10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment (Air)
The senior regular Air Cavalry unit in Canada, the Regiment traces its origins to the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. In the then-District of Saskatchewan (modern-day central Saskatchewan), white settlers found themselves targeted by rebelling Métis and native Canadian bands of the Nēhilaw (Cree) and Nakota (Assiniboine) nations as they moved to establish an all-native province in the Dominion after being effectively forced out of Manitoba over the previous fifteen years. A “volunteer mounted rifle company” were established by local Hudson’s Bay Company tradesmen at Fort Pitt (near modern-day Frenchman Butte) just before the Cree launched an attack on the fort in April of that year. Under the command of Wayne McKay (a signatory of Treaty 6 between the British government and the Plains tribes in the 1870s), the Fort Pitt force was able to escape before the Nēhilaw attacked the fort, forcing the NWMP garrison commander Francis Dickens (son of Charles Dickens) to surrender the facility. Though Dickens was able to escape with his fellow policemen, local Nēhilaw leader Big Bear kept the civilian residents of the fort hostage. On hearing of what happened, McKay – deputised as a sub-inspector by Dickens – led his company to the Nēhilaw encampment and, in the dead of night on 23 April 1885, managed to overcome the guard and release the hostages. The company then escorted the freed residents of Fort Pitt to Battleford, where McKay was hailed as a hero. News of the company’s actions soon reached MGen Frederick D. Middleton, the commander of the Canadian militia and the officer in charge of the Dominion’s response to Louis Riel’s rebellion. McKay was commissioned as a captain and the company was officially designated “A” Company of The Fort Pitt Volunteers. Assigned as a scout group to the military columns marching into the Territories from eastern Canada, the Volunteers were present at the Battle of Batoche the next month, where Riel was captured and the Rebellion effectively ended. At the end of the Rebellion, the Volunteers recorded a total of 7 killed in action and 15 wounded in action. For his action at Fort Pitt in rescuing the civilian inhabitants of the trading outpost from the Nēhilaw, McKay was awarded the Victoria Cross.
In the wake of Batoche and the re-establishment of peace in the District, McKay was promoted to major and charged by MGen Middleton to expand the Volunteers into a volunteer battalion of mounted infantry. The modern Regiment was properly founded in 1890 as the Volunteer Mounted Rifles of Saskatchewan at Prince Albert, with Maj Wayne McKay as commanding officer. Ten fighting troops were eventually established all across the district, based at Prince Albert, Battleford, North Battleford, Hoey, Frenchman Butte, Duck Lake, Saskatoon, Beaver Creek, Osler and Govan. As the years passed and more people joined, the Volunteers would eventually achieve regimental status in 1913 when it was designated the 109th Regiment, Saskatchewan Mounted Rifles, with headquarters in Saskatoon.
It was in this state that the Regiment found itself drawn into the Great War. Noting the haphazard way the Department of Militia under Sam Hughes was ignoring the set mobilisation plans of the senior military leaders, the Regiment – with the suggestion of the long-retired LCol Wayne McKay, who remained very close to his unit right to the end of his life – held off on actually mobilising a battalion of troops to go overseas until 1916. By then, the concept of the “air reconnaissance battalion” – where four “flying companies” composed of sixteen aircraft each would be brought together as an aerial support unit to a ground brigade – had been firmly established. Without hesitation, the Regiment established the 10th Air Reconnaissance Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, which was dispatched alongside the 46th (South Saskatchewan) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force to become part of the 10th Canadian Brigade of the 4th Canadian Division. The regiment would remain part of the brigade right from the battle of Ancre Heights to the final advance on the Belgian city of Mons two years later.
