Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Branch - RCEME Formation and Early Years

RCEME Formation and Early Years

The RCEME motto, Arte et Marte (By Skill and by Fighting) RCEME Corps badge consisted of a laurel wreath, three shields, the Tudor Crown surmounting, and the letters R.C.E.M.E. on a scroll underneath. Emblazoned on the shields were: on the first, three lightning bolts, which represented the telecommunications trades, three cannons, which represented armament, and a large gear, representing the vehicle mechanics. On the second shield, above the three cannons are three cannon balls, which are larger than the cannons. This came from the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, which in turn inherited it from its British counterpart, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. There has been a missconception that its significance goes back to the Crimean War when ammunition shipped to the front was too big to fit in the cannons, and was intended to remind the members of that Corps of how imperative doing their job well was (though it was not really their fault; it was the manufacturer's mistake) however this is untrue. In the first place the Board of Ordnance, adopted the Arms (From which the Ordnance Shield derives) as early as the mid 17th Century, a good hundred years before the Crimean War started. At which time the shield was used by the Artillery as well! The Arms were approved by the King in 1806, and the grant of Arms by the College Arms particularly states that they be the same as those previously in use.

Secondly, in good heraldic design, not only to show the charges, which in this case are the guns and shot, symbolically and sometimes exaggerated, but that these charges should fill the shield in which they are placed without losing the balance of the design as a whole (Try saying that in the NAAFI at closeing time!) The placing of the cannon balls in the chief and the guns in the lower two-thirds of the shield illustrate this aspect of recognized heraldic design.

There was some debate as to what the regimental march should be, and several tunes, including "Hi Ho, Hi Ho!" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were proposed, but the final tune chosen was a medley of "Lillibullero" and "Auprès de ma blonde", just as REME had chosen. However, there were some things that RCEME chose differently than their British counterparts. The regimental slow march of REME was not chosen for RCEME, but rather, the tune chosen was "The Flower of Scotland", and St. Jean de Brébeuf was named the patron saint.

Each division had a central workshop, where major repairs would be conducted, and within the division, RCEME units would be embedded to effectuate certain repairs (1st Line) on the spot. This included light aid detachments, which could deploy quickly to recover or repair equipment on the line, or in transit to the front. The RCEME triage system was divided into three groups: 1st Line, which would be embedded in the operational units, would carry out routine maintenance and minor repairs; 2nd Line, which was located in field workshops back from the front, carried out major overhauls and full component replacements; 3rd Line would be responsible for reconditioning and rebuilding equipment. Though the location of each and various tasks have changed, the structure is still in place today, with 1st Line maintenance platoons / troops embedded in combat units, while 2nd Line is located 20 minutes to 2 hours away, but still in theatre, and the only 3rd Line workshop in service is 202 Workshop in Montreal.

In 1949, the RCEME Corps adopted a new badge, nearly identical to the British one which had been struck in 1947. It consisted of a white horse (a mustang, as opposed to the Arabian horse of the British badge) superimposed over a lightning bolt, with a chain fixed around its neck running down its back, standing on a globe, to which the other end of the chain is attached, which pictured the Western Hemisphere (whereas the British badge pictured Europe, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and Asia). Behind the horse's head was a scroll with the letters R.C. on one side of the head, and E.M.E. on the other, surmounted by the Tudor Crown (commonly and mistakenly called referred to as the King's Crown).

The only modification ever made to this badge was in 1952 when Elizabeth II ascended to the throne, and the Tudor Crown was replaced with St. Edward's Crown.

During the 1950s, the RCEME Corps was reorganized to accommodate the postwar structure of the Army, and many trades were combined, due to the need to have specialists quickly fielded for the war no longer existing. Young craftsmen (as privates in the corps are called) trained in their trade at the RCEME school, titled the Royal Canadian School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, located in Kingston, Ontario, then deployed to the various squadrons and troops of RCEME to perform their trades.

In the mid 1960s, Canadian Army planners were again looking to streamline the structure of the Army, and beginning in 1965, various models were proposed for combining the elements of maintenance, supply and transport for each brigade into one unit. The result was the formation in 1968 of service battalions, each consisting of maintenance, supply and transport companies, while craftsmen who had previously belonged to RCEME squadrons and only attached to the combat unit, were incorporated directly into the unit, and administered through the unit's chain of command rather than the RCEME squadrons and troops, which ceased to exist. RCEME ceased to have its own autonomous chain of command; they worked for a service battalion with Supply and Transport, or a service company or squadron within a combat unit.