Posted on 08/15/2011 2:10:22 PM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA - The Canadian navy and air force -- officially Maritime and Air Command -- are going back to their 'royal' roots Tuesday.
The two branches of the armed forces will officially revert to Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force respectively, names that ceased to be used in 1968 when the three branches were amalgamated as the Canadian Forces.
The army will cease to be called Land Command and will instead be the Canadian Army.
Last year, the Senate was studying what to do about the name of the navy, following a motion by former Liberal Senator Bill Rompkey to rename it the Canadian Navy.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay is making an announcement regarding "Canada's military history" in Halifax Tuesday, when the name changes will be announced.
"It's exciting that the government has chosen to honour our air force history and heritage by re-introducing the historical titles," retired Lt.-Col. Dean Black with the Air Force Association said.
Although a 30-year veteran with the air force, he never served under the 'royal' designation, having joined in 1977 and retired a few years ago.
"It's not something that I grew up with," he said. "But it is our history since 1924."
A senior government source told QMI Agency that the name change is expected to boost morale among the men and women in uniform, though many of them already refer to the branches as the navy, air force and army anyway.
The name change is not expected to cost much money and will not affect the command structure.
In 1964, a White Paper on Defence from then Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson initiated amalgamating the three branches of the armed forces into one unit, the Canadian Forces. [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at cnews.canoe.ca ...
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Excellent. You don’t throw away centuries of tradition you were lucky enough to inherit for simply symbolic reasons. I’m glad to see Canada claiming this back.
Now they just need a nifty slogan like "A Global Force for Good."
Look here check your freepmail.
Given the way the seem to name every other Government agency up there I was expecting “Army Canada” and “Navy Canada”.
YES!!!
Long overdue. The Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and The Royal Canadian Air Force have long and illustrious histories. Also, the “Royal” prefix was a personal gift from the King. The government did not have the right to take it away.
Next steps, bring back the traditional uniforms and rank insignia, and bring back proper RCAF ranks instead of the Army ranks brought in by Pearson.
Nothing like spending craploads of money just for titles.
Please don’t misunderstand, I mean no disrespect. If the Royal designation was bestowed by the King why is it the the Canadian Army does not have a Royal in its name?
Ironic, isn’t it, that Canada has rediscovered its great heritage just as the United States has abandoned its.
Because the British Army doesn’t and the Commonwealth Armies follow that tradition.
Since the Civil War, the British Army has accepted Parliament rather than the Crown as its governing body. The King (or currently the Queen) remains the Commander-In-Chief, and individual regiments etc may bear various royal titles, but the Army itself is an Army of the people and Parliament, not of the Crown.
Standing army
That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace unless it be with consent of Parliament is against law.
"Please don’t misunderstand, I mean no disrespect. If the Royal designation was bestowed by the King why is it the the Canadian Army does not have a Royal in its name?Most of the land units do have "Royal" or something similarly historical in their names. Also, each of the the navy's ships is referred to as Her Majesty's Canadian Ship. The names of the land regiments, air squadrons and naval ships did not change.
The historical unit designations did not change.
Examples:
HMCS Vancouver which has just rotated onto station off Libya replacing HMCS Charlottetown.
Royal Canadian Horses Artillery batteries from time to time form part of battle groups.
Tank squadrons from the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) also form part of battle groups.
A battle group takes the name of the senior infantry regiment that is its core, including the Royal Canadian Regiment (the RCRs), the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (the Patricias) and le Royal 22e Régiment (the Vandoos)
RAF, RAAF, RNZAF RCAF etc. squadrons had numbers as names, the 400 series being reserved for Canadian squadrons so they never had names like the land units and ships, (except informally).
Traditionally, Canadian (and British) soldiers and sailors hold primary identification to their regimensts or ships rather than their service branch. The British Commonwealth forces never had the US style repple depple which IMO tended to dilute unit identification.
Well, they do have the Princes Patricia Light Infantry Regiment......
It goes back to the Brits and the 17th Century. The British Army isn't Royal either, having its origin in Cromwell's New Model Army. Tradition.
By the end of WW II, the Canadian Navy was the THIRD largest in the world..
It is true that Canada ended up with the third largest Navy in the world at the end of WWII. However, the fact that the 1st and 2nd largest Navies (US and UK) eliminated the 3rd, 4th and 5th ranked WWII Navies (Japanese, German and Italian) might have had something to do with Canada’s naval ranking rising to number three...
dvwjr
Thanks for the ping to this. I am happy to see the traditional names restored. Will the pre-1968 rank structures also return to use?
Well, that and the fact that the russians didn’t have anything that would float either, since the Germans and Japanese had sunk everything they had, including the harbour tugs...
Credit where it’s due, FRiend. I suppose you have some snide comment about how the 4th largest airforce was a fluke too, right?
We put a FAR higher proportion of our population under arms than ANY other allied nation. Including the russians. By some calculations, one in 6 Canadians were under arms during or after the war.
There is a LOT about WWII that you evidently are unaware of. “We won” is a great starting point, not the whole story.
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