peter monahan

Ian The Canadian Rangers [ not 'Arctic Rangers'] are an element of our Reserve Force, recruited in largely northern communities in Ontario, Quebec, Ladrador, across the Arctic and British Columbia. many are Aboriginal, Inuit or Metis but it is not actually a native unit per se, its just that those personnel have the needed skills. The Rangers conduct sovreignty patrols in the Arctic, some surveillance work and occasionally search and rescue. They also serve an important role in training other Reserve and canadian Focres regulars in winter survival and warfare and other wilderness skills. They are organized in 'patrols' by community and have the same rank structure as the rest of the Cdn. Forces. I believe the current strenght is somewhere under 500, but I may be wrong about that. The Rangers carry weapons for self protection [grizzly and polar bears] and subsistence hunting, rather than in a combat role, as the Rangers have fairly limited training, other than shooting, in military tactics. When they were established in the '40s the LE was the standard rifle and proved so durable and suitable for the Arctic conditions that it has sinply lived on. Each Ranger gets 200 rounds per year issued as well. Now, with spare parts becoming an issue, the time has finally come to change them.

Two comments on the saga of the slings: absolute accuracy would involve using something which did transfer to red coats, blue trousers and black packs. It was a well known problem with pipe clay in the early 19th century and continues with both white blanco and various other compounds with which belting was treated. One 1800s ear letter from a church vicar to a regimental colonel demanded a remedy for the fact that all his pews had been stained wit5h piep clay after a church parade.The culprit there was the insistance by various senior NCOs that the coatings be put on very thickly so that the might be buffed to a shine. In the Second War, "blanco" in white, khaki, dark blue and black was, ideally, applied in such a fashion as to completly fill the surface irregularities in a woven web belt so that, ultimately, it looked completely smmoth, not unlike the plastic version which replaced the white ones in the '60s and '70s! As a re-enactor of 1800s era British soldiery, friends and I have in the past laboured mightily to get 'buff leather' - with a surface finsh smoother than the rough side of most leather but not 'finished' in the modern fashion. There followed many experiments with various coatings. Sadly, for the fans of authenticity, white Rustoleo paint proved to give the best combination of authentic look - its the fish oil in it - and durability!

Ilja Thank you for sharing the great photographs and wealth of information on these medals. I thought I knew a little about the history of West Africa, but must confess I had never heard of Maryland until I read your post. It is interesting that the tribes attacked Maryland because it was interfering with the slave trade but also that Liberia eventually was itself involved in trading slaves! Ironic!

I watched both the first time, as I recalled when I saw them again. I love the bit where the first bloke asked permission to chop up the jerry's tail with his prop!

The boots and bandolier are also very nice - the bandoliers being restricted to mounted troops which, of course, included Gunners in WWI. Shots of RA types serving guns with the bandoliers on are not uncommon. The boots are, I think, indicative of his rank, as even mounted troops were wearing 'ammo boots' and puttees in the ranks, with tall [expensive] boots generally restricted to officers and some NCOs. It was customary for RSMs, for example, to wear boots and officer style breeches and, often, a Sam Browne, so they would be very appropriate for a BQSM. A lovely uniform!

You may be correct, gents. It was perhaps badly worded, as my comment was meant to be more a general observation than a critique of that photo in particular. The word brought the thought to moind, and as the old sweats on the forum will tell you, I digress at the drop of a hat!

Lots and lots of Mr. Jordan with pretty girls. Clearly a sailor! And goo on him for using the publcity to bump up the price and help the RNLI that much more. Clearly no flies on this gent.

I'm glad you said 'ostensibly'. It is amazing what percentage of the WWI photos, especially early in the war, were staged, and often not even very convincingly, for propaganda purposes or because the photographer had a particular look or shot in mind. It gets discouraging, when one is looking for evidence of a specific uniform piece or something, to discover how often the camera does in fact lie!

There was a short lived group called 'Z Force' which operated in Malaya during the Emergency. Small groups, often Gurkhas, an Iban tracker and a Chinese translator, went into the jungle to find and attack terrorist camps. One purpose was to do damage., another was to demoralize and the Chinese translators often tried, with varying success to persuade the terrorists to surrender and even to change sides. It's just possible that the GSM Malaya was to a member of that group, though there were likely lots of Chinese speaking police involved in the campaign throughout.

