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Recruiting
It is evident from these extracts that the officers were using the carrot as much as the stick to motivate the private soldiers. The officers were no longer dealing with the keen volunteers of 1939 who would accept discomfort with a small amount of grumbling. Nelson Darling, who was regimental adjutant from December 1939 to June 1941, said of those first years "morale was excellent, subject to the usual problem of disciplining Canadians." By 1944 most of the original members of the 15th Coast Brigade had gone overseas. Some were held back by health or family ties and a good number of experienced officers and NCO's were deliberately retained as a reliable core for training recruits. The untrained recruits who replaced those gunners who had left were increasingly conscripts and not volunteers. They had been summoned to military service for home defence under the National Resources Mobilization Act (N.R.M.A.) of June 1940. They were very different from those men who had been in Vancouver's pre-war militia. Before mobilization, according to Nelson Darling, the 15th Coast drew heavily on the Canadian-born population of British stock. If we can judge from the nominal roll of the 1st Searchlight Regiment in January 1940, the same was true of this unit. The vast majority of the 204 persons listed had English, Scottish or Irish surnames. The balance, eighteen men, had Germanic, French or Scandinavian names.  The author knows from acquaintance that more than half of these were English-speaking Canadians and not recent immigrants. Surnames are not a perfect indicator of peoples' cultural ties. They do indicate that the militia artillery of the Lower Mainland at the beginning of the Second World War had the same ethnic makeup as Vancouver's first militia units. The officers still came from the same occupational group. In 1939 the officers of the 15th Coast Brigade were, according to Allan M. McGavin who was the first commander of Narrows North, "mostly businessmen." They included a lawyer, an insurance underwriter, a dentist, a shipping agent, a post office employee, some schoolteachers, and the officials of such commercial enterprises as a flour mill, a lumber yard and a timber company. The men in the lower ranks came from across the city: they were students, truck-drivers, policemen, employees of a storage company, metalworkers and sawmill workers, as well as a few of the unemployed who were given their streetcar fare to the armouries. "They were," says Nelson Darling, "either very young or very old, including a few hangovers from the First War." The gulf between the two age groups was soon filled by recruiting in the first months of the Second World War.
Vancouver Defended, Peter N Moogk, pg 108
Back to 1940

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  • Home
  • What's New
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    • Honours and Awards >
      • Distinguished Service Order
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    • The 1960s >
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    • The 1950s >
      • 1950 >
        • 1950 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1950 - 102nd Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1950 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1951 >
        • 1951 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1951 - 102nd Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1951 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1952 >
        • 1952 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1952 - 102nd Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1952 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1953 >
        • 1953 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1953 - 102nd Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1953 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1954 >
        • 1954 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1954 - 102nd Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1954 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1955 >
        • 1955 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1955 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1956 >
        • 1956 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1956 - 43rd MAA Regt, RCA
      • 1957 >
        • 1957 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1957 - 43rd MAA Regt, RCA
      • 1958 >
        • 1958 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1958 - 43rd MAA Regt, RCA
      • 1959 >
        • 1959 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1959 - 43rd MAA Regt, RCA
    • The 1940s >
      • 1940 >
        • 1940 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, CASF
        • 1940 - 15th (Vcr) Cst Bde, RCA NPAM
        • 1940 - 1st AA Regt, RCA, CASF
      • 1941 >
        • 1941 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, CASF
        • 1941 - 15th (Vcr) Cst Bde, RCA NPAM
        • 1941 - 1st (Res) AA Regt, RCA
      • 1942 >
        • 1942 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, AF
        • 1942 - 15th (Vcr) Cst Bde, RCA RF
        • 1942 - 1st (Res) AA Regt, RCA
      • 1943 >
        • 1943 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, AF
        • 1943 - 39th (Reserve) Fd Regt, RCA RF
        • 1943 - 1st (Res) AA Regt, RCA
      • 1944 >
        • 1944 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, AF
        • 1944 - 11th AA Regt, RCA RF
        • 1944 - 1st (Res) AA Regt, RCA
      • 1945 >
        • 1945 - Vancouver Defences
        • 1945 - 11th AA Regt, RCA RF
      • 1946 >
        • 1946 - 15th Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1946 - 11th (Res) AA Regt, RCA
      • 1947 >
        • 1947 - 15th Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1947 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1948 >
        • 1948 - 15th Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1948 - Vancouver Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1948 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
      • 1949 >
        • 1949 - 15th Fd Regt, RCA
        • 1949 - Vancouver Coast Regt, RCA
        • 1949 - 43rd HAA Regt, RCA
    • The 1930s >
      • 1930
      • 1931
      • 1932
      • 1933
      • 1934
      • 1935
      • 1936
      • 1937
      • 1938
      • 1939 >
        • 1939 - 15th (Vcr) Coast Bde, RCA, CASF
        • 1939 - 1st AA Regt, RCA, CASF
    • The 1920s >
      • 1920
      • 1921
      • 1922
      • 1923
      • 1924
      • 1925
      • 1926
      • 1927
      • 1928
      • 1929
    • The 1910s >
      • 1915 - 31st Bty, 8th Bde, CFA
      • 1916 >
        • 1916 15th Brigade, CFA
        • 1916 - 31st Bty, 8th Bde, CFA
        • 1916 - 68 Depot
      • 1917 >
        • 1917 - 31st Bty, CFA, CEF
        • 1917 - 5th CSB, CGA ,CEF
        • 1917 - 68 Depot >
          • 1917 - Hastings Park
      • 1918 >
        • 68th Depot Battery CFA
        • 85th Battery CFA
        • Obituaries 1918
      • 1919 >
        • 68th Bty, 16th Bde CFA
        • 5th Cdn Siege Bty, CGA
    • The 1890s >
      • 1893 - BC Garrison Artillery
      • 1894 - BC Garrison Artillery
      • 1898- BC Garrison Artillery
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