Canadian Civil Defence insignia

[Bill A]

Could some members post a primer on Canadian Civil Defence insignia? Sean?

[jonnynation]

i could dig out my small collection of canadian c/d, scan and post pictures... other than that... not much good for info, sorry!

[jonnynation]

well i did write a fair old chunk of text, but managed to log out and lose it! anyways... i shall have another crack.

if canadian civil defence developed anything like british civil defence, it started off life as ARP (Air Raid Precautions) before becoming C.D. during the course of the war. evidence for this possibly occuring in canada is the fact that we have ARP pins, screw backed and fairly heavy in contruction but very small. note addition of "Civil Emergency Corps" in the text for the Halifax version. i have seen a toronto badge, but can not recall the exact text for that one at the moment.

arp enamels.jpg

ARP was started before the war (in the UK anyways) when it was realised that the risk of aerial attack form the enemy was high, especially after the events in Spain. ARP essentially set out to enforce black out rules to prevent the enemy from using light emitted from homes and other buildings from helping guide the enemy to targets at night ("Put that light out!" etc etc). they produced many a publication on the threats of the use of Gases, etc etc. As the war went on, Civil Defence developed as rescue, fire fighting, welfare etc etc became a large part of the workload of the organisation. The name change suggests a policy change from warning to actual assistance in the event and wake of disaster / air raids etc such as was the Blitz. in Canada, its likely that a similar set up was envisioned, however much scaled back as the likelyhood of attack was much smaller. that said, efforts to guard and protect key establishments such as canals and power stations appear to have been felt important, which it also was in the first war. other people on this forum will know much more about this than i. Civil Defence suffered a stand down at the end of the war, the cost of running such an organisation being rather hefty, however, it was soon revived as the Cold War started to become apparent. when the apparent total destruction of everything looked likely in the 60s, the hydrogen bomb being tested and improved rocket technology making use of these weapons much easier, the CD programme was cancelled entirely. rescue from fire and flooding, etc etc was left entirely to fire departments. some countries still have CD, such as Ireland.

cd enamel.jpg

anyways, cutting back on the waffle... its pretty hard to find anything insignia wise for ARP and CD at shows. occasional items can be found, as i have in my collection... and trust me, i look! ebay has items, but typically they are British items and not Canadian.

patches.jpg

one does find the occasional white helmet, with a similar decal as the patch above. they usually also have the area where the helmet was used applied also, such as Winnepeg etc etc. the lack of finding uniforms to date has left me to believe that the use of armbands on civilian clothing was the only other method of insignia use. the white example with CDC is believed to be an early version, it as a matter of interest has a ladies name and home address written in pencil on the rear. the two recycled webbing versions are likely to be later issues, perhaps cold war. anyways, in the UK uniforms were issued during the war as the organisation grew, plenty of examples of ARP boiler suits can be found, as can uniforms with ARP on the label with later CD insignia. that all said, there are plenty of armbands also, which ive seen for sale as being worn on uniforms.

armbands front.jpg
armbands rear.jpg

hope that helps?!...

[Bill A]

Good start Sean.
I remember the National Survival program in the early 1960's. The G&SF were supposed to be a flying column that would go into the radioactive heart of a destroyed Toronto. All kinds of rescue and aid to the civil power training. What a joke. There would have been nothing to assist in the eventuality of a nuclear strike.