After the war, the Regiment was given the following battle honours from both the Northwest Rebellion and the Great War (those emblazoned on the Regiment Guidon are in bold print):
Fort Pitt, Batoche, Northwest Canada 1885, Somme 1916, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, Arras 1917 & 1918, Vimy 1917, Hill 70, Ypres 1917, Passchendaele, Amiens, Scarpe 1918, Drocourt-Queant Line, Hindenburg Line, Canal du Nord, Valenciennes, France and Flanders 1916-18
During the war, 10 ARB recruited 1,819 soldiers into it. Of them, 611 were killed in action, 416 were wounded in action and 14 persons were recorded as missing in action.
Members of 10 ARB were awarded 1 Victoria Cross, 5 Distinguished Service Orders, 6 Distinguished Conduct Medals, 10 Military Crosses, 6 Military Medals and 17 people were mentioned in dispatches, thus making the unit the most highly decorated establishment in the air reconnaissance forces of the Canadian Corps.
As with the other air reconnaissance battalions, the survivors of 10 ARB returned home and rejoined the peacetime Regiment after 1918. However, given the considerable accomplishments the members of 10 ARB had done with their Bristol F.2B Fighters – the beloved “Biffs” – a call went out to establish permanent “air cavalry” regiments in the Canadian militia as tactical air forces to the army. To that end, the Canadian Air Cavalry Corps (CACC) was formed in 1920, with the Regiment officially being re-designated as 10th Canadian Cavalry (Saskatchewan) (Air). Headquarters was established in Saskatoon, with squadrons based in Battleford, North Battleford and Prince Albert.
Using surplus B.2F Fighters, the Regiment – though officially a part of the Non-Permanent Active Militia (the part-time Canadian army) as an element of Military District 12 (the Militia in Saskatchewan) – provided tactical air support not just to its fellow part-time soldiers but to forces of the Permanent Active Militia (the full-time Canadian army) such as the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry when they went out on very infrequent field exercises during the lean years of the 1920s and 1930s. Working with the PPCLI, the Regiment was able to acquire much-needed experience in dealing with the many problems when it came to tactical air support; with the absence of funding from Ottawa, the Regiment’s flyers teamed up with soldiers of the PPCLI and other corps of the Army to eventually devise unique and interesting ways of maintaining communications between the ground troops and the pilots, especially in the years before portable radios became commonplace. The relationships established during this time would serve to forge a deep bond of friendship between the Patricias and the Saskatchewan Cavalrymen, one that has lasted to this very day.
1936 was a massive year of change in the Canadian Army. Regiments and battalions found themselves disbanded, amalgamated and converted from their former roles with great alacrity. The Regiment itself survived the ordeal with just a name change, to 10th (Saskatchewan) Canadian Cavalry (Air). At the same time, the flyers in the Regiment began to realise that their Biffs were becoming hopelessly obsolete in the face of the development of more modern monoplane machines with retractable undercarriages and multiple machine guns. To better prepare the Air Cavalry for the war that clearly was coming in Europe, a flyer of the Regiment, Capt Anton Smith, was dispatched to Britain to scout out a potential replacement for the venerable Biffs in the tactical air role. The Hawker Hurricane, with its Rolls Royce Merlin engine and four 20 mm Hispano HS.404 Mark II cannons, fit the role perfectly, especially given the willingness of the Canadian Car and Foundry company in Montréal to build locally-produced versions of the aircraft. The Regiment would become the first to properly convert over to the Hurricane in 1939, two months before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and launched World War Two. Because of its willingness to prepare itself ahead of even the only “permanent” air cavalry unit, Winnipeg-based 1st Canadian Cavalry, the Regiment was the first part of the CACC to mobilise when war began, establishing the 10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment (Air), Canadian Army Service Force as part of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade established in the western provinces with the Patricias and two other battalions. The elements of the Regiment remaining in Canada established the 1st Air Cavalry Training Regiment at a brand-new airfield outside Dundurn, south of Saskatoon, to prepare replacement pilots and crewmen.
