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The Argyll Light Infantry
Lineage
The 15th Battalion Volunteer Militia (Infantry) Canada was authorized on 16 January 1863.3 It was redesignated as the Argyll (sometimes spelled "Argyle") Light Infantry in 1871, and like all infantry units in Canada, was redesignated a regiment instead of a battalion in 1900. A number of individuals from the regiment served in South Africa in the Boer War. The unit did not activate for the First World War, instead sending men to various battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (including the 2nd, 21st, 39th, 77th, 80th, 136th, 155th and 245th Battalions).4 In 1920, as part of the Otter Commission reorganizations, the unit was redesignated The Argyll Light Infantry.5
History
The regiment was organized as a two-battalion regiment upon its redesignation on 12 March 1920. The 1st Battalion perpetuated the 155th Battalion, CEF as a unit of the Non-Permanent Active Militia. The 2nd Battalion was a paper unit on the Reserve order of battle which disbanded on 14 December 1936 when the 1st Battalion was redesignated The Argyll Light Infantry (Tank). The unit remained part of the infantry branch but adopted the black beret of Canadian armoured units. The regiment joined the Canadian Armoured Corps on the formation of the corps in 1940 and the regiment was renamed The (Reserve) Argyll Light Infantry (Tank) on 7 November 1940. The unit did not mobilize for overseas service. In 1946 the unit converted to artillery and amalgamated with a field regiment to become the 9th Anti-Tank Regiment (Self-Propelled) (Argyll Light Infantry), Royal Canadian Artillery.6
Insignia
Cap Badge
Collar Badge
Other
The regiment apparently did not adopt the dress regulations peculiar to Light Infantry regiments, in particular the green forage cap worn in undress. Instead, they had adopted a blue forage cap with a red, white and blue diced band. When National Defence Headquarters was updating its dress regulations for the Militia in the 1930s, they discovered the regiment was wearing this unauthorized form of headdress, and had been doing so possibly as early as the 1870s. NDHQ had not enforced the regulations for light infantry, and having been caught unawares, decided instead to grant permission to the regiment to wear the blue undress forage cap with red, white and blue dicing and a scarlet welt on the crown. The dicing was not permitted for the khaki Service Dress cap.
The regiment was ordered to adopt the black beret of tank units in 1937, and use of the distinctive forage caps ceased. For full dress, the regiment was permitted to wear a coloured "flash" (in the words of contemporary dress documents, in actuality 'flash' referred to a coloured plume). The regiment sought permission to added the red, white and blue dicing to the beret in the form of a patch worn on the front of the beret. After much correspondence the flash was taken into wear, and for full dress a plume in the colours of the Royal Tank Regiment (brown, red and green) was also adopted. The colours were a visual representation of the Royal Tank Regiment's motto "Through Mud and Blood to the Green Fields Beyond".8
Notes
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