Video of 1 RCR deploying to the Suez, 1956

[uptheglens]

CFPL, out of London, Ontario, have donated their entire archive of news broadcasts from 1953 to 1968 to the Ontario Archives.

http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/exhibits/cfpl/1956.htm

Towards the bottom of the page is a video of 1 RCR preparing to deploy to the Suez, with some interesting shots of the battalion at parade at Wolseley Barracks, then entering a C-119 Flying Boxcar.

 

[HItorMiss]

it's 1 RCR not 1st or First RCR if you want to say First it would then it would be; The First Battalion The Royal Canadian Regiment......What can I say I am a stickler for stuff like this.

Also it is great to see history like this kept.

 

[uptheglens]

it's 1 RCR not 1st or First RCR if you want to say First it would then it would be; The First Battalion The Royal Canadian Regiment......What can I say I am a stickler for stuff like this.

Whoops! Lesson learned!

 

[exspy]

uptheglens,

Fantastic video.  Good shots from the September 1956 'Trooping of the Colour' too.

Like HitorMiss I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to The RCR.  It was 2 RCR stationed at Wolseley Barracks at the time.  It was they who 'Trooped the Colour' in 1956.  1 RCR was in Germany.

Interestingly this video provides a more detailed picture of the event than the regimental history does.  On page 308 of 'The Royal Canadian Regiment 1933 - 1966" it states:

"In November the Suez crisis led to a hurried call for a hundred men for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Palestine.  Fortunately it was not found necessary to despatch them."

The video shows that the 100 men actually left London and made it as far as Montreal before being found not necessary.  As I recall a full battalion of the Queen's Own Rifles made the flight to Montreal from Calgary before being similarly stopped.  The history books indicate that the Egyptian government was loathe to have armed troops in their country whose title had the word Queen or Royal in it.  Those words apparently had negative colonial connotations for them.  I don't believe their aversion to the Queen stopped the Egyptian government from accepting Canadian monetary support however.  I'm old enough to remember when she was on every denomination the mint printed from $1 to $1,000.

 

[uptheglens]

uptheglens,

Fantastic video.  Good shots from the September 1956 'Trooping of the Colour' too.

Like HitorMiss I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to The RCR.  It was 2 RCR stationed at Wolseley Barracks at the time.  It was they who 'Trooped the Colour' in 1956.  1 RCR was in Germany.

Interestingly this video provides a more detailed picture of the event than the regimental history does.  On page 308 of 'The Royal Canadian Regiment 1933 - 1966" it states:

"In November the Suez crisis led to a hurried call for a hundred men for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Palestine.  Fortunately it was not found necessary to despatch them."

The video shows that the 100 men actually left London and made it as far as Montreal before being found not necessary.  As I recall a full battalion of the Queen's Own Rifles made the flight to Montreal from Calgary before being similarly stopped.  The history books indicate that the Egyptian government was loathe to have armed troops in their country whose title had the word Queen or Royal in it.  Those words apparently had negative colonial connotations for them.  I don't believe their aversion to the Queen stopped the Egyptian government from accepting Canadian monetary support however.  I'm old enough to remember when she was one every denomination the mint printed from $1 to $1,000.

Interesting reading, exspy. Just one other video to post. It's of a parachute drop by The RCR in 1958 when two of the mens' parachutes got tangled. Luckily, both survived.

http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/exhibits/cfpl/1958.htm