1st Medium Regiment RCA

[Philip,ABRG]

Can anyone tell me in which places in Holland the fought?
Thanks

[macrusk]

In the Gunners of Canada it mentions the 1st Medium Regiment, along with the 2nd, and 5th Medium Regiments being in action on Easter Day near Elst on the Nijmegen "island," in support of Operation "Destroyer". It mentions "As batteries settled into their positions, veterans of the Italian Campaign, long accustomed to roughing it in tents and home-made bivvies, were agreaably surprised at the rlative magnificence of their accommodation in abandoned houses." As the 1st Medium was with the 1st Canadian Division, I assume that they were also in Apeldoorn.

[Philip,ABRG]

Thanks for the info MIchelle

[Tom Canning]

Michelle/ Phillip ....
Strange..... I cannot find a listing for 1st Med RCA in 1st Inf Div landing in Sicily - nor at Cassino or Liri Valley - not even with 5th Armoured Div - don't think they were at the Gothic either although I can't find a decent listing for that Battle = they may have just joined when 1st & 5th got to Belgium in Feb '45..although your message states that they were in Italy - in tents etc..... ?

Looks as if all the 1st & 5th had in Italy were field regts - some from RCHA
Cheers

[Owen]

Weren't Medium Regiments at Corps Level?

[Tom Canning]

Owen -
of course your'e right as Mediums were the 4.5 and 5.5 big guns - it appears that they went out with 5th Armoured Div in Nov '43 although 5th and 7th medium appear to get all the type space - 5th Armoured Div then joined up with 1st Inf Div to make a corps - much to Monty's disgust as he didn't need another bunch of staff wallahs and their first battle was at Ortona where they met up with the German 1st Para Div - the three Mediums appear to have joined 1st AGRA and fought their way up until going off to the South of France up to Belgium catching up with the rest of the Canadian Divisions - 2nd - 3rd inf. and 4th Armoured in 2nd Corps making the 1st Canadian army - along with the Polish Divs.
Cheers

[macrusk]

Hi Tom and Phillip,

For the past 4 or so hours I've been going through The Gunners of Canada typing up all the entries on the 1st Medium Regiment - starting from mobilization. So far I'm on page 15 and I'm just going into the breaking of the Hitler Line. I'll be going on to finish through NW Europe. It's apparent that there is not much out there about this Artillery Regiment.

Tom, these artillery regiments were treated despicably by the powers that be - particularly on their arrival in Sicily and Italy. They were told by the War Office that they would be supplied by the departing British units and not to bring equipment and upon arrival there were no quarters or preparations for them, no equipment, and when they did get it it was equipment on its last legs - sometimes having been swapped with other units for their rejects to pass to the Canadians.

The 1st Medium Regiment was actually the first of the Medum Regiments in combat - for most of December it was in action with US 5th Army at Cassino. And in the footnote:
The only recognition by the Fifth Army History of the attachment of the 1st Medium Regiment is an oblique reference in a table of ammunition expenditures which records among the “VI Corps Supporting Fires” for the 48-hour period ending 1800 hours, 4 December 1943, out of a total of 18,586 rounds for the whole Corps, 489 rounds fired by sixteen 5.5-inch guns”

Anyhow, I'll post in a series - hopefully there are no rules here regarging how many posts I use up in a thread to add this information. The initial ones may lack the glamour of combat but show the training and time spent in England.

[macrusk]

From The Gunners of Canada by Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, C.D.

Shortly after the outbreak of war the British Government had asked Canada to supply certain technical unites in addition to an infantry division. The original list of some 6,000 troops included no artillery; but in November General McNaughton, stressing the desirability of having the 1st Canadian Division well supported by Canadian ancillary troops in a “balanced” force, asked that some artillery units be added. The revised British list sent to Canada on 18 November 1939 included a regiment of medium artillery, and an army field regiment; and it was ultimately agreed that a medium and two army field regiments should be sent.

With a view to ensuring that “requirements for essential arms and services for the 1st Division might be available,” McNaughton was insistent that all the Canadian ancillary troops should come under the command of the G.O.C. 1st Canadian Division. The War Office agreed that the Canadian units would normally be employed in the same corps as the 1st Canadian Division, and that administrative matters “should pass through G.O.C. 1st Division.” This reopened the question of the cost of equipping the troops, the War Office disclaiming that responsibility on the grounds that they were now in effect under the command of a Canadian formation. It was finally settled that Ottawa would take over full financial responsibility for the Canadian non-divisional troops, effective 1 September, 1940.

