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5th (British Columbia)
Field Artillery Regiment, RCA was officially formed as a battery when it
was authorized on 17
October 1954 as the ‘5th West Coast Harbour Defence Battery, RCA’,
through the amalgamation and conversion of
the 5th (British Columbia) Coast Regiment, the 120th Heavy Anti-Aircraft
Battery, the 75th (British Columbia) Heavy
Anti-Aircraft Regiment, the 155th, 156th and 160th Heavy Anti-Aircraft
Batteries, and the 8th Anti-Aircraft Operations
Room. However, it traces its gunner roots to a much earlier time
The
possibility of British involvement in the American Civil War in 1861
created concern in Victoria. In response one
hundred and thirty-none men enrolled in the Vancouver Island Volunteer
Rifle Corps comprised a Rifle Company
and an Artillery Company. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877 created great
concern because the harbours of
Victoria and Esquimalt were undefended. Beginning on June 10, 1878, four
coast batteries were constructed; the task
was completed on August 30, 1878. To serve these batteries, a Militia
Order on July 19, 1878 authorized the formation
of the Victoria Battery of Garrison Artillery. Primary role was the
defence of Victoria and Esquimalt from seaborne
attack. This was the beginning of the 5th
Regiment’s history.
Volunteers
from the 5th Regiment
formed part of “A” Company, 2nd (Special Service)
Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment
in South African from 1899 to 1902. The Paardeberg Memorial inside the Bay
Street entrance to Armoury
commemorates the unit’s first casualties. During the Great War
(1914-1919), seven hundred and seventy-seven officers
and men of the 5th
Regiment served in overseas units
of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Most notable
among them was General Sir Arthur W. Currie, who began his career as a
gunner in the 5th Regiment and
rose in rank to command the
Canadian Army overseas. Several other officers and men of the regiment
served the guns
in the British West Indies and with the Siberian Expeditionary Force.
By
midnight on August 26, 1939, all the batteries of the Victoria-Esquimalt
Fortress were manned by the officers and men
of the 5th (British
Columbia) Coast Brigade, RCA. Until the end of the war some 7,000 men
passed through the
brigade to serve in units overseas. Meanwhile gunners of the brigade
continued their lonely vigil for an enemy who
never arrived. When the call to arms sounded again in 1950 for service
overseas during the Korean “police action”,
men from the regiment answered. Men from the regiment have also served
with United Nations units in Egypt,
on the Gaza Strip and in Cyprus.
The
5th Regiment has been
called upon to perform duties “in aid of the civil power”. They
assisted in maintaining law
and order during the coal strikes at Wellington in 1890 and at Nanaimo in
1913. They assisted in recovery operations
following the Point Ellice Bridge disaster of 1896, And in 1948 they
helped to build and maintain the sandbag
dikes to control flooding in the Fraser Valley.
The
5th Regiment provides
the official saluting battery for Victoria. The unit has fired salutes for
visiting Royalty, for Graduation
Parades of the Royal Roads Military College and for the official Opening
of the Provincial Legislature, a
custom, which originated on July 29, 1878.
Recognition
of more than 100 years of service took place on Sunday, November 4, 1979,
when the 5th (British
Columbia) Field Battery,
RCA proudly accepted the Freedom of the City of Victoria. On Friday 13th of September
1991, the regiment once
again was raised to regimental status and designated the 5th (British
Columbia) Field Artillery
Regiment, RCA. The young men and women of the unit proudly wear the Gunner
badge in the oldest continuous
serving militia unit west of the Great Lakes. |
