Lieutenant Colonel Milton K. Adams
155th (Quinte) Battalion

Officer states that he is completely deaf in right ear and that in damp weather he has considerable pain and tenderness in ear. He complains of a constant foul and unpleasant discharge from antrum, discharge often abundant.

(“Medical History of Invalid,” 10 Sept 1918)

Milton Kerr Adams was an Orangeman, Grand Master of the Loyal True Blue Association and commanding officer of the 16th Regiment. He was born in South Marysburgh, Prince Edward County, Ontario on 29 July 1872. After the outbreak of the Great War, Adams became treasurer of the local Patriotic Fund. He resigned this position in November 1915 when he was authorized to raise the 155th based in Picton. At a recruitment rally in April 1916, ninety-two year old former Prime Minister Sir Mackenzie Bowell delivered an address to encourage enlistment.

When the 155th arrived in England in November 1916, it was merged with the 154th and 156th in the 6th Reserve Battalion. The colonel\s son, twenty-year old Edwin Arnold Adams, fought with the 14th Battalion and was wounded in June 1916. Disappointed for his unit to be broken up, Adams explained the situation in a letter home:

There are so many officers here now that they cannot be used. While in France I and a number of others offered to revert to any lower rank, but were refused the opportunity. While we would each one like to do our part and spend some time in the centre of things, still I do not know as I can blame the power that be for turning us down …

The mistake was made in allowing any senior officers to come over here unless there was a vacancy for them. If we had been told from the first that there was no place for us over here, then all would have been well, and we would not have come over here under a misapprehension … I suppose that when the officers return home, more especially those who are under 40 years of age, that a number of people will say they were shirkers, but I assure you that this is not the case.

(Kingston Whig-Standard, 17 Mar 1917, 3)

Adams resigned his commission with the CEF to revert to lieutenant with Imperial Forces in late July 1917. In France, he was attached to the 1st Army H.Q. and spent six months in the field before falling ill. He was diagnosed with P.U.O. (Pyrexia of Unknown Origin) and returned to England in early February 1918. He became commanding officer of the Eastern Ontario Depot in England before leaving for Canada several months later.

Adams died on 26 December 1926.

Digitized Service File (LAC):
http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?op=pdf&app=CEF&id=B0033-S036