The mobilised Regiment arrived in England by the end of 1939 and – alongside the other air cavalry regiments of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, The Royal London Rifles (7th Canadian Cavalry) (Air) and le 20e Fusiliers (du Québec-Nord) du Canada (CACC); they were later joined by the first of three regiments who had been assigned to the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, The Malden Dragoons (8th Canadian Cavalry) (Air) – established a defensive working relationship with elements of the Royal Air Force’s Fighter Command. That relationship would serve it well when the Regiment was called up to aid in the defence of Britain after the capitulation of France in the summer of 1940. Teamed up with squadrons from 11 Group, the Regiment launched a “forward defensive” campaign against the Luftwaffe, actively going forth into occupied France to seek out aircraft while still on the ground at their airfields before they could lift off and attack Britain. This tactic – while quite bloody in the terms of lost and wounded pilots – contributed heavily to the recovery of the “pure Air Force” squadrons under RAF Fighter Command, thus allowing them to press the attack further against the Germans right up until the effective cessation of operations before Operation: Barbarossa diverted the Luftwaffe’s attention eastward.
By then, the Regiment – which had suffered nearly sixty percent casualties in the ten months it had been active in the European theatre – was moving to re-equip itself with the Hurricane’s successor on the Hawker assembly lines, the Typhoon. While the Typhoon proved itself quite troublesome in the air defence role when introduced into the RAF, the Regiment and other elements of the CACC found it was perfect in the ground attack role, especially given its large bomb-carrying capacity. Employed on the “forward defensive” role, Regiment Typhoons would keep the Luftwaffe, the Heer and even the Kriegsmarine on their toes throughout 1941, 1942 and the early part of 1943. Key battles in that time were the interception missions sent to stop the Channel Dash in February 1942 (bombs from two Regiment Typhoons damaged the battleship Gneisenau), plus air support to the failed raid on Dieppe in August that year (the Regiment was the only non-2nd Canadian Infantry Division air cavalry unit involved in Operation: Jubilee).
The Regiment deployed to Sicily on Operation: Husky in the summer of 1943, following its ground brigade group up the Italian boot right until the late autumn of 1944, when it – along with the rest of I Canadian Corps – was moved into the Netherlands for the remaining part of the war. Earning a well-won reputation for risk-taking and a keen willingness to help neighbouring ground forces when they were needed, the Regiment would – atop acquiring far more battle honours than any of its peers in Europe at the time – also be awarded the American Presidential Unit Citation for assistance in the Battle of Monte Cassino, where it flew missions in support of the 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division on the famous monastery during the early stages of the battle. The Regiment also was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for its support of the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division in the same battle.
Unlike other Air Cavalry units in Europe (which went to the Hawker Tempest when it became available), the Regiment would be the first to convert to the North American P-51 Mustang fighter when it came time to replace the Typhoons in late 1944. This was done at the behest of the former commander of the Fifth United States Army, LTG Mark W. Clark, who had been the one who had awarded the Regiment the PUC for their actions at Cassino. For his willingness to do that – especially given the general’s known dislike of all things British stemming from events that occurred well before the Sicily operation – the Regiment had him declared their Honorary Colonel in the wake of World War Two, an honour Clark was more than willing to accept.
At the end of the war, the Regiment was awarded the following battle honours:
Battle of Britain 1940, Channel Dash 1942, Dieppe, Defence of Britain 1940-43, English Channel and North Sea 1940-43, Landing in Sicily, Leonforte, Agira, Adrano, Regalbuto, Sicily 1943, Landing at Reggio, The Moro, The Gully, Ortona, Cassino I, Cassino II, Liri Valley, Hitler Line, Gothic Line, Rimini Line, San Fortunato, Savio Bridgehead, Naviglio Canal, Fosso Munio, Granarolo, Italy 1943-45, Apeldoorn, Northwest Europe 1940-43 & 1945
United States of America Presidential Unit Citation (Army): CASSINO I
Republic of France Croix de Guerre 1939-45: CASSINO I
During the war, 1 ACTR would train 1,672 persons to serve in the overseas Regiment. Of all those who served in the Regiment, 311 were killed in action, 486 were wounded in action and 12 were declared missing in action.
