80 Years Ago today. 24 May 1944. Here we see an S&W Victory .38 revolver-armed and cigarette-equipped LT W. Smith, along with platoon Sergeant F.G. White, armed with a captured German MP40 SMG– often incorrectly dubbed a “Schmeisser”– of the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR), taking a breather in Pontecorvo, Italy. The two are clad in denim cotton battledress.
Note the good sergeant also has a Mills bomb at the ready while the fact that both men have field glasses count point to them being members of a recon element. The Canadian troops had entered the Liri Valley city that morning, after the breakthrough of the Hitler Line, and found it completely in ruins.
Canadian Army Photo by LT C.E. Nye, who has some 275 images digitized in the Library and Archives Canada. The above is MIKAN 3202714, PA-144722
Pontecorvo May 24, 1944, Canadian troops enter the ruins of the city after hard fighting. (Canadian Army Overseas Photo)
With a lineage that goes back to the War of 1812 and the Fenian Raids but a name that was only bestowed in 1902 after service in the Boer Wars, the RCR was bled white at the Somme, Arras, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele during the Grear War.
At the outbreak of WWII, the RCR was deployed as part of the 1st Canadian Division, garrisoned England for four years, then finally hit the beach in Sicily (Operation Husky) followed by the amphibious action at Reggio di Calabria on the Italian mainland. The RCR fought up the Italian boot, including key battles around the Moro River valley near Ortona in December 1943, and the battles on the Hitler and Gothic lines in 1944.
Sent in February 1945 to join the First Canadian Army in Northwest Europe for Operation Goldflake, they ended the war in Holland, where they inherited lots more German hardware.
Privates J.A. Taylor and J.D. Villeneuve of the Royal Canadian Regiment stacking rifles turned in by surrendering German soldiers, IJmuiden, Netherlands, 11 May 1945. LAC 3211669
A common theme that would follow them to Korea in 1951.
Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment, with assorted captured DP-28 and PPS 43s in Korea.
The Royal Canadian Regiment has been awarded a total of 61 battle honours since 1812, including 27 for its WWII service.
Comprising three active and one reserve battalion today, their headquarters is at Garrison Petawawa in Ontario.