SEARCH SITE with
|
|
THE RESERVE ARMY (The Militia) IN SOUTHEASTERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
Introduction
While this web site is primarily concerned with the history of the 54th Canadian Infantry Battalion their successors in the Kootenays are the 44th Field Engineer Squadron, Canadian Military Engineers located in Trail. These sappers, as they are known, carry on the traditions and operational training that the members of the 54th Battalion would have been very familiar with, as "sap" refers to trenches leading towards an enemy stronghold. Indeed, LCol Carey and many of the 54th Battalion came from the 67th "Western Scots" Pioneer battalion, an early combat engineer unit.
The expansion of the Militia outside of the Lower Mainland at the end of the 19th century reflected the economic growth of the British Columbia interior and the establishment of new population centres. For the first half of the 20th Century this increase also mirrored the popular support of Canada’s involvement in foreign wars and the nation’s military forces that fought in them. For many Canadians the Militia was the Army and it represented both past achievements and future capabilities. It was not until the 1950s, when the Regular Army assumed its present prominence, that the part-time soldiers and their many units – whether they were known collectively as the “Non Permanent Active Militia”, the “Canadian Army Reserve Force”, the “Canadian Army (Militia)”, or just “the Militia” – were reduced in status and size.The changing structure of BC interior reserve units greater in size than independent squadrons or companies also demonstrates the difficulties of organizing effective regiments over large geographical areas. While some units, for relatively short periods, had detached sub-units in more than one of the BC regions, there is a perceptible strain on these units’ organization when they were stretched too far for effective command and control. In the Kootenays the majority of the population live in valleys running north / south and there are limited east / west communication routes. Combined with the diminishment of the relative importance of the Army Reserve or military budget restrictions, consolidation into smaller geographic areas was, and still is, the end result.
As a rule, dates and places quoted are from official Canadian Army documents such as general orders and they can be considered authoritative. However, it is a long way from Ottawa to the Kootenays and there can be no guarantee that what was initially proposed in one place was eventually implemented in another, especially after it had traveled up and down the staff system! Furthermore, while squadron, battery and company locations are fairly easy to identify, in rural settings they often just represent the centre of mass of sub-unit members. Detached troops and platoons would appear to be the norm, but since 'armouries' were neither constructed nor rented for them, official records are literally non-existent. Only in a few cases were facilities that might have been established for a squadron or a company kept on for a troop or platoon.
Places mentioned in this section - Click for Maps
| Next page in this section |