Medals awarded to members of the Regiment during the war – atop everyone being given the right to wear the PUC ribbon over their right jacket pockets and the CdeG fourragère around their left arms – included 3 Victoria Crosses, 7 Distinguished Service Orders, 12 Military Crosses, 10 Military Medals, 1 American Silver Star, 6 American Bronze Stars and 21 people were mentioned in dispatches.
As the war with Nazi Germany came to an end in the late spring of 1945, the Canadian Army Pacific Force was being formed for eventual participation in Operation: Downfall, the attack on the Japanese home islands. The 1st Canadian Air Cavalry Regiment was founded as the tactical aviation formation of the CAPF, with the Regiment represented by 1st Battalion (10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment). In the wake of the Japanese surrender in the late summer of that year, 1/1 CACR was reformed into an independent unit and renamed 1st/10th Canadian Cavalry, a unit of the Active Force (the permanent Army) and assigned to Camp Dundurn as tactical air support for all Army units west of the Lakehead in Ontario. The Regiment was equipped with P-51 (later F-51) Mustangs as well as a squadron of Northrop P-61 (late F-61) Black Widow night fighters. 1 ACTR and the overseas Regiment in Europe were disbanded and reformed as 2nd/10th Canadian Cavalry (Saskatchewan), with headquarters in Saskatoon. Four squadrons were established, each with a flying troop of F-51 Mustangs: Saskatoon (“A” Squadron), Prince Albert (“B” Squadron), North Battleford (“C” Squadron) and Dundern (“D” Squadron).
The Korean War in the early part of the 1950s saw the Active Force Regiment partially mobilise to help form the 25th Canadian Cavalry for service in theatre as tactical air support for the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade and later the 1st Commonwealth Division. At the same time, the 27th Canadian Cavalry was formed for service in Germany as part of Canada’s contribution to NATO as an element of the 27th Canadian Infantry Brigade and I British Corps. In Korea, those members of the Regiment serving with the 25th Cavalry – atop becoming the first group of air cavalry pilots to convert to jet fighters (in their case, the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mark 2) – would acquire 1 Distinguished Service Order, 3 Military Crosses and 6 Military Medals. No one from the Regiment died in the conflict or went missing, but 12 pilots were wounded in action. The Regiment itself would get the theatre honour “Korea 1951-53” as a result of its participation in the “police action” that erupted on the peninsula thanks to the Cold War. At the end of the war, both the 25th Cavalry and 27th Cavalry were disbanded, elements from the former regiment rejoining their parent units and the latter eventually forming the new 1st/4th Canadian Cavalry (Air) at RCAF Station Chatham in New Brunswick as tactical air support for Army units in the Atlantic Provinces.
The Active Force Regiment would be deployed to Germany in 1954 to replace the disbanded 27th Cavalry as the tactical air group for 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade Group, which replaced 27 CIBG in theatre. During that year, the Regiment was renamed 10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment of Canada (Air), paralleling the return to regional and city designators in the wake of the renaming of the CACC to the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry (RCCAC). The Reserve Force – now Militia – Regiment would be renamed 10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment of Canada (Air) (Militia) in the wake of this. The Regular Force Regiment would remain in Germany until 1962, when it was replaced by the 4th Canadian Cavalry (Air) – the renamed 1st/4th Cavalry – for the remaining eight years the units of the RCCAC would be on the order of battle. Returned to Camp Dundern, the Regular Force Regiment would acquire the Avro CF-100 Canuck Mark 4A all-weather fighters in 1961, this allowing the Sabres that were serving with it to be distributed to the Militia Regiment and other units.
