WD Numbers, CAR, CFR

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

I forgot to mention that the Canadian forces, in line with say Dutch and Czech, were allocated certain Census Number blocks, e.g. 42....., and photos often show "C"-prefixed numbers as well as WD-style without prefix.

It would appear that any Canadian vehicles acquired by the British, e.g. in 1940, would have been re-numbered into the British system. This would appear to be very few though at this stage.

Until Census Numbers had been allocated by the RCOC, all vehicles on assembly in the UK to Canadian contract acquired "CMD" prefixes with numbers in batches allocated to each assembly point. This stood for Canadian Mechanization Depot, although there were only two CMDs...and Southampton was bombed 30 November 1940 leaving just Citroen Cars, Slough, premises, as the sole CMD. However Canadian Mechanization HQ remained at 2,3 & 4 Cockspur Street, London SW1 behind the Canadian High Commission. It must have seemed logival to retain the "CMD" prefix...which acted as a "trade plate" to move vehicles around without Census Numbers.