Help with Staghound Crew Designation?

[Darren Sutherland]

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)
War Diary T-12714 Image 1511.jpg

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

[45jim]

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.

[maple_leaf_eh]

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.

[Bill Alexander]

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.

[marco]

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

Marco

[Darren Sutherland]

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

Originally Posted by marco

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

Marco

[Darren Sutherland]

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!

Cliffs Crew.jpg

Originally Posted by marco

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

Marco