Topic: Canadian Army
Canada Infantry Workshop Vital to Korea Service
A typical month here saw 191 complete major repairs on 150 wheeled vehicles, seven tracked vehicles, 31 generators, 149 instruments, 126 small arms, three 25-pounder field guns, 92 stoves and 110 miscellaneous other items.
The Montreal Gazette, 6 May 1953
By Bill Boss
With the Canadians in Korea, May 5.—CP—"The boys who keep the show on the road," the men of the 191st Canadian Infantry Workshop, have been relieved by the 23rd Canadian Infantry Workshop and are en route back to Petawawa, Ont., their old home.
All members belong to the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. The technicians who service the army' tanks, trucks, jeeps, guns and other weapons, the stoves, compasses, binoculars and almost everything else.
As a unit, 191 has been here longer than most others in the brigade—two years. Others have been rotated after a year here. However, that's not as bad as it sounds. Rotation has been going on steadily on a man-for-man basis.
The workshop has had four commanding officers in Korea—Majors Ed Hallam of Ottawa, who brought it over, R.C. Lane of Kingston, J.M. McLaughlin of Ottawa and Amherst, N.S., and Don Campbell of Springhill, N.S.
Campbell is not returning to Ottawa with his unit. He is now at headquarters, 1st Commonwealth Division, as second-in-command of all electrical and mechanical engineers in the division.
Captain A.L. Macdonnell of Vancouver is commanding en route to Petawawa, where Maj. H.H.E. Erb of Ottawa takes over.
Much Work Done
The workshop's 187 technicians turned out a terrific volume of work.
They handled any job not requiring more than 30 hours' work to complete. They changed engines, installed transmissions and the like for anything from a jeep to a tank. Jobs requiring more work went back to United States army base workshops.
They also had to estimate the cost of repairs needed on major items, returned jeep jobs, for instance, costing less than $1000 entitled Canada to free new equipment replacements. Jobs costing more meant Canada had to buy the replacing equipment at full value.
A typical month here saw 191 complete major repairs on 150 wheeled vehicles, seven tracked vehicles, 31 generators, 149 instruments, 126 small arms, three 25-pounder field guns, 92 stoves and 110 miscellaneous other items.
The workshop is on paddy and barley fields bulldozed and pounded by traffic into standings for shops and tents. But the bulldozing destroyed the drainage system worked out by hundreds of years of terrace farming, and during rains the area is a quagmire.
Barbed-wire fences controlled by three penitentiary-like watchtowers surround the shop. Two soldiers man each searchlight-equipped tower nightly to discourage thieves.
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