Ironically, the coming of the Unification of the Canadian Army, the RCAF and the RCN into the Canadian Armed Forces in 1968 was actually supported by many members of the Regiment, both Regular and Militia. The ability to concentrate training facilities for like jobs in single units as well as simplifying the command structure and enabling more support between the elements were all seen as positive outcomes of such a move. However, ever since the founding of the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1924, there had been a deep rivalry between the “pure” Air Force and the Air Cavalry concerning what missions the latter element was willing to “take away” from the former. This ultimately spelt the demise of the Regular Force Regiment in 1970, which was loudly protested by elements of the 1st Canadian Brigade Group – the successor organisation to 1 CIBG – who were quite used to having “those crazy guys from Dundurn” at their beck and call whenever tactical aviation was required. In the eyes of the leadership of 1 CBG, the squadron that took the Regiment’s place, 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, didn’t come close.
Even worse, in the wake of the “rationalisations” of the Army structure during the 1960s, the Militia Regiment faced either disbandment or reorganisation into a different type of service. Forced to accept “switching berets” from the buff gold worn by the RCCAC to the black Armoured beret, the Militia Regiment lost the “(Air)” subtitle and was re-formed into an armoured reconnaissance regiment as an element of the Saskatchewan Militia District, paralleling the role take by the only surviving element of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (now the Armoured Branch of the Forces) still in the province, The Saskatchewan Dragoons – the regiment that perpetuated 10th Air Reconnaissance Battalion’s companion unit from the days of the First World War, the 46th (South Saskatchewan) Battalion – with a secondary role of augmenting the Lord Strathcona’s Horse with personnel to help form a reconnaissance squadron.
However, the Militia Regiment did NOT lose the right to base themselves at Camp Dundurn (which had been renamed “Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw Detachment Dundurn” and was the support mechanism for Canadian Forces Ammunition Depot Dundurn), which still gave them the ability to make use of the camp airfield that once housed the Regular Force Regiment. The Militia Regiment – which actually weathered the downsizing of the 1960s with just the disbanding of “C” Squadron in North Battleford – organised “volunteer flying troops” with the other squadrons, using surplus U.S. Army UH-1H Iroquois “Huey” helicopters (known as the CH-118 in Canadian service) acquired from units of the Minnesota National Guard who – years before – helped form the “Red Bull” Division that the Regiment supported at Monte Cassino. Thus, atop providing tactical utility transport for elements of the Militia in Saskatchewan as well as Regular Force Army units in Wainwright and Suffield in Alberta and Shilo in Manitoba, the Regiment – even if they were wearing the wrong berets! – kept their flying skills even though the unit’s “proper” task was ground reconnaissance with jeeps or AVGPs.
This willingness to hang onto the old flying traditions forced the planners in Ottawa to seriously reconsider reforming the Air Cavalry regiments as tactical air support forces for the Army in the mid-1980s. The RCCAC was re-established as a sub-component of the Air Operations Branch – the personnel group formed to support all flying and air-related trades – in 1988, with a new 10th Saskatchewan Cavalry Regiment (Air) formed at Camp Dundurn that year from elements of 408 Squadron as well as the Militia Regiment. The Regiment would be dispatched right away to Germany, becoming the tactical air unit of the 4th Canadian Mechanised Brigade Group at Lahr. Equipped with Bell AH-1 Cobras (CH-151 in Canadian service) attack helicopters, Bell OH-58 Kiowa (CH-136) observation and reconnaissance helicopters – the latter being surplus from 444 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Germany – as well as a squadron of Bell UH-1N Iroquois “Twin Huey” (CH-135) machines in the tactical utility role, the Regiment was prepared to stand up to the Warsaw Pact in case they launched an attack on NATO . . . which never came thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall the year after the Regular Force Regiment was stood back up again.
