Royal Winnipeg Rifles Officer's Greatcoat

Hello everyone. I just obtained this nice Royal Winnipeg Rifles Officer's Greatcoat. The Greatcoat is in superb condition for its age, it is a real Officer's quality piece. The tunic has 13 black regimental buttons on it. To the shoulders it has 1 black rank star per side, with other holes on the epaulets. "Canada" shoulder titles to each side. Nicely lined interior, the tunic is made by Orth Ltd. Quality Clothes based in London, Canada. It is named and dated, I believe I made out the name, Lt. E. L. Drewry, who I have no yet attempted to research, but it is nice that it is named. It is dated January 19th, 1945. Overall a nice late WWII dated Officer's Greatcoat to the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, I haven't personally seen one to this regiment before so I am happy to add it to my slowly but surely growing collection of Winnipeg Infantry uniforms, headgear & other items. I'm always on the lookout for more Uniforms and Headgear to the Winnipeg units for my collection...

Anyway, thank you for reading.

-Jamie

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Hi Jamie, that is a high quality coat. Note, there were additional rank stars on the shoulder strap, which you could replace. The only thing that is a bit odd is the poor stitching job on the Canada titles.

Odd that a Winnipeg based officer would use a London tailor??

Hello, thanks for the replies. Given that the Greatcoat is such high quality I agree it is a bit odd that the "Canada" titles are stitched on so poorly but perhaps the Officer didn't care that it looked a bit odd? It is also a bit odd that a Winnipeg based Officer would use a London tailor, but is it unheard of that Officers would use out of town or even out of Province tailors sometimes? Also there are numbers below his name on the label, they are very hard to make out, but perhaps that is his service number? Perhaps his service number, if that is it, could help to confirm if he was in fact in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles?

Some considerations. The officer may have been on course outside of Winnipeg, and purchased his coat while on course. Sometimes officers who were retiring sold off their kit, or at least parts of it they didn't want, and a coat like this was expensive. A frugal subaltern could save considerable on his kit that way. Or, he may have known about the tailor and ordered the coat from them.
Could you post the number you think is the service number? Officers did not have service numbers until very late in the Second WW. Often the number in tailored garments is the tailor's file number or contract number. Tailors/outfitters kept a record of the measurements and garments they made using the numbers as an id and filing number.

I believe the number is 20556? I'm pretty sure, if there were any other numbers they are completely faded as I can't see any other traces of numbers.

Hi. That doesn't sound like a service number, unless there was an alpha prefix washed out.

Perhaps the way reinforcements proceeded to frontline units may have something to do with the London Tailor. I believe the men were in a unit in Canada then proceeded to the CIRU in England then proceeded to a CBRD where they reinforced units in France and Germany. During the war, a  typical fighting unit had 13% wastage during standard operations and nearly 40% during intense fighting. All these dead or wounded men needed to be replaced with reinforcements. I don't think there was a choice of the unit you were posted to. An example would be Aubrey Cousins VC who was with the ASH of Can but won the VC with the QOR. I believe the CIRU's were geographically organized but being an officer he may have moved around? This officer may been a reinforcement to the RWR from a different unit. He may have started his service in SW Ontario or had some training in Ontario before proceeding overseas and ended up in the RWR. I have a Calgary Highlanders uniform form a guy who lived in BC and BCD uniform to a guy who enlisted in the PPCLI? Just a thought..... I don't think the sloppy titles are anything to be concerned with. I posted a photo of an officer with poorly sewn div patches a while ago. I found the link ….. look at his div patch.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


Ypres