Queen’s Own Rifles – Battle Dress Jacket

Original WWII Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR) battle-dress jacket. An excellent example of an original battle dress jacket to the Queen’s Own Rifles, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. This jacket features a fine set of English-made embroidered insignia, including: Queen’s Own Rifles shoulder titles, “CANADA” shoulder titles, melton ‘French-grey’ 3rd Canadian Infantry Division formation patches, three years of service chevrons and Good Conduct stripe. The jacket shows normal signs of wear consistent with age and service use, with two small damages to the left shoulder (see photo). It is maker-marked WORKMAN UNIFORM Co. Ltd. Montreal, and dated 1943 (partially faded) pre-1944 collar hook-and-catch closing system, size 9. All insignia are original and period-applied, sewn in a distinct zig-zag manner, identical to a QOR jacket named to Corporal Eckert in our private collection (Corporal Eckert ended the war in Holland). This suggests the insignia application was likely done locally in the Netherlands. A very nice original badged Queen’s Own Rifles battle-dress jacket. The jacket comes with a dry cleaner’s bill dated 1986, bearing the name “Haycock.” It is unclear if this name is related to the wartime owner.

The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada
The regiment mobilized “The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, CASF” for active service on 24 May 1940. It was redesignated the “1st Battalion, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, CASF” on 7 November 1940. The unit served in Newfoundland from 10 August to 15 December 1940, and later embarked for Britain on 19 July 1941. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the regiment landed in Normandy, France, as part of the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, and continued to fight in North-West Europe until the end of the war.