“RIF” is certainly the abbreviation for “rifles”, an army regiment.
Since the First World War all Canadian war graves have conformed to the standards of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which gives the specifications here.
There are four elements.
Regimental symbol.
Name, rank and regiment.
Religious symbol.
Optional text chosen by the family.
If the RIF is in section 2 then the only explanation is that it is part of the name of a RIFle regiment.
If it is in section 4 then it is up to the family so it will not be a general feature of Canadian graves. However, some sort of error for RIP does seem likely.
Leave a comment