[servicepub (RIP)]

David,

I do not pretend to be knowleldgeable about this subject, I just happen to be the person who read PART of the war diaries.
I think that some things should be put into perspective; manufacture of vehicles in Canada (in excess of 900,000) for which the Army was called upon to assist in the assembly of several thousand in the early stages of the war; shipment of 'knocked down' vehicles to the UK where, again, the Canadian Army was required to assist in assembly - possibly at two different times 1940 and again in 1943? - and at two or three different locations - Slough, Southampton and Borden. Is this correct?
Time permitting I wil return to Archives and read through the whole files but this involves hundreds of pages and I only get there for an hour/week.
I also understand the frustration you must be feeling. You are looking for specific information but, in many cases, the Unit diarist is a proponent of 'less is best' with many daily entries limited to weather and personnel deployments. There will be records somewhere (probably DDME records) which will show types and quantities but these are yet to be found - although there is a CMHQ file which deals with vehicle assembly but this appears to have disappeared in the past couple of years.
As to copies. I don't like to spend other people's money. What may be of interest to me could be of no value to you at all and at CDN$0.40/page the cost of photocopies mounts very quickly.

Mark
1. I do not have the relevant GO and the Serial is not listed in my book.
2. Mea culpa, the reference to Serial 229 is that found in the War Diary, it was my error to say that the Unit was the Essex when I saw that every page was marked Ontario Regiment - in fact the diary even makes a comment about receiving brass "OR" shoulder badges which the Regiment did not find acceptable.
I will be looking at the Essex Regt War Diary also.