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Minister to act and, in the result, knew he was acting. Having regard to General Crerar's special knowledge of all the considerations to be taken into account, and his special qualifications for forming a judgment thereon, there is a most powerful presumption in favour of the correctness of his determinati given in good faith and in the course of duty, to which it would be proj to give effect in the absence of clear evidence of error. It is, however, as i conceive it, my duty to examine the question of the propriety of the selections and to consider the oral evidence and the documents produced.
I proceed, as required by the Order in Council, to examine in detail the history, composition and training of the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers. A very large part of the evidence was directed to this subject. Much of the best evidence was not available, as the officers and men were all, unhappily, lost at Hong Kong. We are fortunately, however, in the position of having sources of information which enable us to pronounce upon these matters with con- fidence. There are the written records of the personnel and their training, the reports of Inspectors-General, the evidence of officers who had served with them and of others who had enjoyed opportunities of observing them in the course of military duty. As regards the Royal Rifles, we have the evidence of Brigadier Earnshaw, of Lieutenant-Colonel Berteau, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Lamb, all of whom speak of this battalion from first hand intimate knowledge. I shall refer to the testimony of General Crerar himself who inspected the unit in the autumn of 1940 and the early summer of 1941, and from personal inspection formed his own opinion of it.
As regards the Winnipeg Grenadiers, we have the evidence of Brigadier Kay, who commanded the battalion from its mobilization in 1939 until June, 1941. There is the evidence of Brigadier Riley, the D.O.C. M.D. 10, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Graham, as well as the evidence of General Browne. There is, further, the appreciation of General Crerar derived not only from an exam- ination of the training reports but also from a full and "detailed him upon the regiment by Brigadier Kay.
report to
Before discussing the battalions in detail, it seems desirable to make a few general remarks on the subject of military training in Canada. General super- vision of military training in the Canadian army is vested in the Directorate of Military Training at National Defence Headquarters. In September and October, 1941, Colonel J. K. Lawson was Director of Military Training until his appointment to command the expedition to Hong Kong with the rank of Brigadier. His chief assistant in the Directorate was Lieutenant-Colonel Sparling, an officer who has served at Headquarters in Ottawa and with the Second Division in England during the present war.
When an infantry battalion is mobilized, it proceeds to train as a unit. The officers of the battalion, directly and through their non-commissioned officers, train the men under their command with the assistance of training pamphlets and syllabi issued by National Defence Headquarters. Training memoranda are issued to all officers each month to supplement the training pamphlets and keep them up to date. Cadres of officers, warrant officers, and N.C.O's are first given refresher courses and guidance in the instruction of their men. These officers and N.C.O's are then assigned to sub-units and are charged with the instruction of the enlisted personnel within those sub-units. The first period of training for the enlisted infantryman is mainly individual training designed to prepare a soldier to take his place in a platoon or other unit, and embraces such subjects as drill, physical training, first aid, marching, the mechanism, use and care of the various weapons provided for infantry units, field-craft, map reading, protection against gas, etc., etc., etc. By systematic and con- centrated training the subjects laid down in the syllabi for this course should be completed in a period of sixteen weeks. During this period the men are organized in sections and are trained in section operations and individually at
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the same time. Training then proceeds at the platoon level for six weeks and includes platoon operations in daylight and darkness, both of attack and defence. The welding of several platoons into a company follows and the scribed training of a company as such extends over four weeks. A further iod of four weeks is laid down for the training of the battalion as a unit. During the entire period of collective training it is sought to give the battalion training in co-operation with other arms, although the extent of such co-opera- tive training must, of course, depend upon the available opportunities for exercise with other units. The total period prescribed for individual and collective training up to and including training at the battalion level is thus thirty weeks. The working of this prescribed program in practice and the results attained must depend on various factors, such as the skill and experience of the officers, the availability of weapons for training purposes and the nature and extent of the duties assigned to the unit during its training periods.
When a battalion is placed in a division, either in Canada or in England, an establishment for that battalion is created in one of the Training Centres. These Training Centres receive the recruits called out for training under the National Resources Mobilization Act and may also receive men who have enlisted for active service with a unit already mobilized. Each man who enlists for active service in the Canadian army becomes on enlistment a member of a unit that has been mobilized. When a recruit enlists for active service in a unit that is still in the process of recruiting and below its war establishment, he immediately joins his unit and receives his training with it. When a recruit enlists for active service with a unit that is already recruited to its full estab- lishment, as a rule he proceeds to a Basic Training Centre and thence to an Advanced Training Centre for his individual training. On completion of his individual training, he is sent in a draft of reinforcements to his unit wherever it may then be stationed. Courses of training at the Basic and Advanced Training Centres are prescribed to cover items of individual training similar to those laid down and already described for the training of a battalion. The syllabus of training for a Basic Training Centre is designed to be completed in eight weeks and that for an Advanced Training Centre in a further period of eight weeks. The periods as prescribed are not, however, rigidly adhered to. An individual soldier may, because of illness or other delays, require longer than eight weeks to complete his training at either of the Training Centres. On the other hand, periods of training may be shortened where the recruit has had service with the reserve army, or with other armed forces.
As to the training of recruits in the Royal Rifles, Lt.-Col. Lamb says:-
Q. What training did they get?-A. The procedure in the regiment was this: When replacements arrived, irrespective of what training they ever had or where they came from, they were put into what we call a recruit squad. This squad was under supervision, apart from the C.O., of the Adjutant and one junior officer and the Regimental Sergeant Major for training, and they carried out a period of six weeks' intensive training, being relieved from all duties during that period. After that six weeks' period they were posted to their respective companies.
Q. In that six weeks' period-you are familiar with this basic train- ing course?-A. No, I am not; we do not get that in the army.
Q. You are not familiar with it at all?—A. No.
Q. Then you cannot say to what extent the recruits in that six weeks' course had covered the ground set out in Exhibit No. 95?—A. Yes.
Q. You can? A. Yes, I can, by comparison, because I have seen men who have had anything from four weeks' to six weeks' training in the Basic Training Centre, and I would like to say that one week or two at the most of the training these men got in our own recruit squad would be equivalent to four or six weeks' training at the Basic Training Centres.
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