Normandy

RCEME in the Battle of Normandy

by Capt Dave Nicolle, CD (Ret'd), BGen Scott Kennedy, CD (Ret'd) and Kimberly Moynahan

The Battle of Normandy was the first stage of the Allied liberation of Northwest Europe. It began with the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 and continued through a summer of heavy fighting until late August, when the German Army was forced to retreat from France. Canadians played a central role: securing Juno Beach on D-Day, battling through the city of Caen, and helping close the Falaise Pocket that trapped tens of thousands of enemy soldiers.

Behind every advance lay the machinery of war—tanks, carriers, trucks, and guns—that had to be kept moving despite punishing conditions. Only weeks before D-Day, in May 1944, the Canadian Army created the Corps of Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RCEME). Its mission was clear: recover and repair damaged vehicles, and also adapt equipment and weapons to battlefield needs.

Normandy was the Corps’ first test. RCEME tradesmen worked close behind the front lines, often under fire, performing tasks that went far beyond routine maintenance. Recovery crews dragged disabled Sherman tanks from the mud. Mechanics patched engines and gearboxes by the roadside. Armourers and welders modified equipment to suit the hedgerow country. Workshops became conversion lines for entirely new types of vehicles.

The Battle of Normandy proved that RCEME was indispensable. Canadian units could rely on their craftsmen to keep vehicles, weapons and equipment in action, often finding solutions when manuals were lacking.

Three stories in particular show the critical impact of RCEME on Allied success in Normandy: a workshop commander who turned tracked artillery vehicles into armoured troop carriers; a recovery sergeant who used his vehicle recovery teams to deliver supplies under fire; and a Light Aid Detachment commander who, with his team of soldier-technicians, led daring recoveries in the midst of the fierce fighting in the Normandy countryside.

Major George Wiggan, MBE

Officer Commanding, No. 2 Canadian Tank Troops Workshop, RCEME

In August 1944, with Operation Totalize looming south of Caen, Canadian forces faced a problem: how to move infantry forward under armour. The solution was to convert American M7 Priest self-propelled guns into armoured troop carriers.

The order came down to Major George Wiggan, who commanded No. 2 Canadian Tank Troops Workshop at Aunay-sur-Odon. His RCEME unit was skilled in heavy vehicle repair, but now it had just five days to carry out a massive conversion effort. Major Wiggan pulled tradesmen from fourteen Canadian and British units into an Advanced Workshop Detachment, pooling mechanics, armourers, welders, machinists, fitters, electricians, and recovery crews.

The work was improvisational. Guns and ammunition racks were stripped, armour reshaped, and machine-gun mounts fashioned. Welders cut climbing rungs into the hulls and bolted benches into the fighting compartment. Electricians rerouted wiring so lights and intercoms still functioned. Every task demanded judgment on the fly, because no blueprints existed.

An American M7 Priest converted into a ‘Kangaroo’ armoured personnel carrier. In August 1944, Major Wiggan’s workshop tradesmen converted seventy-eight Priests in just five days.

Credit: Library and Archives Canada

The workshop atmosphere was intense. Aunay had been shattered by bombing weeks earlier, but amid the town’s ruins, crews worked day and night, recovery vehicles hauling in Priests and dragging out completed carriers. Welders’ torches lit the rubble as teams rotated through shifts, Major Wiggan urging the process forward.

By 6 August, seventy-eight Priests had been converted into armoured troop carriers soon nicknamed ‘Kangaroos’. Two days later, Canadian and British infantry rode these Kangaroos into battle during Operation Totalize, advancing with much-needed protection against machine-gun and mortar fire.

The Kangaroos were not just a technical novelty—they gave Canadian and British forces a new way of fighting. For the infantry who climbed into them, it meant crossing open ground in steel instead of on foot, and reaching objectives in better order with fewer losses.

Major Wiggan’s MBE citation praised his “enthusiasm, initiative and driving force,” but the achievement was collective: RCEME craftsmen adapting tools and skills to deliver the first Kangaroos in days. Their work at Aunay showed what the RCEME Corps could do when pressed—transforming tracked vehicles into front-line assets that shaped the course of battle.

Read more about Wiggan and the Kangaroos.

Sergeant Charles Fielding, MM

Recovery Section Commander, 21st Armoured Regiment (Governor General’s Foot Guards), RCEME

“Our job was really to recover. Our tanks would get stuck in the bog, in the mud and stuff like that, and our job was to get them and pull them out.”
— Sergeant Charles Fielding, MM

On 9 August 1944, during Operation Totalize, the Governor General’s Foot Guards held Point 195, near Falaise, against determined German counterattacks. Ammunition and fuel were running dangerously low. The approaches to the hill were swept by artillery and anti-tank fire. Normal supply was impossible.

Sergeant Charles Fielding, a RCEME section commander, decided to act. His expertise was recovery: leading his section of three Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARVs) and crews, whose role was to haul disabled tanks to safety. On this day, recovery would have to wait.

Sergeant Fielding ordered his ARVs stripped of unneeded equipment. With his crews, he loaded crates of ammunition and jerrycans of fuel. The ARV armour and tracks made it more survivable than a truck. Then they set off toward the hill.