The three artillery units that had been the subject of much of these deliberations had been mobilized in Canada as the 1st Medium Brigade, and the 3rd and 4th Army Field Brigades. It was on 1 December 1939 that authority was issued for a medium brigade to be organized, under the command of Lt.-Co. R.J. Leach , who had commanded the 2nd Canadian Heavy Battery in France in the First World War. He did not meet his new batteries until they were boarding the Aquitania for the voyage to Britain. They were the 3rd Medium Battery (Permanent Force) from Kingston, the 7th Medium Battery from Montreal, the 2nd from Charlottetown, and the 23rd from Toronto.

The 3rd Medium Battery brought to the Brigade the experience of its peacetime role of providing instruction for the militia artillery at the annual summer camps…..During the Atlantic crossing, Lt.-Col. Leach had grouped his four batteries to conform with the existing establishment of a medium regiment – two batteries each having two troops of four guns each. The batteries from Prince Edward Island and Montreal were paired to form the 2/7 Battery R.C.A.; the Kingston and Toronto units became the 3/23 Battery.

All the artillery units arriving on the Third Flight went to Borden Camp, about two miles southwest of Aldershot. The redesignated 1st Medium Regiment was fortunate in drawing accommodation in St. Lucia Barracks…

The move to Northamptonshire coincided with the beginning of “Dunkirk Week.” When the great evacuation over the beached ended on 4 June, the destroyers, cross-Channel steamers and the innumerable “little ships” had brought back in safety to England more than 338,000 British and Allied soldiers – but without their guns and heavy equipment. The sudden arrival in England of these troops from many different formations and units created a major administrative problem. Reception camps were hurriedly established to provide temporary accommodation for the Dunkirk survivors. On its return from Redesdale the 1st Medium Regiment set up and operated two of these camps at Mytchett, just outside Aldershot. Here the gunners (including some 40 members of the Canadian Survey Battery) looked after about 10,000 weary, battle-stained British soldiers, checking their identity, feeding and resting them, and then putting them on the train for their own home stations….

[macrusk]

But the Canadian stay in the Oxford area would be almost as brief as the earlier visit to Northamptonshire. It was about this time that some wit came up with the nickname, “McNaughton’s Travelling Circus,” as the Canadians’ role continued to take them to one position after another throughout southern England. A revision of anti-invasion plans led to the creation of a mobile corps to be stationed north of the Thames, comprising the 2nd Armoured and 43 Divisions; and one corps south of the river, to consist of the 1st Armoured and 1st Canadian Divisions. The latter was organized as the 7th Corps, with McNaughton being appointed to command in the rand of Lieutenant-General. Maj.-Gen. G.R. Pearkes succeeded him as G.O.C. 1st Canadian Division….

Throughout the rest of that invasion summer the Anglo-Canadian 7th Corps continued in its role in the defence of southern England. In September it was joined by the 2nd Canadian Division, which arrived from Canada and took over the Aldershot barracks vacated by the 1st Division. By the end of the year, when winter had temporarily lessened the threat of a cross-Channel attack, it became practicable to implement a decision taken by the Canadian Government in May 1940; and on Christmas Day the Canadian Corps officially replaced the 7th Corps, which was dissolved. The 1st Armoured Division passed from Lt.-Gen. McNaughton’s command. His artillery order of battle now consisted of the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisional Artillery (commanded respectively by Brigadier J.H. Roberts and Brigadier R.A. Fraser), and the corps troops artillery – comprising the 8th and 11th Army Field Regiments, the 1st Medium Regiment, and the 1st Canadian Survey Regiment….

When on 15 September 1941 Lt.-Gen. McNaughton appointed Brigadier R.J. Leach to be Commander Corps Medium Artillery, with Headquarters at Bordon, Hants, the G.O.C. Canadian Corps was departing from current British Army policy. After Dunkirk the British had deleted from their establishments C.C.M.A.’s and their staffs, on the grounds that there would be no room in the battle for the employment of large masses of medium and heavy artillery, even if such were available. For the next two years it was the practice in the British army to farm out its medium and army field regiments, sub-allotting them to various divisions. But the Canadian decision was to prove amply justified, if only from an administrative point of view. By the middle of October 1941 Headquarters C.C.M.A. had under command the 8th and 11th Canadian Army Field Regiments, the 1st and 5th Medium, and the 7th Anti-Tank Regiment, besides the 1st Survey Regiment and the 1st Canadian Calibration Troop. Shortly afterwards, H.Q. C.C.M.A. moved to Headley Court, near Leatherhead, where it took over command of the Canadian Corps Area (the county of Surrey).

