McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Canadian Officers' Training Corps, McGill Contingent Fonds
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Canadian Officers’ Training Corps, McGill Contingent was established in 1912 so that students could be trained as militia soldiers in anticipation of the international crisis that came to be World War I (1914-1918). The C.O.T.C. was directly connected with the 148th (McGill) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force but was also associated with a variety of other units at the time. The first commander of the contingent was V.I. Smart – a McGill railway engineering professor. The C.O.T.C.’s mission changed with the beginning of World War II (1939-1945) whereby it solely focused on training officers for the Canadian Army. By the time the contingent ceased operations, it had trained over 12,000 soldiers.