Fortunately, the Regiment WOULD get the chance to see action in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened the other Gulf nations, thus leading up to Operation: Desert Storm (known in Canada as “Operation: Friction”) the very next February. Sent ahead of a possible deployment of 4 CMBG into theatre, the Regiment – thanks to its use of the Cobra helicopter – joined forces with the 1st United Kingdom Armoured Division and the 1st United States Cavalry Division in the liberation of Kuwait during those hectic days in late February 1991. Thanks to that, the Regiment was awarded the battle honour “Wadi al Batin” and the theatre honour “Gulf and Kuwait 1991.” No one in the Regiment died during the liberation of Kuwait but a CH-151 crew were wounded by defending Iraqi forces at Wadi al Batin (they, along with 6 other personnel involved in the fight, would receive the Medal of Bravery for their actions). All personnel of the Regiment would receive the Canadian Gulf and Kuwait Medal (with combat medal clasp), the Wisam al-Tahrir (Liberation Medal) from the State of Kuwait, and the Naut Tahrir al-Kuwait (Liberation of Kuwait Medal) from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Regiment returned to Lahr in the summer of 1991. It would deploy the very next winter to Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia as a part of the United Nations Protection Force, assisting both the 1re Bataillon, le Royal 22e Régiment and 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment in the protection of the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. The Regiment would assist other NATO forces in Operation: Deny Flight (“Operation: Batoche” to members of the Regiment) during 1992-95. During this time, the CH-151s were replaced by McDonnell Douglas AH-64A Apache (CH-164 in Canadian service) supplied from the U.S. Army, making the Regiment the only Apache-equipped unit in the Canadian Army. The Regiment was able to help keep the skies over Sarajevo clear of potential interference from the rebelling Bosnian Serb forces without personnel losses, though two Apaches were damaged during the defence of nearby Goražde in April 1994, resulting in three injuries. Despite the fact that the Regiment did find itself fighting the Bosnian Serbs from time to time, no battle honours or theatre honours were awarded to it for its operations in the former Yugoslavia.
The Regiment was finally withdrawn from theatre at the end of 1995, returning to its permanent home station of Dundurn (by then, the Canadian bases in Germany had been closed down). The Regiment, after the disbandment of 4 CMBG, was made part of 1st Canadian Mechanised Brigade Group and remains a part of the “Army of the West” to this day. Since its return from Bosnia, elements of the Regiment have been involved in other NATO actions in the former Yugoslavia as part of the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia in the late 1990s, followed by becoming part of the Kosovo Force in the like-named breakaway part of Serbia at the turn of the millennium. Atop that, in the wake of 9/11, elements of the Regiment have also been involved in Operation: Athena and Operation: Archer in Afghanistan. Potential battle honours for the Afghanistan mission are being debated at this time in Ottawa.
Ever since the restoral of the RCCAC, the Militia Regiment – atop “switching berets” back to the buff gold of the Air Cavalry and adding the “(Air)” suffix title back to their name – serves as the largest reserve tactical aviation unit in Land Forces Western Area; the Regiment itself became part of 38 Canadian Brigade Group in 1998. Still flying three troops of helicopters at Dundurn, Saskatoon and Prince Albert as tactical air support to the local Militia forces, the Reserve Force Regiment acquired four surplus CH-151 Cobras to take the place of the old Hueys in “D” Squadron, thus giving it the only attack helicopter capability among LFWA Militia air cavalry units. “A” and “B” Squadrons of the Militia Regiment now fly the CH-135 Twin Huey, all former Regular Force Regiment machines that were replaced on the lines at Dundurn by the Bell CH-146 Griffon helicopter. The Militia Regiment is tasked these days to provide tactical helicopter support to Joint Task Force (Western) throughout Saskatchewan.
Regimental March: The Wellesley (quick march), Stand Firm and Strike Hard (slow march)
Regimental Motto: Ad Astra Per Aspera (“To the Stars Through Hardship”)
Regimental Hat Badge: A gold-trimmed green Roman “X” with the top and bottom bars widened to fit words within them; the top bar has SASKATCHEWAN, the bottom bar has CAVALRY REGT., all in gold. Below the bottom bar is a gold-trimmed green motto scroll with the words AD ASTRA PER ASPERA in gold. Sitting on the top bar is a St. Edward’s Crown (or Tutor Crown if a King is serving as the Dominion’s head-of-state). The whole sits atop three gold wheat sheaves (or garbs) in a row to frame the “X”. Officers and the Regiment Sergeant-major wear a badge with a silver Roman “X” and crown with the remaining parts all gold; other ranks wear an all-gold badge.
