A Group Attributed to Lieutenant-Colonel Peter R. Bingham; 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment

Colonel's Left & Right Facing Collar Tab Pair (red wool upper wrapped around a burlap frame, strip of braided maroon embroidery running length-wise in the centre, with a 13.7 mm ERII General Service brass button at the termination point on the strip, 34 mm x 93 mm each); Canadian Paratrooper Wings Badge (silver and gold-coloured bullion wire, in various textures, on a black wool base, 35 mm x 98 mm, glue residue on the reverse from previous board mounting); Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) Cap Badge (three-piece construction, 51.7 mm x 51.7 mm, intact lugs); two Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) Collar Dogs (bronze, 14.5 mm x 36 mm each, intact lugs); two Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) "Pro Patria" Beaver Shoulder Tabs (bronze, 23.5 mm x 46.7 mm each, intact lugs); a Photograph of Bingham in Uniform Wearing His Paratrooper Wings and Medals (black and white, matte finish, inscribed in handwritten blue ink by Bingham: "TO RORY, SINCERELY, Peter Bingham, COLONEL." on the reverse, 127 mm x 178 mm); along with a cardboard strip inscribed in handwritten blue ink by Rory J. Keeler: "Col Peter Bingham / Picture given me taken at N.D.H.Q. signed on back / Badge - para wings & Col. Tabs given to me by Peter". Footnote: During the Second World War, in the rank of Captain (Acting Major), Peter Richard Bingham was Mentioned in Despatches on March 25, 1944. Six weeks after the beginning of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, the final weekly intake of mili­tia units for nor­mal sum­mer train­ing had been com­pleted at Camp Petawawa in August, 1950 and Colonel Peter Bing­ham had com­pleted his last ren­di­tion of a bird’s eye view of the famous fire power demon­stra­tion. Admin­is­tra­tion and Train­ing (A&T) Offi­cers who were the “train­ing aids” for this demon­stra­tion of Second World War fire power, had already packed their bags and were return­ing home. It was to be a brief home com­ing, how­ever. On their arrival, they were greeted with a telegram to return imme­di­ately from whence they came. The scene at Petawawa had now dras­ti­cally changed. Mobi­liza­tion for a fresh infantry bat­tal­ion was in effect. The Camp was swarm­ing with young, and not so young, men in var­i­ous types of mil­i­tary and civil­ian dress. Most had been offi­cially inducted, but some had mys­te­ri­ously wan­dered in on spec­u­la­tion and were mix­ing freely with the troops. After sev­eral days of muster parade con­fir­ma­tion, the recruits were orga­nized into groups of one hun­dred. The obvi­ous unde­sir­ables were escorted to the camp gate and bid farewell. Dur­ing this time, Colonel Bing­ham, Com­man­der 1 RCR had been given the “sim­ple” task of “sort­ing them out”. “Them” was to be known as 2 RCR. Direc­tives stated that they must be basi­cally trained to war estab­lish­ment in three months. Such a task would be for­mi­da­ble even with an estab­lish­ment of train­ing lead­ers. Gen­eral Chris Volkes solved this prob­lem for Bingham by direct­ing that junior and senior lead­er­ship would be pro­vided from his bat­tal­ion. A lesser Commanding Officer might have been tempted to select the weaker links of his bat­tal­ion. This was not done and 2 RCR acquired instant lead­er­ship from the best of 1 RCR. This was an exam­ple of putting reg­i­men­tal pri­or­i­ties first. Colonel Bing­ham called a meet­ing of Administrative and Training offi­cers and key offi­cers of his bat­tal­ion. His imme­di­ate plan was: (a) Pro­vide an admin­is­tra­tion HQ directed by Cap­tain Tommy Hayes, then A/Adjt 1 RCR, who would orga­nize per­son­nel admin­is­tra­tion and accom­mo­da­tion, based on a bat­tal­ion other rank establishment; (b) Offi­cer train­ing for for­mer Second World War offi­cers and newly appointed sub­al­terns would be con­ducted by the late Colonel Chuck Lith­gow, then 2IC of 1 RCR; and (c) Basic train­ing for some 700 recruits would be con­ducted by Sam Mackness. The per­son­nel and admin­is­tra­tion prob­lems dur­ing the first month were mon­u­men­tal. Tommy Hayes and his small staff were expe­ri­enc­ing a sixteen hour day. The humor­ous but some­times seri­ous inci­dents among new recruits are legion. Unof­fi­cial patri­ots, such as “bot­tle men” and “skid row” can­di­dates infil­trated the ranks. They ate, slept and drank for some days before being weeded out. The size of orders parades, in an attempt to estab­lish rou­tine dis­ci­pline became ridicu­lous. The newly appointed RSM of 2 RCR, Rocky McManus, solved this prob­lem. He sug­gested that NCO’s depart from nor­mal pro­ce­dures and admin­is­ter dis­ci­pline unof­fi­cially in the time hon­oured tra­di­tion. In a rel­a­tively short time, the trained NCOs and WOs from 1 RCR had the desired effect with the con­se­quence that orders parades were dras­ti­cally reduced. Offi­cer train­ing under Chuck Lith­gow pro­ceeded in a con­ven­tional