I think the first is the Victorian period home service helmet, is it not? With a King's Crown plate. Pity the spike is missing. I agree that both are very likely pre-WWI.

One squadron at least of an Indian cavalry regiment apparently took their lances into the trenches and allegedly used them. I doubt the later but will have to locate the reference again and check. This would have been early in 1914.

I am somewhat ashamed to say that I never considered the fact that there must have been blacks in Germany during the Nazi era, though in fact someone - on tis forum I believe - posted a picture of a black in the Kaiser's army. No stranger, I suppose, than the story of Harry O'Hara [or Ahira], though with far worse outcomes in most cases. certainly the WWI posters featuring black French troops made it pretty clear that they were sub-human even then and their children must have lived pretty grim lives in some cases even before the Nazis came into power. How we do manage to hate each other and for such silly reasons in most cases!

I am a gilded staff officer and so confidently expect to be safely inside a square if any nasty Frenchies get withing poking distance. I shall, however, exhort the lads to lay into the Corsican's henchmen with vim and vigour. I recently purchased a very tiny camera - suitable for surreptitious snapping - with a chip will take 8,000 photos before I need to download. That and 20 or 30 batteries and I'm all set to record the saga, plus the trip to follow: Vimy, Beaumont Hamel, Menin Gate, Juno Beach and some other 'Canadian' locations in France and Flanders. I promise to keep you all posted!

Not in great shape at all. I would think that the very odd 'diamond' on the back, for want of a better term, would be diagnostic if you can track down an example in a book or museum for comparison. Not sure how rare these are over there, but I'm also inclined to agree with Mervyn on waiting for a better example. My tuppence worth. Peter

I may have mentioned this before but the nicest single 'group' of decorations I recall seeing, years ago, was to the senior stationmaster at Victoria Station for 40 years straddling WWI and whenever a head of state came through on a state visit, this chap would get handed a decoration of some sort. I'd agree with Irish Gunner that the medals probably went out by the sack load!

Just saw his photo in a collection of colourized WWI photos. The suggestion was made that his true name was 'Ahira', which has a certain plausibility to it. Also, Eric, the source suggests that he was registered as an enemy alien but that they did NOT find evidence of his having been interned. As it should have been! Peter

Excellent! I will be there in June, one of 6,000 re-enactors re-playing the battle for the 200th anniversary. perhaps they will have discovered some newt new artifacts by then.

Yes. It's REALLY HARD to break an SMLE and our guys can do some pretty impressive things with them. In fact, when they train with 'foreign troops' [cough, American, cough cough] they like to stick their rifles in a snow bank overnight, to the shock of the new guys. Then, in the morning, when the high quality firearms which have spent a night in a tent getting coated with condensation, which freezes, the Rangers point out that THEIR rifles will still fire.

How many men would have a double qualification for the DFC and AFC? It certainly wouldn't give you an ID, but it might point to possible previous owners, assuming that its not a complete mock-up put together by a collector or Wally. Chris, do you have any information at all as to where it came from? Peter

Messina Earthquake Medal, anyone? Back in the bad old days when Canada had a serious presence in peacekeeping, some Cdn servicemen served there 6, 8 or even 10 tours [6 months each] but got only 1 medal. Eventually, a numbered device was authorized for wear on the ribbon. It seems to me that, given the kind of work many modern armies do that a medal for humanitarian relief - along the line of some of the UN gongs - might be appropriate. The criteria could be set by the usual committees and bars or devices issued as needed. I can see service personnel of logistics and health units in particular seeing service that puts them in at least as much peril as the NAAFI wallah and civilian contractors - no slight on them intended - at a base in the Middle east and it seems right to me that recognition be provided. My tuppence worth! Peter

Oh, my too! Not a collector at all, really, but am always being tempted from the path of virtue [fiscal virtue] by nice blades!

I agree with Mervyn. Nothing to indicate a military source and I would expect that a military one, aside from broad arrow markings, would be named a 'Union Flag', though I may be mistaken in that.

I don't hink much of the reverse and the quality is not reat, but an attractive [understated] ribbon, IMO. Thanks for sharing this.

The price of duty.

I also suspect that, like many bayonets issued in WWII, there was little expectation that it would ever be attached to a rifle and used against the foe. This looks to me like a decent machete which some brainiac in HQ persuaded his superiors could be made 'dual purpose' by installing a mounting device and calling it a bayonet, to the detriment of both its primary function and the rifle. But maybe that's just me being cynical.