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Abbreviations Used in Military Documents and for Medal Inscriptions

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The military, in many ways presents a unique and focused culture onto itself. Part of this culture has been the evolution of a somewhat bewildering and very extensive use of abbreviations and acronyms. 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.

One can roughly segregate these abbreviations/acronyms into several broad categories, depending on the context under which they are used. However, the truth is that most abbreviations can, and are, used fairly universally. Notwithstanding this, these divisions can be summarized as follows: 1) those used in service or operational records (i.e. 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. of an employment nature), and 4) those used to identify medals and decorations.

Also, too, apart from the thousands of identified abbreviations, etc. that have been recorded and used at one time or another, a great deal of synonmy of military abbreviations is also present.  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. One might ask, then, “how can any one individual remember this huge number of abbreviations”. The truth is that each branch of the military obviously has its own specialty and focus, and thus, its own unique language. 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.

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. 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). Those of a more international nature, especially American, would make this list tremendously long and beyond the scope of this summary. The included abbreviations range in vintage from at least the Anglo-Boer War (circa. 1900) until the present. While this list is extensive and fairly comprehensive (over 7500 unique abbreviations are listed), it is safe to say that is probably far from complete. As with international examples, to try and capture every Canadian, British or Commonwealth abbreviation, even those more or less officially recognized, is again far beyond the scope and practicality of this work. The abbreviations listed here come from a multitude of sources, some more official than others, but this author, wherever possible, has tried to confirm their validity from more than one source.

A few things to remember when using this list:

• There is a great deal of synonymy present for similar or different descriptors. These are often due to convention, original author bias, experience and nationality. In these cases, especially when there is more than one descriptor for a single abbreviation, the reader must make a decision on which descriptor is valid. By being aware of the context of the descriptor is the best method to differentiate the proper term. Wherever possible, this author has tried to group abbreviations to recognize synonym. Likewise, this author has tried to show synonyms as separate entries if the first few letters of the abbreviation are sufficiently different to make it difficult to search alphabetically.
• Any abbreviation can be found as upper case, lower case, or a combination of both. This does not represent inaccurate abbreviations but rather the biases and experiences of the original author. This author uses both interchangeably which is more a function of ease of editing the list rather than any other design.
• Any abbreviation may have period punctuation of varying patterns; any abbreviation may have varying presence or absence of spacing between the letters within the abbreviation. As in the last point, this author again has arbitrarily listed (or not listed) possible combinations.
• Many abbreviations are used interchangeably in different types of records and on medal stampings (most British and Commonwealth medals have, as a minimum, the recipient’s name, rank or specialty and unit at the time of award, stamped into the rim of the medal). These may mean different things depending upon context and should be noted when drawing conclusions.
• Many of the abbreviations listed here originated in Commonwealth military forces where English was not used. In particular, this is true of the British India, or Indian Army. The descriptors in these cases are given, wherever possible, the English equivalent. This means that the actual abbreviation may not appear consistent to the descriptor. Where an English equivalent has not been identified by this author, the vernacular descriptor is given.
  
  

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