Gunnery Branch - post 1950 RCN rate badges

[RCN]

Have been away for a bit & not had time to complete the previous articles I started in this series of posts on the Gunnery Branch badges of the RCN, so will complete it in this thread......

In 1949 the RCN underwent considerable change in both Administration & Personnel. This change was as a result of the Mainguy Report, which was an in depth & thorough study of the RCN, undertaken by a committee headed up by Rear Adm Rollo Mainguy during 1947-49. Basically, & in simple terms, the object of the committee was to determine ways to make the RCN much more Canadian & remove some of the problem areas brought about by the recent war.

One of the major changes, as a result of the recommendations in the Mainguy Report, was to the current RCN rank & Rate structure.
Both of these areas had previously followed the RN structure & it was found both necessary & desirable to make major changes in these areas.

Two new RCN ranks were introduced: that of PO2nd class & CPO2nd class, to be more in line with, & have an equivalent, to the Army & Air ranks. Previously the RCN had no equivalent of Sergeant & WO2 in its rank structure.

But the major change was in the Rate badge structure.......

For non naval readers or those without naval backgrounds I will briefly touch on the terms RANK & RATE & try to explain them....

A rating(seaman) in the RCN had a RANK & a RATE & he was paid for both.
His RANK was where he stood on the seniority scale:
ie: Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, Leading Seaman, Petty Officer 2nd class, PO 1st class, Chief Petty Officer 2nd class, & CPO1st class.

Each rating also had a RATE & this was his trade.

ie: a Gunnery rating would belong to the Weapons branch & would wear one of the various rate badges specific to that branch, that being the rate he was trained in.

So a New Entry would come into the RCN untrained & in no branch (unless he entered as an Apprentice & I'll cover that when the time comes), he gets drafted to the New Entry training base at Deep Brook NS - HMCS Cornwallis - & undergoes about 20 wks of basic training (& as an aside, any reader who has gone thru that, prior to integration, knows what that entailed!).

Prior to leaving Cornwallis he undergoes a battery of tests & interviews to determine what his branch is to be, & whilst in the last wk of Cornwallis receives his Rate badge for his branch - ie: if he is selected for the Gunnery branch, he will receive a weapons rate badge, & will then be drafted to Fleet school to begin initial training in his rate.
At this point in his career he is an Ordinary Seaman Weapons branch rating.

His fleet school course could be anywhere from a month to several months depending upon his branch/rate. After he graduates from Fleet school he is rated as Trade group 1 & then usually goes to a sea draft. Promtion to AB {Able Seaman} follows about a yr after he is trained in his trade.

During his career he will alternate between shore & sea appointments as he moves up the rank & rate ladder. Each promotion to the next rank up usually required a prior course in his rate.
ie: to get promoted to Leading Seaman he would have had to qualify for Trade grp 2 in his rate at Fleet school first, then have the required sea time for promotion to LS. & so on up the ladder.

To keep it understandable, the terms: rate, branch, & trade all basically mean the same thing - they all refer to what a rating was trained to do in the RCN.


sooooo, now to return to the Gunnery/Weapons branch........


Bryan

[RCN]

All of the previous gunnery rate badges shown in my two previous Gunnery branch threads were rendered obsolete in 1949. In that year the new rate badge designs were introduced & gradually made their way into the fleet during 1949-50.

The new 1950 rate badges had one common denominator NOT seen in the old rate badges-ie: they ALL HAD THE MAPLE LEAF above the branch logo/device.

All of the old Crowns & stars used to denote advancement in rate were now gone overboard, so to speak. So now an AB & a PO wore the same rate badge.

As for the previous rate badges, the Gunnery branch now had 5 basic sub designations within the branch:

no letter = Gunnery Instructor

A = Anti aircraft ratings

C = Control ratings

L = Layer ratings

Q = Quarters ratings

Later in the 1950's Control ratings were redesignated R (Radar) ratings.

The rate badges for these are shown below......

[RCN]

Gradually the letters below the crosseed guns logo disappeared as the sub rates combined, this being as a result of advancements in gunnery & weapons dictated. The RCN in th 1950's was undergoing rapid change, modernization, & expansion.

By the late 1950's all of the gunnery sub letters had been absorbed into the one badge & this 'new' badge became the former Gunnery Instructor rate. Now the new rate was designated: Weapons Surface (WS).

In the early 1950's Gunnery Instructors were permitted to wear a small silver crown within the maple leaf to show their status as Gunnery Instructors & an example of this badge is shown as well.

CPO's (Chief Petty Officers 2nd & 1st classes) initially wore on the lapels of their uniform tunics their rate bades (as they had prior to 1950), but in the 1950's these badges were of the same size as the rating's sleeve badges. In the late 1950's all of the then current rate badges were reduced in size & made up in matched pairs for wear by the CPO's. A CPO's WS reduced size matched set rate badge is illustrated below.

Approx 1958 the rate of Weapons Firecontrolman (FC) was added. These ratings were drawn from the old Control, Radar,& Quarters rates, all of the initial letter designations now being obsolete. So Surface Weapons ratings of the 1960's period now were either WS or FC ratings.

Bryan

[boots and saddles]

Nice to hear from you Bryan, it's been a while., If you are looking for a good home for that Radar Control rate I can provbide it. Ray (poormick)

[RCN]

Hi Ray,

Just emailed you last nite but not 100% on yr address tho, send to me by PM pls, am away for rest of wk tho & back Sat,

Hope you are well!

Bryan