[Dan Martel]

Gentlemen,

Like JackM stated I don't want to hijack this thread away from Eric but I think I have the answer as to why the 25th CIB in Korea used green for their AoS.

Now as was stated the Canadian brigade was in Korea for quite some time before the Commonwealth Division was formed. So the question becomes; why would the 25th CIB have used a green AoS when green was the designator for the second (or intermediate) brigade of a division? As an independent formation why wouldn't the brigade have used a red AoS which was the correct designator for an independent brigade (and also for the senior brigade of a division)?

I think the answer lies in the organization of the Canadian Army at the time. By the beginning of 1950 the regular units of the Army had already been organized into the Mobile Striking Force (MSF). Prior to being designated as the MSF the active force units of the Army were part of a formation called the Active Force Brigade Group. The AFBG had been formed in 1946 and originally called the 23rd Infantry Brigade Group (the militia reorganization had included the 1st to 22nd brigades). It is quite possible that the units of the 23rd IBG / AFBG / MSF had been using the red AoS from 1946 to the summer of 1950 when the Canadian Army Korean force was authorized. As the second brigade in the active force, the decision may have been to have the infantry battalions use a green AoS to distinguish them from the MSF units. This would explain why 2 PPCLI would have been using green in Korea well before the formation of the Commonwealth Division. The GOC of the division upon its formation probably left the brigade's markings as they were seeing that they already conformed to the established tables for an intermediate brigade in an infantry division.

Unfortunately I have yet to find any documentation to prove this theory to be valid. I'm open to any suggestions or rebuttal.

Now as to the terms senior brigade, intermediate (or second) brigade and junior brigade, I think I can clear this up as well. This only applied to allocating the AoS designators within an armoured, infantry or airborne division using the British system of formation organization. In the infantry divisions the senior brigade's battalions were allocated red squares, the second brigade's used green squares and the battalions of the junior brigade used brown. The airborne division used the same system with the exception that the airlanding brigade was the division's junior brigade even if it's number was lower than the parachute brigades. The armoured division, with only two brigades, used red for the armoured units and green for the infantry. Determining the order of brigades was merely a matter of which brigade had the lower number being first etc (except for the airlanding brigade in the airborne division). I suspect senior, intermediate and junior were used because the British Army numbered it's infantry brigades and to begin calling a division's brigades either first, second or third, would have become confusing to all concerned.

I'm sure that these terms are all redundant now with all of the changes that have taken place in the use of tactical markings on vehicles.

And now, back to the jeeps.
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Cheers, Dan.