Re: 7th Medium Regiment, Canadian Artillery??
Hi JTF,
I've been looking for info on the 7th (this is just the 1st) so will still add here if you like:
The Gunners of Canada Vol II Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, C.D.
Page 122-123
From 5th Army Field Brigade to 5th Army Field Regiment, to 21st Army Field Regiment, to 7th Army Field Regiment, to 7th Medium Regiment – that was the success of designations given to the unit that would complete the roster of designations given to the unit that would complete the roster of Canadian medium regiments in the Second World War. Its war story begins with the mobilization of four Ontario N.P.A.M. field batteries on 1 September 1939 – the 12th from London, the 45th (Howitzer) from Lindsay, the 97th from Walkerton, and the 100th from Listowel. The four met in May 1940, when the 5th Army Field Brigade concentrated at Petawawa under Lt.-Col. G .H. Ellis. On 1 June came reorganization into the 5th Army Field Regiment, the four batteries being paired into two 12-gun batteries. But because the new designation caused confusion with that of the 5th Field Regiment, it was changed in July to the 21st Field Regiment – and a month later to the 7th Army Field Regiment.
In February 1941 reorganization to conform with the British War Establishment for a field regiment left the unit with three 8-gun batteries (the 12th, 45th and 97th) – the 100th Battery taking personnel left over from the shuffle to become part of the 4th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, then forming for the 3rd Division…In late June a week-long journey by road took the 7th Army Field to Sussex, to train under command of Headquarters R.C.A. 3rd Division. After a frustrating two-month wait for shipping space to become available, the Regiment sailed from Halifax in November 1941. For its first “static” camp in England, the unit took over Dunley Hill from the 1st Survey Regiment (which, it is reported, surrendered the muddy site with no regrets.) In the next two and a half years the unit was to occupy half a dozen semi-permanent stations in southern England. The most prolonged stay was a the camp in the woods outside Oxted – a site to be long remembered from the amount of labour expended in putting down tons of rubble into the mud to make roads and firm wagon line and vehicle standings. In the late summer of 1943 the 7th Army Field found itself attached to the 5th Armoured Division, and rumours went around that it would accompany that formation overseas. But such was not to happen. Early in November orders reached Lt.-Col. W. J. Myatt – he had succeeded Colonel Ellis as C.O. in June 1942 – that the unit would be converted to a medium regiment. The reduction to two batteries meant the end of the 97th Field Battery. The 25-pounders were turned in, not without regret, and were replaced by the 5.5.s of the 5th Medium Regiment, which was off to the Mediterranean. The conversion may be said to have been complete when, in the words of the regimental historian: “We came to think of the 25-pounders as mechanized hat badges, and it wasn’t long before a really true feeling arouse between the gunner and his great big gun.”
Also, on page 290 it says, "Some indicators of the artillery's contribution in 'Charnwood' appears in the fact that the first 24 hours of the ooperation involved the handling of no less than 27,000 lb of sells at each gun of the Canadian divisional artillery. As always, the work of the R.C.A.S.C. in supplying such huge quantities of ammuniton had been magnificent."
From all I've been reading, often the difference between carrying on an action or being able to have a battle plan approved was whether there could be sufficient supplies sustained. Maybe its because I'm always in a "support" role in my work that I appreciate that the guns couldn't do their job without the ammunition or the tires or the multitude of other items they needed. Sometimes the guns would actually glow red from the firing, and it would be necessary. I expect that there wasn't a gunner in those regiments who didn't appreciate the RCASC attached to them.
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