Regimental Collar Badges: A gold-trimmed green Roman “X” with the top and bottom bars widened to fit words within them; the top bar has SASKATCHEWAN, the bottom bar has CAVALRY REGT., all in gold. Below the bottom bar is a gold-trimmed green motto scroll with the words AD ASTRA PER ASPERA in gold. Sitting on the top bar is a St. Edward’s Crown (or Tutor Crown if a King is serving as the Dominion’s head-of-state). Officers and the Regiment Sergeant-major wear a badge with a silver Roman “X” and crown with the remaining parts all gold; other ranks wear an all-gold badge.
Regimental Shoulder Titles: The Roman number X topped by a St. Edward’s Crown (or Tutor Crown if a King is serving as the Dominion’s head-of-state), the whole surmounting a downward-curved SASKATCHEWAN, all in gold (dress metal badges); 10 SASK CAV (knit short-form title for epaulette slip-ons); a curved SASKATCHEWAN in gold over the Roman number X in silver over CANADA in gold on a black background trimmed in buff gold (knit long-form title used on the Army garrison dress and the former Canadian Forces evergreen dress uniform).
Camp Flag: A dark green flag trimmed in buff gold, the Regiment’s hat badge in the middle.
Special Note: Members of the Regular Force Regiment have the right to wear the fourragère representing the Regiment being awarded the French Croix de Guerre around their left shoulders under the epaulettes of their dress jackets. The ribbon badge of the United States Presidential Unit Citation are worn on both upper arms of the dress uniform jacket under the national identifier flash.
Regular Force Regiment Home Station: Smith Barracks, Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
“A” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
“B” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports 4th Battalion, The Canadian Guards
“C” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports 2nd Battalion, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada
“D” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports 3rd Battalion, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada
“E” (Reconnaissance) Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians)
“F” (Utility) Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
This squadron supports other units of 1 Canadian Mechanised Brigade Group
“Maintenance” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
“Support” Squadron – Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
Militia Regiment Headquarters – McKay Barracks, Saskatoon/John G. Diefenbaker International Airport, SASKATOON, Saskatchewan
“A” Squadron – McKay Barracks, Saskatoon/John G. Diefenbaker International Airport, SASKATOON, Saskatchewan
“B” Squadron – Prince Albert (Glass Field) Airport, PRINCE ALBERT, Saskatchewan
“C” Squadron was disbanded in 1970 at North Battleford
“D” Squadron – Smith Barracks, Canadian Forces Base DUNDURN, Saskatchewan
“Reconnaissance” Squadron is only formed during wartime
“Maintenance” Squadron – McKay Barracks, Saskatoon/John G. Diefenbaker International Airport, SASKATOON, Saskatchewan
This squadron maintains detached troops at Dundurn and Prince Albert. This squadron was reduced to nil strength between 1970 and 1988.
“Support” Squadron was disbanded in 1970 at Saskatoon
Affiliated British Units:
THE ROYAL SCOTS DRAGOON GUARDS
THE QUEEN’S ROYAL LANCERS
17 SQUADRON, Royal Air Force
41 (RESERVE) SQUADRON, Royal Air Force
72 (RESERVE) SQUADRON, Royal Air Force
92 SQUADRON, Royal Air Force
501 (CITY OF BRISTOL) SQUADRON, Royal Auxiliary Air Force
504 (COUNTY OF NOTTINGHAM) SQUADRON, Royal Auxiliary Air Force
600 (CITY OF LONDON) SQUADRON, Royal Auxiliary Air Force
602 (CITY OF GLASGOW) SQUADRON, Royal Auxiliary Air Force
603 (CITY OF EDINBURGH) SQUADRON, Royal Auxiliary Air Force
