Those of a more international nature, especially American, would make this list tremendously long and beyond the scope of this summary. This author has arbitrarily not included other nationalities, including United States examples (other than some of the higher formations that would occasionally appear in Commonwealth military documents). In an effort to make this source of confusion more understandable to the average researcher, following is a table of abbreviations that have been used by British and Commonwealth military forces, with a focus on the Canadian situation. Individuals within each of these branches, therefore, focus on those abbreviations most applicable to their duties, thereby removing the need to be familiar with every one available.

The truth is that each branch of the military obviously has its own specialty and focus, and thus, its own unique language. One might ask, then, “how can any one individual remember this huge number of abbreviations”. These arise not only as new abbreviations are required for new descriptions, but also through the development of individual bias and uniqueness that is brought on through time, relative isolation and the ever-present propensity of those bureaucratically inclined to develop new terms. that have been recorded and used at one time or another, a great deal of synonmy of military abbreviations is also present. of an employment nature), and 4) those used to identify medals and decorations.Īlso, too, apart from the thousands of identified abbreviations, etc. of an administrative nature), 2) those giving unit, formation or organization names (i.e.of an organizational nature), 3) those indicating ranks, trades, appointments or specialized employments (i.e. Notwithstanding this, these divisions can be summarized as follows: 1) those used in service or operational records (i.e. However, the truth is that most abbreviations can, and are, used fairly universally. One can roughly segregate these abbreviations/acronyms into several broad categories, depending on the context under which they are used. To individuals inexperienced in the ‘ways’ of the military, this can often make any research or study of military records and associated items, such as medals, quite unintelligible. Part of this culture has been the evolution of a somewhat bewildering and very extensive use of abbreviations and acronyms. The military, in many ways presents a unique and focused culture onto itself. Abbreviations Used in Military Documents and for Medal Inscriptions.

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