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enlisted June 20, 1941, and one on June 10, 1941, both having been on the strength of the Depot until attached to the Grenadiers. The third man had a total of twenty-four weeks at the Depot having been in and out of the army for three periods since his original enlistment in November, 1939.
No detailed information as to the individual training of these 43 men the Depot itself was available and a conclusion as to their suitability for accep- tance into the Winnipeg Grenadiers must be based on the record of their lengths of service in the army, as above mentioned, and on the fact that they were personally inspected and accepted by either Colonel Sutcliffe, or the second-in-command, Major Trist.
The evidence as to the 23 men who joined the Grenadiers from the Basic Training Centre at Portage la Prairie is as follows: One had been in a Reserve Battalion for one year, being attached to the Training Centre; one enlisted November 24, 1939, and had been a staff clerk receiving some training until his transfer to the Training Centre on October 3, 1941; one had been in a militia regiment for nine months; one had been called out in September, 1940, and was attached to a Militia Training Centre until his enlistment on June 17, 1941, when he went to the Basic Training Centre; two were qualified instructors attached to the Training Centre; one had been a member of the King's Own Scottish Borderers from 1915 to 1919; one had been in a Reserve Battalion from August, 1940, to May, 1941, when he was called out and attached to the Basic Training Centre. The remaining fifteen men without previous military experi- ence served in the Basic Training Centre for periods varying from three to eleven weeks-two served three weeks; three served five weeks; eight served six weeks, and two had served eleven weeks. All these men also were personally accepted by Colonel Sutcliffe, or his second-in-command, after inspection.
In the preceding paragraphs there has been given a detailed description of the steps taken to bring the two battalions up to full establishment, including "first reinforcements ". These steps were taken with speed and secrecy after the receipt of advice from England on October 9th giving detailed plans for the expedition. The necessary number of volunteers were obtained and the whole personnel of the two battalions were examined and re-equipped ready to sail from Vancouver on October 27. It is now possible, in light of what has been said, to consider the effect, on the expedition as a whole, of the addi- tion of the comparatively small number of men who had not completed the full period of training.
I was most anxious to discover what was the effect of adding to two such battalions, small groups of lesser trained men constituting not more than five or six per cent of the strength of two units, comprising exclusively men who had volunteered for service and who had been approved by the officers of the battalions as suitable additions. A great many witnesses, with experience in this war and with battle experience in the war of 1914-18, assisted me with their opinions on this question. The opinion of these officers was to the effect that a well-trained battalion will quickly absorb such a small percentage of under-trained men, who, in a few weeks, will become indistinguishable in efficiency from the other men in the battalion. An efficient commanding officer would not keep the under-trained men segregated in a group, but would dis- tribute them among various platoons containing his experienced and well-trained soldiers. It was pointed out by General Browne (an officer of great experience in the last war, in the peace-time army, and in this war) that in a Training Centre there may be 500 or 1,000 men for whom there are some 25 or 30 instructors, whereas when a new man is added to a platoon he has 29 or 30 instructors in the experienced men of the platoon. From opinions of the officers who gave evidence, I have reached the conclusion that there was no unfairness
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either to the battalions, or to the expedition as a whole, from the addition of the men I have referred to who had not fully completed their prescribed training. I am sure that the addition of this number of volunteers, who were willing to ansfer from their own units in order to proceed upon active service, did not rimentally affect the fighting efficiency of the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers.
For similar reasons, I am satisfied that there was no unfairness to these men themselves in adding them to the expedition. I believe that these enthusi- astic volunteers would be quickly absorbed into their battalions and would speedily make good any deficiency in their training. The opinion of the wit- nesses was that before many days had passed these men would have absorbed the spirit of their battalion and would have become useful and competent members thereof and General McNaughton in his evidence says:-
Q. With regard to your answers to questions by my friend Mr. Camp- bell, he gave to you the figures 43 and 62 of men who had less than sixteen weeks in connection with these two battalions respectively. Could those numbers, in your opinion, be increased without affecting the answer which you gave to his Lordship to any extent?-A. Well, I think I would like to answer it this way, saying that I took the First Canadian Division over- seas, well on towards 18,000, and not one of them had had that training; not that I was happy, but-
Q. You are speaking of the First Division as now constituted?-A. Yes. Q. I was thinking of the First Division in the last war?-A. And the same thing was true in the last war, my lord. We had rothing like that training that is indicated here for these oddments that were added.
Q. Then could those numbers be reasonably increased without affecting the efficiency of a battalion which had otherwise been fairly well trained?- A. Oh, to absorb, say, ten to fifteen per cent, is no difficulty.
Q. Then the presence of men who had not had the same degree of training as what I might call the main body of the battalion while you say that their presence creates no difficulty, would you be good enough to answer that from the standpoint of the men who themselves are trained? That is, is there any effect of the presence of somewhat untrained men on the trained men? Does it give the trained men any feeling of insecurity or lack of confidence or anything of that kind by reason of the presence of somewhat lesser trained men in their battalion?-A. Not provided one has a period of a few weeks to assimilate them and make sure they are brought up level with the rest. That is a thing that any combatant unit has got to be trained to do. It is part of our ordinary routine, because when we go into battle we are certain to have casualties, anything up to twenty-five per cent, and a good battalion must be able to take that quota of comparatively untrained people into their organization and in a matter of days rather than weeks incorporate them thoroughly into the unit.
Q. What I am thinking of is this, General McNaughton: you have this force going to Hong Kong, two battalions; assume ten per cent of them had less than sixteen weeks, of varying amounts; it was anticipated we will say they were going there on garrison duty, but we will say that expectation was disappointed and it became a combatant area; then would you be good enough to answer the question?-A. I personally would not have given it one anxiety, subject to the condition that I knew the men, that I did not have a lot of rotters put on my hands, that I had a chance to select them. I would have taken almost raw men of my own selection rather than have had a lot of fellows dumped on me that I did not know anything about.
I have already observed that the selection of these men was the duty of the Adjutant General's Department, and the execution of that duty fell upon Colonel Hennessy, the Director of Organization. Colonel Hennessy fully understood the
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