Battalion Designations

[maj4bz]

I have a question that may be fundamental to some, but it has made me scratch my head for a while.

Sometimes I see batallion designations in British and Canadian Regiments from WW2 with two numbers, seperated by a slash.  For example:
1/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

I thought it might have made a reference to a company structure, but this doesn't seem to make sense in each case that I have found it.

Can anyone explain the significance of the 1/5th or 2/4th or 4/1st etc....?

Thanks

 

[pbi]

I thought that these were confined to WWI only. My understanding (and I am pretty sure Michael Dorosh will correct me...) is that these designations were due to the huge demand for manpower replacements created during WWI: "New Army" battalions were raised from the older parent Regts, then replacement battalions were raised for them, causing the #/# designation.

Of course, I may be right out to lunch here.....
???

Cheers

 

[Old Sweat]

In some cases at least these were the results of amalgamations between regiments, ie  4/7 Dragoon Guards or 17/21 Lancers, resulting in what I have heard Brits refer to as fractionalized cavalry. In other cases, usually infantry, some battalions in the same regiment were combined resulting in titles such as 1/7th etc. This was more common in the British army than the Canadian as we opted for many regiments, each with an active and a reserve battalion. There were exceptions, of course, but it was rare for there to have been more than one active battalion of a regiment. (A notable exception being the Canadian Scottish Regiment.)

 

[Michael Dorosh]

In some cases at least these were the results of amalgamations between regiments, ie  4/7 Dragoon Guards or 17/21 Lancers, resulting in what I have heard Brits refer to as fractionalized cavalry. In other cases, usually infantry, some battalions in the same regiment were combined resulting in titles such as 1/7th etc. This was more common in the British army than the Canadian as we opted for many regiments, each with an active and a reserve battalion. There were exceptions, of course, but it was rare for there to have been more than one active battalion of a regiment. (A notable exception being the Canadian Scottish Regiment.)

The 1st Battalion, Canadian Scottish designation has always struck me as a historical oddity. The Regina Rifles had 3 active battalions during the war (including the CAOF) as did the Black Watch, but the C Scot R were the only ones to have the "1st Battalion" designation creep into postwar histories of the war in NW Europe. A full list of the battalions raised is here:

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/mediawiki-1.5.5/index.php?title=Infantry_Units_in_the_Second_World_War

I suspect this is because before 1939, they did have a 2 battalion organization in the pre-war Militia, and the designation for some reason carried over into General Orders when the 3rd Division mobilized in 1940?  Unofficially, ALL the CASF battalion were "1st Battalion" this or that, but never get designated that way in official histories.

Am I close?

 

[baboon6]

In the British Army in World War 2, these designations came about because of the expansion of the Territorial Army in 1939. When the British Army was mobilising for war it was decided to double the size of the TA by having each unit form a duplicate of itself. So for example the 5th Battalion Queen's Royal Regiment was split to form two battalions, the 1st/6th and 2nd/6th. In this regt too you had the 1st/5th and 2nd/5th, 1st/7th and 2nd/7th.

http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/volmil-london/volinf/L22q.htm

Not all regiments followed this method of designation, some simply gave the duplicates the next available number eg. 4th Bn Royal Sussex Regt gave birth to 6th Bn. Later in the war the 4th was amalgamated with the 5th Bn to form the 4th/5th. Confusing eh?

A similiar thing had occurred with some units in WW1. The "New Army" or "Kitchener" units in WW1 did not form part of this sytem and were usually designated from where the regular and Territorial numbers had ended onwards eg 10th (Service) Battalion The Royal Hampshire Regiment.

 

[TheNomad]

Ok here we go.

In the British Army there are two reasons for fractioned numbers:

The most common has been mentioned above.  The amalgamation of two numbered units.  This is especially true with the Cavalry as shown by such units as the 17th / 21 st Lancers.

However, for WW1 infantry battalions it is different. When the British Army mobilised in 1914 it expaned on a massive scale.  At this time a typical infantry regiment (in this case The Hampshire Regiment) consisted of the following:

1st Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - a regular battalion
2nd Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - a regular battalion

3rd Bn, The Hampshire Regiment (Special Reserve) - this was a holding battalion based on the old militia used for training reservists.

4th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - a Territorial Force battalion made up of part time volunteers
5th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - as above
6th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - as above
7th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment - as above
8th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment (Princess Beatrice's Own Isle of Wight Rifles) - as above

The TF battalions had so may recruits that they replicated themselves up to three times.  Thus the 4th Bn, evolved into the

1/4th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment (TF)
2/4th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment (TF)
3/4th (Volunteer) Bn, The Hampshire Regiment (TF

All TF battalions replicated themselves in this way.

Following the introduction of mass conscription a number of other battalions were raised as part of the Hampshire Regiment.  These were known as "Service Battalions" as they were raised for war time service only and would be disbanded at the end of the war.  these battalions took the next available battalion numbers in their regiments such as:

9th Bn, The Hampshire Regiment
10th Bn, The Hampshire Regiment

and so on.

At the end of the war the replicated TF battalions would also be disbanded reducing the TF battalions back to its former state.

This was the only time that this happend.  Any other fractioned numbers are the result of amalgamation:

for example the 6/7th Bn, The Queen's Regiment was the result of the amalgamation of the 6th and 7th battalions of The Queen's Regiment.

Hope this clears things up.

 

[baboon6]

As I explained above it happened again in WW2, though not to the same extent. If you follow my link or search the regiments.org site you will find plenty of examples.