The Canadian Airborne Regiment
The Canadian Airborne Regiment
Cap badge of The Canadian Airborne Regiment
Active
8 April 1968-1 September
1995
Country
Canada
Branch
Army
Type
Line Infantry
Role
Airborne Infantry
Size
One battalion
Part of
Royal Canadian Infantry
Corps
Garrison/HQ
CFB Petawawa
Motto
Ex coelis (From the Clouds)
March
The Longest Day
Commanders
Colonel in
Chief
HRH The Duke of York
The Canadian Airborne Regiment was a
Canadian Forces formation created on April
8, 1968. It was not an administrative regi-
ment in the commonly accepted British Com-
monwealth sense, but rather a tactical forma-
tion manned from other regiments and
branches. It was disbanded in 1995 after the
Somalia Affair.
Origin and organization-
al aspects
The concept of the Airborne
The main proponent of the Airborne was Gen-
eral Jean Victor Allard who, as commander of
the Army (i.e. Mobile Command) and then
Chief of Defence Staff, created it between
1965 and 1968 as a large rapid-reaction,
light mobile force, suitable for overseas
brigade-size missions. It was designed as a
flexible short-term immediate response avail-
able to the government when it accepted an
overseas
reinforcement
or
intervention
mission within NATO, or elsewhere. It would
be replaced in a brigade’s proposed mission
area, after no more than a few weeks, once
the main body of a heavier brigade was mo-
bilized and transported with its fighting
vehicles and support to the area. (See Gen.
Allard’s memoirs, Chap. 12.)
Over time, and a succession of chiefs of
defence, the Airborne remained an object of
conflicting concepts of operations, military
structure and linguistic identity. Originally
designed as a quick-reaction immediate-re-
sponse force that could, if absolutely neces-
sary, use parachutes, it was quickly trans-
formed into a highly specialized parachute
force, to be used for special parachute mis-
sions in the regular order of battle. (See Al-
lard’s memoirs.) This, in turn, created contro-
versy since there was no accepted require-
ment for such a Canadia