Le Régiment de Gaspé-Bonaventure

[Bill A]

Le Régiment de Gaspé-Bonaventure was created by renaming the 3rd Bn Fusiliers du St. Laurent in 1944. According to Stacey, this reserve regiment numbered 49 officers and 1877 other ranks.
For such a large unit, it is odd that there are no known insignia. It has been suggested that the "parent" unit insignia, Les Fusiliers du St. Laurent, continued to be worn. The number of kc cap badges that are around for the F du St.L reflects this, but there is very little worsted cloth shoulder insignia for the Fus du St.L and none is recorded for the Gaspé-Bonaventure unit. In fact, if the two reserve battalions wore the F du St. L, worsted slip on, they sure don't show up much.

[Phillip Herring]

If the reserve battalions were recruited on a strictly volunteer basis, their strengths may have been very low. I think that volunteers from Quebec would have been flocking to active /overseas battalions.

Phil

[Bill A]

Hello Phil, Six Years of War gives the 1943 strength of the 2nd (Reserve) Bn Fus St.L as 38 officers 1213 OR's, and the Regt Gaspé-Bonaventure in 1944 as the numbers above. Stacey notes that these two battalions "must have been by far the largest in the Canadian Army."
They were tasked with the defence of the shorelines of the St Lawrence River in defence against the U-Boat menace.
One would think with that number of reserve soldiers there would be more worsted titles around than show up.