There have been elements of the Canadian Armed Forces involved with signals since the start of the twentieth century. The Signalling Corps was founded in 1903, in 1913 it became ‘The Canadian Signal Corps’, in 1921 King George V gave it the name of the ‘Royal Canadian Corps of Signals’ and it was this name that it would use throughout the Second World War. Today we are looking at an example of the Corps’ cap badge:

The design consists of a ring, surmounted by a Tudor or King’s crown, with the name of the corps on it. In the centre is the figure of Mercury, Roman messenger of the gods and so a suitable totem for a corps devoted to sending messages. Below this are eight maple leaves for Canada and the motto ‘Velox, Versutus, Vigilans’ which means ‘swift, skilled, alert’.

The cap badge is made from stamped brass and has a pair of lugs on the rear to hold it to a cap with a cotter pin:

Looking at some sources, it seems that the badge was often worn with a dark blue felt backing, so I have cut one from a piece of felt and mounted the badge on my 1946 dated Canadian made beret:

This blue backing seems to have been far from universal though as here we see some members of the RCCoS in Australia wearing the beret and badge, but without the backing:

George Gordey served with the Canadian Corps of Signals in World War II:

I was working on Alaska Highway and then I come home, and they sent me a call to go in the service. I got that call. I had to report in Calgary, Mewata Barracks. I took an M [mental capacity] test and I passed pretty good. I think it was over 160 out of 200. But they looked at it and they said, boy, you’ve got a good score, you’ve got a good score. And then we went to, just like you here, to somebody put you to where you’re going to go to do; and he said, what do you want to do? I says, well, I was monkeying around with the radios, making crystal sets and stuff like that. They said, okay, we’ll send you for signals [Royal Canada Corps of Signals] to Kingston, Ontario. And two days later, I was on a train to Kingston.