Topic: Canadian Army
Frugality in an Age of Austerity
In Defence of Canada; From the Great War to the Great Depression, James Eayrs, 1964;
as quoted in
Wait for the Waggons: the Story of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, Arnold Warren, 1958
… I was a Captain commanding the Supply Details. We had a Horse Transport Company. We had harness. The troops were trained to take the harness apart, put it back together, and hang it up in the Quartermaster's Stores. That is about as far as it went. We never did have a horse. We never did have a waggon.
We had a Mechanical Transport unit… They had no equipment whatsoever—absolutely none. From 1926 until the outbreak of war we never had one item of mechanical transport issued to us. Not a motorcycle, not a van, not a truck…
Training was possible only by using our own imaginations and ingenuity. … I heard … about 1933 or '34 … that the Post Office had decided to write off two vans. … I went down and begged them, and got them. A firm in town had a big, solid-tired flat-top, which I got from them. … We had a couple of motor-cycles which we purchased out of our own funds, and in order to train our motorcyclists we produced a device with rollers which were held in place by a heavy steel and timber form which sat on the floor … We taught motorcyclists without going anywhere…
We got no pay. We waived our pay into the regimental fund—every cent of it. … When we attested a private soldier, he signed a waiver of pay along with his attestation card, or he wasn't accepted. … We used the money to buy equipment, to look after our weekend exercises, and to assist the sergeants and the other ranks to have some comforts in their common quarters. …
I got the Army printing done on the Board of Education presses operated by the apprentices that came in for training. I got my annual exer cises printed in the same way. There was no money for things of that kind. We bought our own typewriter for the Orderly Room and we coaxed someone to come in and type. Really my Orderly Room was at home.
- Royal Canadian Army Service Corps - rcasc.com
- Royal Canadian Army Service Corps - rcasc.org
- Wikipedia - Royal Canadian Army Service Corps
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