[macrusk]

In the months that followed, Brigadier Leach’s staff administered and trained, for varying lengths of time, a large number of units of all arms which had not completed full mobilization or organization, many of them being army troops that had been brought over from Canada pending the formation of Headquarters First Canadian Army. By the spring of 1942 most of these units were ready to join their proper formations, and it now became possible for the Medium Headquarters to devote more attention to training its own artillery. Early in May it took part in “Vulture,” a two-day exercise staged by the 1st Canadian Corps in the Alfriston area. For “Vulture” the C.C.M.A. had under command two British units, the 69th Medium and the 56th Heavy Regiments – both of which would later serve in Italy under the same (though by that time renamed) Canadian headquarters…

By the summer of 1942 the practice had grown up of calling Brigadier Leach’s Headquarters, H.Q. Medium Artillery, 1st Canadian Corps, and it emerged in October as H.Q. 1st Canadian Artillery Group R.C.A. – a nomenclature which was later changed to H.Q. 1st Canadian Army Group R.A. (or 1 Canadian AGRA).

Earlier that year the War Office had begun forming Army Groups Royal Artillery – H.Q. 1 AGRA (British) came into existence on 1 September 1942, and H.Q. 2 AGRA a week later. The composition of these groups varied, but in general an AGRA brought together under one headquarters one or two field regiments, usually three medium regiments, and one heavy regiment. In the Canadian Army, which had no heavy artillery, an AGRA would come to contain one army field regiment and three medium regiments, with usually one or more British medium and heavy regiments attached. These new formations would in time each develop an esprit de corps that had not been possible in the former loose association under a Commander Corps Medium Artillery. Medium regiments, now part of a definite formation, no longer had cause to feel themselves “itinerant rascals, always being elbowed out by the solid corporation of the divisional artilleries.” Of much greater significance was the important contribution that the creation of the AGRA would make towards perfecting the rapid concentration of artillery fire – a contribution that would rank high among the factors which led to final victory….

Yet, as things turned out, the 1st Canadian AGRA would not support the Poles in Normandy. Shortly after the conclusion of “Victor-Blast I,” Brigadier Leach received “most secret” orders for the move of his AGRA to Italy as part of Operation “Timberwolf.” The impending departure meant the realignment of units in the two Army Groups. During the summer the Canadian medium regiments under Leach’s command had been the 1st, 3rd, and 4th. But the 3rd Medium Regiment now found itself “held back for the invasion of France.” The 4th Medium, which also found itself transferred to 2nd AGRA, explained the situation a little more frankly in its regimental history. “It meant to us we were not sufficiently trained to be employed in the First Canadian AGRA who were going to Italy.”

The artillery units placed under the command of H.Q. 1st AGRA for operations in the Mediterranean Theatre were the 11th Army Field Regiment, and the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Medium Regiments R.C.A. In the United Kingdom 2nd AGRA was beginning to assume the form with which it would go into action in the forthcoming cross-Channel offensive….

… When Lt.-Col. Dick Leach left the 1st Medium at the end of 1940 to take command of No. 1 Canadian Artillery Holding Unit, his successor had been Lt.-Col. G.W.F. Johnston, who had brought the 1st Anti-Tank Regiment overseas. During 1941, the training of the 1st Medium progressed through battery and regimental schemes to such bigger manoeuvres as “Fox” and “Dog,” “Horse” and “Waterloo,” to reach the year’s climax with Exercise “Bumper.” Early in December, the Regiment left its palatial home at West Horsley to take up reserve positions in the western part of Sussex near the Channel coast. Shortly before Christmas, Lt.-Col. Johnston went into hospital, and on recovery was posted to the command of No. 2 C.A.R.U. The 1st Medium was then briefly commanded by Lt.-Col. E.R. Suttie; and towards the end of February the Regiment welcomed a new C.O., Lt.-Col. D.K. Todd, who was to be with the unit for the next three years.

There followed an intensive period of schemes engineered by South Eastern Command. Their chief architect, General Montgomery, would later write of these with a certain complacency: “Some of the training exercises I organized and staged were tougher and harder than anything previously known in England.” Few Canadian gunners who participated in “Tiger” – Montgomery’s final effort before leaving for Africa to take command of the Eighth Army – would dispute the General’s claim….