23rd Field Regiment, RCA, 83rd Artillery Division

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Cheryl England

(2) does anyone know whether a person would be moved from the 31st to the 83rd...don't know why he didn't stay with the 31st??

3) In Eric's military record it said he was a "signaller" (he took a signals course in Barriefield, Ont.). Does anyone know what a "signaller" is or does???

4) Also in Eric's record it said he drove a motorcycle for 16 months - again does anyone know whether this would be part of a "signallers" role???

5) Does anyone know what model/make of motorcycles would have been driven during WW2 by the Canadians. I heard it
was a Triumph, but not sure.

5) Is a "battery" the same thing as a "battalion"

6) In Eric's war documents it says "83 Tr Art Div". I'm assuming
that "Art" means Artillery and "Div" means Division, but what does
"Tr" stand for..does anyone know?

7) If anyone has any info on the 83rd battery or 23rd Field Regiment, and this is a stretch, but if there's any Vets. that
knew my dad - I would love to hear from you.
Many thanks for any assistance.

Cheryl,

(2) The reasons for postings between units are many, from personal preferences (finding out a buddy was in another unit...) to administrative purposes (special skills required, disclipinary reasons etc...).

(3) As previously explained, artillery units absolutely require communication between the observer and the gun position in order to properly (and safely) direct artillery fire.

(4) A lot of signallers were also awarded the duty of Dispatch Riders (DR) or Special Dispatch Service (SDS) and motorcycles were a cheap, quick and effective means of passing orders and instructions, or to jack up a unit that had not yet run its communications lines to the next higher command post. SDS and DR were some of the favourite targets for snipers, so the job was quite dangerous and required really good navigation skills.

(5) The motorcycle experts in this and other forums can answer this question.

(5a) A battery was a sub-unit of an artillery regiment. A battery consists of a number of troops and each troop consists of a number of guns (depending upon the unit type). A battalion may be equivalent to regiment or a regiment may contain a number of battalions (i.e. The Royal Canadian Regiment has three regular force battalions). It all depends upon the formation the unit is in and the role of the formation. The Canadian Gunner world still uses Regiment, Battery, Troop and Section to describe its unit/sub-unit structure.

(6) Interesting abbreviations - more info is required on this one...Mike C? You out there?

(7) You may wish to visit the local library to look up Gunners of Canada Volume II The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery from 1919 - 1967. It is "the" book on Gunner history.

Good luck with your research!