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From: "Darryl Pearce" <>
Subject: Re: [WW1] CEF WW1,which battalion????
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 09:07:08 -0500
References: <016101c048a1$237b6dc0$a27d7118@poco1.bc.wave.home.com>




> Hello All,
>
> I am desperately trying to find info on my gramps- Joseph
Marriott
> Love's Battalion/Brigade or regiment, and would greatly appreciate some
help
> finding this out.
> This is what I know from his WW1 record that I obtained from the National
> archives of Canada.
> 2 years prior service 19th company CASC
> enlisted - 9 Apr 1915
> embarked overseas 11 May 1915 with the Remount Depot
> embarked Southampton 4 June 1915
> 1 July 1915 appt' 1st class fitter Rouen
> 31 July 1915 Can. Section 3rd Echelon
> 22 Sept 1915 admt' #5 stat Hos. A section Dieppe.
> 1 Dec 1915 at Roublais?
> 10 Apr 1916 tranf' to ICVH Calvary Veterinary Hospital
> 6 July 1916 admt' #39 gen Hos Havre
> 14 July 1916 trans to 1st Can. For Corp.
> 15 sept 1917 in field at Cressy Gressy? forest
> 18 Aug 1917 attached to DD of F Rouen
> 29 Jan 1918 #3 Aus Gen Hos Abbeville
> 23 My 1918 Unit now known as No 1 Coy Can Forestry Corp.
> 6 May 1919 posted to Can For 3rd echelon Corps depot Sunningdale
> 31 July 1919 embarked Liverpool on the "Scandinavian"
>
> Can anyone tell me what his unit may have been called or numbered? I've
> poured over books until I'm blind and can't find anything mentioned at
all.
> Did each unit in the war have calvary/foresters attached to it? sign me-
> still trying to learn- Cheers Teena
>
********************************

IVORIE

Please list his Regimental Number/s
and I may be able to help you more

Darryl


THE CANADIAN FORESTRY CORPS

In the early stages of The Great War a farsighted Canadian lumberman,
Alexander McDougall, approached the Imperial War Cabinet with a plan
to organize a forestry corps in Canada, manned by skilled lumbermen,
for war service with the allies. The concept and the offer of trained
troops were declined by the War Cabinet. However as the war progressed
and started to take on its own peculiarities, it became increasingly
evident that the allied armies needed more and more timber and that a
shortage would be extremely adverse to the overall war effort.

In February 1916, the Imperial War Cabinet sent a cable to the Governor
General of Canada asking for a Canadian battalion for the purpose of
assisting in the war production of timber. The cable further stated that
1,500 trained men were"urgently needed" for this purpose. Within twenty-
five days Canada had raised and outfitted the 224th Battalion (Canadian
Forestry Corps) for this task, which was ready for work in the United
Kingdom by 12 April. Colonel McDougall, not wishing any delays, caused
by the usual red tape in obtaining eguipment, outfitted the new unit at
his own expense. He purchased all the necessary equipment from machinery
firms in Canada and the United States at an initial cost of $250,000. By
the beginning of November The Canadian Forestry Corps had six units at
work in the wood of the United Kingdom and France.

The value of such a specialized Corps in modern warfare can best be illus-
trated by the many uses of wood in the construction of trenchlines, huts,
barracks, hospitals, to surface roads, to build gun emplacements, to build
duckboards to carry the infantry over the treacherous mud, to crate and
ship ammunition, in short every situation imagineable. They also cut rail-
way ties and cleared land for some thirty emergency airfields for the use
of pursuit souadrons whose task was the prevention of Zepnelin bombing
raids on England.

The men of the Forestry Corps built their own Quarters, constructed and
equipped their own mills, and surfaced the roads to the mills with timber
(Corduroy roads). At wars end they turned over all their facilities in
France
over to the people. They also underwent basic Infantry training as they
often
worked quite close to the front and at times took a spell in the lines as
Infantry. The Canadian Forestry Corps had received many honours and
decorations
by the end of the war for their invaluable efforts and assistance to a11.

The total production of the Corps from its inception until the armistice was
813,541,560 board feet of finished timber, 308,629 tons of round timber for
dugouts, gun emplacements and roads, 806,502 tons of railway ties and slabs
as well as 3,000,000 feet of finely cut and shaped spruce for aeroplane
manu-
facture. The total strength of the Corps was 23,979 and produced 70% of a11
:

timber used during the Great War.

The Canadian Forestry Corps had an impressive pipe band with a strenqth of

thirty pipers and fifteen drummers which was gleaned from many of the units
that made up the Corps. The Canadian Forestry Corns Marchpast was "The
Highland
Laddie".
;


Three Infantry battalions of the C.E.F. were converted and absorbed into
The Canadian Forestry Corps as their original designations were such as
well as their background training, they were
the 224th Battalion
the 238th Battalion and the 242nd Battalion
Four more Forestry Corps battalions were raised as well as
one hundred and one Forestry Companies and Depots from the various Military
stricts in Canada thereby giving the Corps a national identity. Little or
no records exist for the raising of these units, their strength or their
date of disbandment

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