Royal Canadian School of Artillery

[rob love]

Rob: I never said we never had one, just that we never had one that I know of.
One thing with artifacts and monuments like these, is they do get loaned to other museums, bases, and in the past small towns. Sometimes they get recalled back to the proper owners, other times so much time passes that they get traded or moved to other units by the unit that borrowed it. A museum must constantly refresh the borrower about whom the gun belongs to, and where it is now.
All this to say that the monuments that may have come here from the school may not have belonged to the school in the first place, or we may have loaned them on to other places like the CWM or Petawawa.

Harold Skaruup has a website that shows the majority of the artillery monuments in Canada. I don't have the link right now and am having trouble finding it. It may be that he has taken it down and is instead selling books with the content as I see those listed province by province.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by rob love

...

Harold Skaruup has a website that shows the majority of the artillery monuments in Canada. I don't have the link right now and am having trouble finding it. ...

https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/

The articles are longwinded and need to be searched with a keen CTRL-F set of fingers. But, I've corresponded with him several times on other matters and he is very easy to reach.

[rob love]

It used to be, not that long ago, that you could view the content and see each monument including a photo, province by province, and with some specific pages covering certain museums. When I try that now (say for Manitoba or any other province) it leads to a link to buy the book from amazon or others:
https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/pos...ume-8-manitoba

The online version was valuable to make corrections, or to look for wayward guns.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by rob love

It used to be, not that long ago, that you could view the content and see each monument including a photo, province by province, and with some specific pages covering certain museums. When I try that now (say for Manitoba or any other province) it leads to a link to buy the book from amazon or others:
https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/pos...ume-8-manitoba

The online version was valuable to make corrections, or to look for wayward guns.

One of the least known and incredibly valuable internet tools is the Internet Wayback Machine at, https://archive.org/web/ Type the URL of the site you want to search, and their scrapers and 'bots post the texts off the site going back years. If Hal has closed pages to monetize his research, that is actually his business. But the interwebs never forget, and earlier versions of any visible website will show up on the Wayback Machine.

[Colin Alford]

Gents,

Try these links:

8.8 cm Pak 43 and 8.8 cm Flak at RMC:
https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/pos...ollege-grounds

Restoration of 8.8 cm Flak at CWM:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcont...73&context=cmh

At the first link, Mr Skaarup believes that the RCEME School image from 1946 in Camp Barriefield (now CFB Kingston) shows the same Flak that is currently on display at RMC. While I previously assumed this assessment to be correct, I have had a closer look at the images, and I believe they are different guns. While I am certainly not an expert on Flak 18/36/37, and haven’t done enough research to be able to identify the differences, I note round vs square feet on the mount stabilizing legs, a different nose on the upper cylinder of the recoil mech, different bolt pattern on the shield, and different position for the rotating shield (on right side of main shield) for the direct fire sight unit.

The second link includes an image which is captioned as a Flak 18 in Petawawa circa 1945-46. I believe the dating to be incorrect given the vehicles shown in the background. This gun appears to me to be different to the surviving examples in either Kingston, or Ottawa.

It appears that there were multiple examples of 8.8 cm Flak that came to Canada. I have not conducted enough research to determine how many arrived, and how many are currently accounted for.

There is a Pak 43/41 in Borden that has been there since the disbandment of the Foreign Material Section in approx 1950. I have not seen any reference to an 8.8 cm Flak ever being present in Borden.

[Ed Storey]

Originally Posted by Colin Alford

The second link includes an image which is captioned as a Flak 18 in Petawawa circa 1945-46. I believe the dating to be incorrect given the vehicles shown in the background. This gun appears to me to be different to the surviving examples in either Kingston, or Ottawa.

As Colin correctly points out, the image of the Flak 18 published in the CMH Magazine was not taken in 1945-46. It was taken after 1952 as there are a pair of post-war SMP vehicles in the background, a M135CDN 2½ ton truck and M62 5 ton wrecker.

The gun itself in the photograph appears to be similar to the one that has been on outdoor display on the base for some 60+ years although it lacks the shield. The carriage for the Petawawa gun ended up being used as targets on the Mattawa Plain as I remember, as a young infantry reservist in the late 1970s, seeing them all shot-up when in the training area. I believe the carriage along with several Valentine hulls were all cleared as scrap decades ago.

Attached is the Garrison Petawawa gun as it appeared in 1982. It has been repainted many times and is now in some garish camouflage.

50-15 Flak 36 88mm Anti-Aircraft Gun copy.jpg

[r.morrison]

Gentlemen: Apologies for being tardy in getting back to you all. Damn Covid knocked me on my ass. First, let me thank you all for your help in this inquiry matter. Secondly, my apologies to Rob Love for my screw up with the "interpetation" of our discussion. Sorry Rob.

I'll copy and send this off to my friend and as quoted here, "he can do the homework".
Once again cheers and a Happy Holiday to all!

Robert