man­ner. It was some time, how­ever, before Chuck con­vinced former Second World War offi­cers that refresher train­ing was nec­es­sary. The tra­di­tional resent­ment of mili­tia offi­cers being placed under com­mand of per­ma­nent force offi­cers sur­faced from time to time. In due course and with Chuck’s sen­si­ble train­ing pro­gramme, the train­ing was accepted in good part. By Decem­ber 1950, they were ready to take com­mand of pla­toons and companies. Dur­ing this time, Sam Mack­ness had orga­nized the A&T offi­cers into six com­pany train­ing head­quar­ters. Offi­cers, such as Dick Couche, Jimmy Wilkin­son, Fred Vine, Jock Mac­Crossan and Paddy Ryle, headed com­pany train­ing groups. Their task was to con­duct basic train­ing dur­ing the day and each evening admin­is­ter per­son­nel prob­lems and dis­ci­pline for three or four hours. This was coor­di­nated by Tommy Hayes, who had been appointed Adju­tant of the other rank mobilization. Colonel Bingham’s orders to Sam Mack­ness were brief and con­cise. Each recruit must be basi­cally trained in eight weeks. They must fire each rifle com­pany weapon three times and be trained in sec­tion tac­tics. Sam ques­tioned the fea­si­bil­ity of such a task. The reply was: “Sam, get on with it.” It appeared at the time that fur­ther dis­cus­sion would be unpro­duc­tive. A train­ing “sausage machine” seemed to be the only solu­tion to the prob­lem. Six com­pa­nies of raw recruits had to be lifted to six train­ing areas at seven thirty each day. A mar­quee was pro­vided for each com­pany train­ing HQ. Rations, ammu­ni­tion, train­ing aids, etc., were dumped daily at loca­tions along the north and south high­way through Camp Petawawa. The pro­gramme func­tioned suc­cess­fully only by the lead­er­ship pro­vided by 1 RCR WOs and NCOs and the expe­ri­ence and lead­er­ship of the A&T offi­cers. The first casu­al­ties suf­fered by 2 RCR occurred from a mor­tar explo­sion dur­ing this training. In Decem­ber 1950, the aims of Colonel Bingham’s train­ing pro­gramme were real­ized. Offi­cer train­ing had been com­pleted. Colonel Bob Keene had assumed Com­mand of 2 RCR from Colonel Bing­ham. Chuck Lith­gow had assumed the appoint­ment of 2IC. Com­pany and pla­toon com­man­ders were with their respec­tive com­pa­nies and platoons. Lieutenant-Colonel Bingham, Commanding Officer of 1 RCR has been called one of Canada's most respected soldiers, however, the disdain for the Special Force shown by him was typical of regular force officers exhibiting an air of superiority toward the 'non-regulars' they were replacing in the line in Korea. "A regular soldier should not only fight better than the non-regular," he announced soon after reaching the front line, "but should but at all times conduct himself as a professional. Hence also a greater emphasis on saluting in the RCR than apparently in other units." As an example, the day after arriving in the 25th Brigade's rear area on April 11, 1952, his officers held a mess dinner in former dress uniforms, an event in which their Commanding Officer took considerable satisfaction. Even when they were in line, the officers of 1 RCR were proud of their regular formal Mess Dinner in the Officer's Mess. All officers of the battalion attended wearing No. 1 Dress (Blues) and made it very clear that every Wednesday that it would be occurring. Everyone in the Army knew the reputation he and his Regiment had for being properly dressed. Bingham was injured shortly after he and his troops arrived in the Korean War theatre. Two men were quoted about the wounding: one was Tom McKay: "Peter Bingham was an impressive man. He made you proud to be an RCR. He was the sort of guy who, on parade, or just before a patrol or something, would say 'You're my tigers. This will be a piece of cake.' But in Korea he was one of our first casualties. He had just given us a big lecture and ended by saying: 'Now go up to the hills and dig in for the night, and watch for booby traps.' The next thing we knew, there was an explosion. ColonelBingham himself had walked into a booby trap and he had to be away for some time. I imagine he was quite embarrassed about the whole thing.", the other was Bud Taylor: "The colonel was laid up for around ten days, I believe. It is probably fair to say that his injury caused him a good deal more anger and frustration than it did pain. It had been said that evacuating him to the hospital was probably the toughest problem that medics ever had." Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Richard Bingham (ZP 1537), 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, The Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Korea during the period July 1st to December. 31st, 1952, the announcement appearing in the Third Supplement to the London Gazette 39819 of Friday April 3, 1953, on Tuesday, April 7, 1953, page 1943 and in the Canada Gazette of Saturday, March 28, 1953. After the war, he continued to serve as Commandant at the Royal Canadian School of Infantry at Camp Borden.