Description
Physical description
Horizontally orientated diamond, black with a blue 0.75in high central full width stripe sewn on, all in woollen cloth.
History note
Badge history: the Brigade was formed in Canada in January 1942 and in July that year it received approval for its choice of formation sign, being a dagger, point down, in white on a khaki ground. These signs were worn in conjunction with unit shoulder titles.
This sign was very short-lived. On 22nd October 1942, Routine Order 2305 promulgated the decision that Canadian Tank Brigades should wear black diamond formation signs on both sleeves, with a central coloured stripe to differentiate the formations, 2nd Brigade being allocated blue.
The colours chosen for the new badge are said to have had connotations with badges worn by Canadian tank units of WW1 but it is not clear what that connection is. The blue central strip of the Second World War badge was probably chosen to reflect the historical manner of denoting relative seniority, the WW1 Divisions wearing red, blue, grey, etc, a practice reflected by the Second World War Corps and Divisions. When first adopting the new signs while still in Canada the Brigade chose to retain unit shoulder titles and did not place the armoured unit designations on their patches. However, in common with other Canadian formations, the Brigade's corps and services units (ie: Signals, Service Corps, Ordnance, Medical and Chaplains) did wear distinctions superimposed on the central stripe of the new formation patch. This took the form of the initials of the corps in yellow (gold) letters for the RCASC, RCOC and CCS, white letters on a blue tablet for RCCS and a cherry tablet with no letters for RCAMC.
The Brigade arrived in the UK in June 1943 and in July sought permission to buy patches with the numerical designations for its armoured units (20, 23 & 26CTR), presumably to come into line with the current style being worn by 3rd Canadian Tank Brigade in the UK and 1st in Italy. Permission was refused. Later that month 2nd Tank Brigade was disbanded, 3rd Tank Brigade was re-named 2nd and adopted the original 2nd Brigade's blue on black formation sign. Shortly after, it was re-designated an Armoured Brigade and its units became Canadian Armoured Regiments (CAR). By this time the officially preferred style of plain patches with shoulder titles was in the ascendancy and the new 2nd Armoured Brigade did not carry forward their previous 3rd Tank Brigade policy of wearing their armoured unit abbreviations on their new patch but adopted the officially preferred unit shoulder titles instead. It therefore appears that at no time were the black and blue patches of 2nd Brigade approved to carry distinctions for the original units, 20, 23 and 26 CTR, or for the new 6, 10 and 27 CAR. The corps and services distinctions appear to have remained in use.
Whether all or any of these corps and services distinctions were phased out in favour of plain formation patches, as appears to have been the official preference, is not clear at the time of this entry (March 2007). However, generally, by summer of 1944 distinctions on formation patches were probably the exception rather than the rule, certainly at divisional level. Notable official exemptions were the RCCS white letters on blue and the Army and Corps Artillery zig-zags, all of which retained their distinctions to the end of the war.
For additional notes on corps and services distinctions, see INS 49.
Inscription
None