Under Sergeant Fielding’s command, the crews made three trips through shellfire, delivering enough supplies to keep two squadrons in the fight. Each run was hazardous, with 88-millimetre guns watching the approaches, but each time the ARVs rumbled through. The deliveries allowed the regiment to hold Point 195 and repulse further attacks.

A Sherman Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV) south of Caen, June 1944. Sergeant Fielding and his RCEME crew used an ARV like this to deliver ammunition and fuel under fire at Hill 195.

Credit: Library and Archives Canada

The action demonstrated the adaptability and fighting spirit of RCEME tradesmen. Recovery crews were trained to tow wrecks and operate winches, not to run supply convoys. Yet the same skills—handling heavy vehicles, improvising under pressure—made it possible to delivery critical supplies to troops under fire at the very front lines of Operation Totalize.

Sergeant Fielding received the Military Medal for his courage and initiative. His story is not one of a lone hero, but of a recovery crew led by an NCO who used the equipment of their trade in an unorthodox way to meet the needs of the battlefield. Their work kept Canadian armour in action at a decisive moment in Normandy. Sergeant Fielding and his crew brought to life the RCEME Motto: Arte et Marte … by Skill and by Fighting!

The open farmland and clear sight lines at Hill 195 made Canadian armour and infantry vulnerable to German fire. RCEME innovations like the Kangaroo, and recovery crews like Sergeant Fielding’s, were vital to holding the position.

Credit: LCol (ret’d) Tim Caines/Avery Caines, 2025

Captain L.G. Rupert, MC

Officer Commanding, Light Aid Detachment, RCEME

Every Canadian armoured regiment deployed with a Light Aid Detachment—about two dozen RCEME tradesmen with trucks, tools, and three Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARVs). Their task was to provide immediate repair and recovery so that fighting strength could be preserved in the thick of battle.

In August 1944, Captain Lloyd George Rupert commanded the LAD of the Canadian Grenadier Guards during Operation Totalize. When the regiment pulled back from Hill 195, three serviceable Shermans were left behind under enemy observation. German 88s covered the ground, and mortar fire swept the area. Abandoning the tanks would mean permanent loss of valuable fighting vehicles.

Captain Rupert personally reconnoitred a safe approach, then directed his recovery crews forward. Cables were hauled out, shackles fixed, and winches engaged as shells burst around them. Under his supervision, the three tanks were brought back into Canadian lines—valuable fighting vehicles that would otherwise have been lost.

This was not an isolated event. Later, in Holland, at Wouwse Plantage, Captain Rupert’s LAD recovered tanks disabled by mines under mortar and machine-gun fire. At the Hochwald Gap in March 1945, he was credited with keeping his regiment in “fighting efficiency” by supervising constant repairs, recoveries, and modifications.

A Sherman Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV), in Authie, Normandy, France, July 1944. Captain Rupert’s Light Aid Detachment used ARVs to recover disabled tanks and keep his regiment’s Shermans in action.

Credit: Library and Archives Canada

For his actions in operations across North-west Europe, Captain Rupert was awarded the Military Cross. His citation praised his leadership and reflected the ability of his LAD technicians to effect repairs, recover equipment, make modifications, and maintain guns, ensuring the regiment could field the maximum number of tanks
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Captain Rupert’s story illustrates the value of LADs: mechanics, armourers, welders and others who, under fire, pulled serviceable vehicles back into action. Their contribution rarely drew headlines, but it meant that Canadian armour kept fighting when it might otherwise have faltered.

The Cost of Victory

These stories highlight three RCEME officer-engineers and soldier-technicians who demonstrated exceptional bravery and technical skills while making significant contributions to the Allied victory in Normandy. While we celebrate their achievements and those of their colleagues, we must remember that others among the hundreds of RCEME soldiers who took part in this Campaign were not able to celebrate the victory.

Craftsman Norman Symington, RCEME, was the Corps’ first casualty of the Normandy campaign. He was killed on 7 June 1944, during the D-Day landings on Juno Beach, while serving with the Regina Rifles Regiment. One of 14,000 Canadians who came ashore that day, Craftsman Symington now rests in the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, among many who fell in the early days of the liberation of France.

Read more about Craftsman Symington in the RCEME Book of Remembrance and in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

Conclusion

The Battle of Normandy was a proving ground for the newly formed Corps of Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. In workshops, in recovery vehicles, and in the field alongside the infantry and armour, RCEME tradesmen showed that battles could not be won by fighting power alone—machines had to be kept in action.

Major Wiggan’s craftsmen transformed tracked artillery into armoured troop carriers. Sergeant Fielding and his recovery crews turned their vehicles into a lifeline for besieged troops. Captain Rupert’s Light Aid Detachment pulled tanks back under fire and returned them to battle. Each story illustrates a different mix of RCEME trades and tasks, but together they show RCEME’s defining strength: adaptability and the trademark “can-do” attitude.

Normandy proved that RCEME was more than a support service. It was a combat multiplier, ensuring that Canadian units had the equipment and mobility to fight on. Exemplifying their motto Arte et Marte—by skill and by fighting spirit—RCEME left its mark on the Allied victory in France.