Formation •
6th Armoured Regiment (1st Hussars) •
10th Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse) •
27th Armoured Regiment (The Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment) • "C" Squadron,
25th Armoured Delivery Regiment (The Elgin Regiment) Formed as the
2nd Canadian Army Tank Brigade on 26 January 1942, this formation consisted of the
24th Army Tank Battalion (Les Voltigeurs de Québec) (replaced in June 1942 by the
20th Army Tank Regiment (16/22 Saskatchewan Horse)),
23rd Army Tank Battalion (The Halifax Rifles), and the
26th Army Tank Battalion (The Grey and Simcoe Foresters). Equipped with
Ram II tanks, in the autumn of 1942 the brigade trained at the newly opened
Meaford AFV range on
Georgian Bay where the Halifax Rifles had the honour of conducting the first field exercise.
European deployments United Kingdom In June 1943 the brigade was dispatched to the
United Kingdom. The following month came an intensive inspection of the units of this brigade and of the
3rd Canadian Army Tank Brigade by
Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar, the commander of
I Canadian Corps. The purpose of the inspection was to determine which of the two brigades would remain on the order of battle since there was only room for one such formation. The brigade chosen was the 3rd with its component units of the
1st Hussars,
Fort Garry Horse, and
Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment. The 3rd Canadian Army Tank Brigade was raised on 1 January 1943 following a reorganization of the
Canadian Armoured Corps in Britain. It adopted the designation 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade (2 CAB) after it was selected by Lieutenant-General Crerar to remain on the order of battle. In August 1943 it was selected to be part of the
D-Day invasion force in support of the units of the
3rd Canadian Infantry Division.
D-Day The brigade's three regiments
landed in Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944. Unlike their peers in the
4th Canadian Armoured Brigade, who were usually paired with their division's
10th Canadian Infantry Brigade, the 2nd was paired with any infantry who needed armour support. of the 10th Armoured Regiment (Fort Garry Horse) with infantry of
the Royal Regiment of Canada,
2nd Canadian Division, massing in preparation for the assault on Goch, 17 February 1945. On 31 July 1944, following a series of battles with heavy infantry losses, Canadian Lieutenant General
Guy Simonds ordered the creation of an armoured carrier regiment and the modification of underused American-made
M7 Priest self-propelled guns. The 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Squadron was formed, and administered as a squadron of 25th Armoured Delivery Regiment until October 19, 1944, when the squadron was converted to a regiment. This formation rarely fought as an entity. Its primary role was infantry support and thus its regiments were usually individually tasked out to infantry units to participate in particular operations. One of the occasions when the brigade did undertake an operation on its own,
Le Mesnil-Patry / Rots on 11 June 1944, ended with only a partial success and severe losses to the Canadians. 2 CAB fought in the
North West Europe Campaign, longer than any other armoured formation, from D-Day to
V-E Day, suffering 435 fatal casualties in total. Two of the brigade's tanks,
Holy Roller of the 1st Hussars, and
Bomb of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, fought continuously from D-Day to the end of the war, the only Canadian tanks to fight unscathed across Northwest Europe.
Holy Roller remains the memorial of the Hussars in London, Ontario, and
Bomb is preserved today at the William Street Armoury of the Sherbrooke Hussars in
Sherbrooke, Quebec. ==See also==