nature couldn’t achieve a standard of readiness matching that of full-time professionals, no matter the organizational framework or level of funding. So the reserves slowly withered away through lack of resources, and then were blamed for their inadequate state. The adoption of the civil defence role—distinctly unmilitary and broadly unpopular within the reserves—sums up the woes of an institution in search of a purpose which ultimately would be decided by others.94
The officers and men of The King’s Own Calgary Regiment quite literally soldiered on from 1945 through 1960, doing their best to play a series of poor hands dealt by Ottawa. All manner of sacrifices were made by citizens who chose to serve their country through part-time soldiering. Their achievement needs to be judged by the environment in which they had to do it—from the demands of their civilian lives to inadequate training infrastructure, parsimonious budgets, an inevitably strained relationship with the defence establishment, and public disinterest. In that light, they gave their best, which is all Canadians had any right to ask.