Help with Staghound Crew Designation?
 

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can help me decipher some information I located in the XII Manitoba Dragoons online War Diaries?

I'm looking to find out what OP CAC "C" means. The XII MD War Diaries this as my great uncle's "trade".

For context, I believe he was a crewman in Staghound F235390 C-152, C-Squadron, 15th Troop.

(T-12714, Image 1511)
Attachment 89572

I've Googled and searched the MLU forum but have yet to find exactly what the designation means.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

Darren

"operator"
 

This means the radio operator. In the Strathcona war diary a Sherman is crewed by a driver, assistant driver, gunner, loader/operator and commander. If the crew positions were standardized across the armoured corps at the time he was the loader/radio operator in a Staghound.

"CAC" is Canadian Armoured Corps.

I don't know if the "C" relates to his squadron, perhaps if you had the complete document it would provide that information.

Driver mech would be Driver Mechanic, which was shortened to D&M by the 1970s. Rather than just operate the controls, the soldier was expected to do 1st line maintenance too.

At one point during the war, trades were grouped alphabetically. "A", "B", and "C" groups. The trade of driver mechanic, driver operator, motor mechanic were classified across these trade groups depending on the degree of qualification.

F235390 wartime photo
 

A photo from F235390, 15th Troop Sergeants car somewhere in Germany in 1945.

Marco

Thank you all for the responses! I'm sorry I can't offer any contributions to the forum on the restoration side of things but I knew this would be the group to ask about my Uncle!

Marco... that's my Uncle 2nd from the left! That is the only other image of him during his military service. You have no idea what this means to me! Thank you so much! And to see him with the rest of the crew is amazing!

Can I ask where this image came from? I hadn't had much luck finding other images/info about 15th Troop (although I still have a good portion of the war Diaries to go through).

Anyway... Thank you all again!

Darren

Darren,

That's great that your great uncle is on the photo!
I got it from a nephew from Tpr. Slimmon who can be seen on the right of the photo.

The good news is that there are more photo's from 15th Troop.
They were involved in the liberation of Nieuwpoort and Dudzele in Belgium on 7 and 12 September 1944.

Here are the ones from Nieuwpoort.
They are on-line also.

https://devierboete6hs.wordpress.com...dinge-project/

Marco

Dudzele, Belgium
 

A photo from Dudzele, Belgium.
Also on-line.

http://wo1dudzele.brugseverenigingen...IJDINGSEPT1944

Marco

Another one from Dudzele.
For some reason this photo wouldn't upload simultanuously with the previous one.

Marco

Ditched somewhere in the Caen area.
Driver at that time was Tpr Wynne.

Marco

And one more taken at war's end in Gerrmany.

So as it turns out my father had actually seen this particular image before. In fact... he went and managed to find a 2.5"x 3" copy of it amongst all their old family photos. He hadn't realized that he had his own copy. On the back written by my Uncle Cliff is his crew and all their roles. So as of the time of that photo in 1945, it looks like my uncle was the driver!

Attachment 90262

Look at the rifle the man kneeling is holding. It sure looks like a No.4T sniper rifle, because of the scope and magazine. But the fore end has been shortened, which apparently was the custom with some troops.

I noticed the rifle too, but is the telescope a no32 or a no67? Perhaps it is one of the ASC rifles?

Wheaty may have a kick at that optic ...