WW2 Canadian Artillery Vehicle Markings.

[Dan Martel]

Rob,

What I've always understood it to be, and this would be for the mid to late war War Establishment of a three battery field regiment with 24 guns, is that the six troops of the regiment were lettered independently from A Troop to F Troop. A and B Troop would belong to the senior battery through to E and F Troop in the junior battery. (Battery seniority was solely dependent upon the battery's number and not its history.)

Each gun within a troop was also allocated a letter; from A to D. So, gun AA was the first gun in the first troop of the senior firing battery. Gun CB was the second gun of the first troop of the intermediate battery. Gun FD was the fourth gun in the second troop of the junior battery.

However I think you are correct when you state that at different time periods, and maybe even in different theatres, the system could have been different. I know you wanted documentary proof which, if I find, I will pass on.

Cheers,
Dan.

[rob love]

Dan (and Ed): It is documentry proof that I am looking for, as opposed to modern books.

I went through a lot of the google images of Canadian Artillery during WWll, and found primarily the Apla-Numeric style, such as B1. But I have not been able to see enough photos of guns or tractors to form a solid opinion.

I did not see any photos of the single letter type, where the battery would be indicated by the small red square, and the guns identifier would indicate which troop (1 troop =A,B,C,&D, 2 troop=E,F,G,andH). This format is shown on Micheal Dorosh's canadiansoldiers.com site: http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/vehi...ticalsigns.htm

Hoping for more input from those in the know.

[Ed Storey]

Beldam's book does describe how the markings changed over time and according to which theatre they were being used.

[rob love]

Thanks Ed, that will be the info I am looking for. I think I saw a few pages of his book on the net, but not enough to form an opinion.

Where does one find this book?

Edited to add: Found his site and have sent him an email. Apparently he will reprint copies as ordered, and they include new information.

[servicepub (RIP)]

See if you can locate CAMT 4-2-1 in the RCA library as it has drawings of markings.
Clive

[rob love]

Thanks Clive, I'll have a look for it.

I shot Barry Beldam an email, and haven't heard anything back yet. On looking some more, I can't be sure whether he is still selling copies or not. I found one web page which still had the paypal and shopping cart format all set up to order, another page with higher prices but only mailing address and email contact, and then another webpage showing that they are all out of print.

[Ed Storey]

Rob:

I will see if I can get ahold of him for you.

ED