CN Marked SMLE disc
- Thread starter Riflechair
- Start date
MapleSugar
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- On the loose from NIMH
That the CN Rail Police used war surplus SMLE's to zap hobos off the top of boxcars during the Great Depression?
CN, as in Canadian National, did not exist until after the War. In 1916 it was still three separate lines: Canadian Northern Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific. They went broke and were nationalised in 1917 and ran until after the war as the Canadian Government Railways. Following the war, the new network was renamed Canadian National partly in order to use all the equipment from the Canadian Northern (including dining-car linens and dishes)which already was marked "CN".
Far as I know, they didn't shoot hobos riding the rods during the Depression. They left that to the RCMP. Read up on the Regina Massacre and the "On to Ottawa" trek in 1934. LOTS of fun: out-of-work guys going to Ottawa to beg the Government to do something to help.... and the forces of Law, Order and Good Government give them a dose of lead poisoning after zero provocation. Actual figures of the killed were (and are) grossly under-reported by the media: I knew men who were there, men who already had 4 years of experience at counting dead friends, and they said that the papers were lying.
.
Far as I know, they didn't shoot hobos riding the rods during the Depression. They left that to the RCMP. Read up on the Regina Massacre and the "On to Ottawa" trek in 1934. LOTS of fun: out-of-work guys going to Ottawa to beg the Government to do something to help.... and the forces of Law, Order and Good Government give them a dose of lead poisoning after zero provocation. Actual figures of the killed were (and are) grossly under-reported by the media: I knew men who were there, men who already had 4 years of experience at counting dead friends, and they said that the papers were lying.
.
Good you're confirming what I thought.
The receiver is 'N' marked which I understand to be 'Naval' service.
The CN to me must be Canadian Navy however I see no C /!\ stamps
Something to think about???
HMCS Cape Scott (ARE 101) was a Cape-class escort maintenance ship. She was built for the Royal Navy as HMS Beachy Head in 1944. She was loaned to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1947 as HNLMS Vulkaan and returned to the Royal Navy in 1950. She was sold to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1952 and served until 1975.
The receiver is 'N' marked which I understand to be 'Naval' service.
The CN to me must be Canadian Navy however I see no C /!\ stamps
Something to think about???
HMCS Cape Scott (ARE 101) was a Cape-class escort maintenance ship. She was built for the Royal Navy as HMS Beachy Head in 1944. She was loaned to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1947 as HNLMS Vulkaan and returned to the Royal Navy in 1950. She was sold to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1952 and served until 1975.
Compare the fonts of the CN letter stampings. This is from a CN marked bayonet and a rifle that was on the EE. Canadian Navy IMHO.
It's just that they stopped stamping unit identification on the but discs to stop volunteering unit information to the enemy. I know that the Army stopped this practice during the great war. Perhaps it continued with the Navy?
MapleSugar
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- On the loose from NIMH
I was being facetious.
There was a mandate that the train of protesters would never reach Ottawa. The reason the massacre took place in Regina is because that is where the RCMP Depot is. The unemployed men had been peacefully riding the train to Ottawa from Vancouver, stopping along the way to receive donations from sympathetic citizens and to pick up more unemployed men. The RCMP had them sidetracked in Regina where they had a massive number of officers and recruits waiting to put the boots to them. As your friends who were there told you from firsthand experience, it was a bloodbath.
Another charming footnote in our country's history is how the unemployed men occupying the; Vancouver Art Gallery, Post Office, and the Hotel Georgia were driven out into the streets and beaten on Bloody Sunday, June 19, 1938. (If only the police could get away with that now, considering some of the protesters we've had in the last few decades.)
Back on topic, I would have thought any rifle in the service of the Canadian Navy would have Royal before it (ie. RCN) as pointed out by NO.5 Dave?
FWIW, just because a rifle was manufactured in 1916, doesn't mean the CN Rail Police couldn't have been issued that rifle in the 20's or 30's.......if they had carried them.
Last edited:
Good point, Maplesugar: butt ID and date of manufactre do not of necessity coincide.
I once saw a really good riot while I was living in Vancouver. Two thousand people standing in the street hollering "Yay, Roughriders!" and then the VCP moved in, turned the dogs loose on the crowd. Television and still cameras were their first targets (that's why no photos in the papers the next day), then the cops went ape on the crowd. They were picking out the people who were NO trouble and beating the living crap out of them, ignoring most of the others. I will never forget this one guy, trying to shield his girlfriend and get her moved out of the way.... two cops, one on each side, nightsticks.... he was a bloody ruin when they (literally) threw him into the paddywagon; she was hysterical.
There was a lot of flak over the police "handling" of the "riot". For one thing, it wasn't a riot: it was an attack by 50 heavily-armed men on a peaceful crowd. And there was no "handling" of anything except nightsticks. There were a lot of dog-bites that night, too: something that never went in the papers. The hospitals had instructions not to treat riot injuries, the instructions given BEFORE the riot started. It was planned. The Vancouver Police pleaded that they needed more money for training so they could "handle" these things better. They got it... and bought new machine-guns. I haven't attended a Grey Cup celebration since.
I love my country... but I am also scared spitless of the people who run it.
.
I once saw a really good riot while I was living in Vancouver. Two thousand people standing in the street hollering "Yay, Roughriders!" and then the VCP moved in, turned the dogs loose on the crowd. Television and still cameras were their first targets (that's why no photos in the papers the next day), then the cops went ape on the crowd. They were picking out the people who were NO trouble and beating the living crap out of them, ignoring most of the others. I will never forget this one guy, trying to shield his girlfriend and get her moved out of the way.... two cops, one on each side, nightsticks.... he was a bloody ruin when they (literally) threw him into the paddywagon; she was hysterical.
There was a lot of flak over the police "handling" of the "riot". For one thing, it wasn't a riot: it was an attack by 50 heavily-armed men on a peaceful crowd. And there was no "handling" of anything except nightsticks. There were a lot of dog-bites that night, too: something that never went in the papers. The hospitals had instructions not to treat riot injuries, the instructions given BEFORE the riot started. It was planned. The Vancouver Police pleaded that they needed more money for training so they could "handle" these things better. They got it... and bought new machine-guns. I haven't attended a Grey Cup celebration since.
I love my country... but I am also scared spitless of the people who run it.
.
MapleSugar
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- On the loose from NIMH
I was driving a Brinks truck the night of the 1994 Stanley Cup Riot. We avoided the downtown sector until early the next morning. One of the fellows I was chauffeuring around was an RCMP auxiliary officer and he brought a police scanner along with him. It sounded to me like all hell was breaking loose down there. It was eerie to match the television images shown the next day on the news to what I remembered hearing that night happening in real time.
When we finally drove downtown about 4:00am, it was like the place had been a war zone. Police cars were flipped upside down and businesses (especially Eaton Center) had all of their windows smashed in and the displays looted. It was sad because I was used to stopping at the Eaton Center nearly everyday and it was quite a nice building. I had more than once noticed the parking lot across the street with egg sized rocks as it’s base that the rioters used for projectiles that night.
I’ve never liked crowds much, but sometimes it gets hard to choose sides between the unruly crowd and some overzealous police officers. On the night of the Stanley Cup Riot you couldn’t have paid me enough to work for the VPD in crowd control.
I’ve heard quite a few stories of innocent people being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone had their front teeth knocked out by a VPD officer during the Axl Rose riot at GM Place several years later…….after another officer waved him through the line of officers to safety on the other side.
Last edited:
