No. 6 District Depot

[Allene]

Anyone around here with any expertise on the Canadian Army in World War II? [All jokes about "what army?" will be resolutely ignored.] ;)

I'm working on my family history. My late father (he died in 1965) served as a private in a unit called "No. 6 District Depot" during the war. I have his discharge certificate, and at first I thought it was the name of the building in which he was discharged, but a look at the Last Post list of deceased veterans, which is searchable online, shows that it was the name of an actual unit. I'm trying to find out how it fits into the larger divisions or whatever of the Canadian Army at that time. I've already looked at lists that are supposed to show all the units that went overseas from Canada in World War II. It's not on those lists, although I don't think they entered every tiny unit because it would result in a massive load of information.

About half an hour ago I posted a message on http://Army.ca in the Military History forum. No responses yet, even though I explained that the "moscow" in my e-mail address was for Idaho, not Russia.

Thanks.

[cdw]

http://www.cln.org/themes/can_military.html

maybe this will help. it appears they had 'districts' based on the uk form of military or something....
you can put canada 6 district depot into google and search...there were some links to others who had relatives in the unit listed there...

:)

[Allene]

http://www.cln.org/themes/can_military.html

maybe this will help. it appears they had 'districts' based on the uk form of military or something....
you can put canada 6 district depot into google and search...there were some links to others who had relatives in the unit listed there...

:)

Thanks for the link, Cyd. I had already googled on it, but your comment on districts got me to reword it to "Canadian Army" and "military districts." I got this link which explains it all:

http://home.adelphia.net/~dryan67/orders/canada.html

I was right in thinking that it wasn't a true unit. No. 6 covered Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. These districts were then broken down into brigades and so on and so on.

Thanks for your help! Now wait a minute! Aren't you supposed to be evacuating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cdw]

Nah. We be "hunkered" down. rofl That's the new buzzword in Florida this year. Hunkered down. We boarded up in case it changes it's path and comes closer to us, but the just went county by county and it appears we are in the only county that is under tornado watch/warning. Whoopie! So boarding up was a good thing even if it was for the wrong reason. :)
We'll be fine. We're going to lose at the very least our cable and more than likely our electric. Other than that, pffft... pour me another one! :)

[Allene]

Nah. We be "hunkered" down. rofl pour me another one! :)

Slainte! (Gaelic!) Not to say that a tornado is anything to sniff at. I had a front row view of a tornado when one struck Salt Lake City in 1999. Scary as all get out!

Good luck!

[Advocat]

Try checking:

No. 6 District Depot, Halifax Rifles (63rd Regiment), Nova Scotia

The Rifles are a defunct regiment.

http://www.regiments.org/regiments/na-canada/volmil/ns-inf/063halif.htm

[Advocat]

This may be a helpful information source:

Roots.Web Halifx Message Board... many military family questions.
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=localities.northam.canada.novascotia.halifax

[Allene]

Thank you! I have been to the larger site that this is attached to, but I wasn't on this particular page. A lot of it is under construction.

My father's discharge certificate has a stamp with "No. 6 District Depot, C. A., D. Wing, Aug. 3, 1944" The Halifax Rifles were disbanded in England in 1943 and merged into other groups. I remember hearing that my father had been waiting to be shipped out to Sicily or somewhere else in Italy before they discharged him for medical reasons. This district covers a lot of territory, though, so it is hard to tell what he belonged to. I think they divided the army into corps, divisions, brigades, commands, areas, and districts, but I may not have that right. I'd love to know the names of the higher levels he was attached to. That way I could find out more about his experience. He didn't talk much about it, and he died when I was 21 years old. Most likely he was at Aldershot, at least part of the time he was over there. I have just e-mailed my brother asking him to take a picture of the medals or whatever you call them that were on his uniform. We found them in a box after my mother died in 2002. They aren't for valor. They are just what everyone else had.

My brother got something from the National Archives about 15 years ago, but I don't know if it has any more information than I already have.

[Allene]

This may be a helpful information source:

Roots.Web Halifx Message Board... many military family questions.
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=localities.northam.canada.novascotia.halifax

Thanks, Advocat. I live on those Roots.Web boards! I'll take another swipe at that one. Meanwhile, I'll wait until I get a photo of the medals thingies from my brother. I can probably match something up with color photos of military insignia on a site I found. Of course, I could have made things easier for myself by asking my father more questions before he died. Too late now! :(