"CREATION OF THE CANADIAN AIRBORNE REGIMENT
In 1966, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General J.V Allard, began plans for an airborne capability in the form of a radically different, specialized unit.4 Out of this initiative, the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR) was established on April 8, 1968. Located at CFB Edmonton, the Regiment's principal roles were defence of Canada operations against small-scale enemy incursions in the north, provision of short-notice response to United Nations requests for peace operations, and operations in limited or general war within the context of a larger allied force, particularly a variety of 'special service' missions, including pathfinders, deep patrolling and winter operations, and domestic operations in response to civil authorities.5
The CAR was organized as a unit of the Canadian Forces within Mobile Command. Generally, membership in the Regiment was about 900 in all ranks, with a regimental headquarters and six units: the airborne headquarters and signal squadron, which provided the normal communications and headquarters function; two infantry commandos -- 1er Commando Aéroporté and 2nd Airborne Commando; 1st Airborne Battery, which provided field artillery; 1st Airborne Field Engineer Squadron, providing combat support; and 1st Airborne Service Company, providing service support. Second- and third-line support was provided by 1st Field Service Support Unit (1FSSU), a special unit that, although not part of the Regiment, was created to support the Regiment. Service support was brought entirely into the CAR in 1975 with the amalgamation of 1 FSSU and 1st Airborne Service Company to form 1st Airborne Service Support Unit.6 The regimental commander, having the rank of colonel, exercised the powers of a commander of a formation.7 One of the two airborne infantry units (ler Commando) was francophone. This unit was eventually manned entirely by volunteers from the Royal 22e Regiment and moved from Valcartier to Edmonton in 1970.
MOVE TO CFB PETAWAWA
In 1976, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jacques Dextraze, concluded that the Canadian land forces, with a combat group and an airborne regiment in the west, a small combat group in central Canada, a combat group in Quebec, and an independent battalion in the Maritimes, were deployed in an unbalanced manner. His plan was to have a brigade group in the west, a brigade group in the east, and a quick-reaction regimental combat group in the centre. The result was the creation of a quick-reaction combat group in central Canada, an airborne/air transportable formation created by combining units of the CAR with those of 2 Combat Group at CFB Petawawa.8
Thus, in 1977, the CAR became part of the new Special Service Force (SSF), a brigade-sized command with a strength of 3,500, created to provide a small, highly mobile, general-purpose force that could be inserted quickly into any national or international theatre of operations.9 The Regiment moved from CFB Edmonton to CFB Petawawa and was downsized in the process, losing its gunners and engineers. It also lost its field support unit; logistic support would now come instead from the SSF's service battalion.
Within the CAR itself, the Airborne Service Company was resurrected to provide immediate first-line logistical support.
In 1979, 3 Commando was established as a new airborne unit. This resulted in a ceiling of about 750 members in all ranks, organized into three smaller company-sized commandos.10 The three infantry commandos now took shape around the three regimental affiliations: 1 Commando with the Royal 22e Régiment, 2 Commando with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and 3 Commando with The Royal Canadian Regiment.
With the move to CFB Petawawa, the regiment's chain of command lengthened, because it was now a unit under the Special Service Force and one link further from the most senior army commander. On the other hand, the move to CFB Petawawa did allow for closer supervision of the CAR, because it was now under the direction of the commander of the Special Service Force. Moreover, the reorganization had the effect of diluting the CAR's former uniqueness in the army, since it was now shared with the rest of the new parent formation, the SSF. Later, the introduction of the army area command system placed Land Force Central Area between the SSF and Force Mobile Command headquarters. Thus, a unit intended in 1968 to be a resource answerable directly to the commander of the army and, through that commander, to the chief of the defence staff fell inside the 'normal' chain of command, without any apparent change in its operational mandate or concept of operations."
That is from a DND Doc on the Internet. Google/Yahoo Canadian Airborne Regiment.
Lahr/Baden 2, Gagetown 1,Valcartier/Citadel 2, Petawawa 1 ,London 1, Winnipeg 1, Calgary 1, Esquimalt 1) and since no one wanted to give a 4th bn to one of the inf regts, the tenth bn - created when the Cdn Bde in Germany shrank and moved south to Baden in 1970 - became 3 Mech Cdo, "Born in a Storm" in 1970 from - I think - combining the soldiers from 2RCR and 2PPCLI , as those bns returned to Canada. 2PPCLI to Fort Osbourne Barracks (later re-named Kapyong) and 2 RCR to take over the Black Watch in Gagetown.
