Lieutenant Reginald J. Woods
The Lake Superior Regiment

An illustrated story of one officer featured in my book Scandalous Conduct: Canadian Officer Courts Martial, 1914–45.

On 16 August 1944, Lieutenant Reg Woods joined his regiment fighting in France. After being under enemy fire for the first time, he vanished the next day. Two months later, Woods resurfaced in London claiming amnesia. He was admitted to a neurological hospital as a possible psychiatric casualty. Was he a battle exhaustion case deserving treatment or a disciplinary problem? One doctor believed the amnesia genuine, but the hospital’s commanding medical officer suspected Woods was faking to conceal deliberate misconduct. He was arrested and charged with desertion.

Woods’s story is just one of over 200 Canadian Army officers dismissed or cashiered in the Second World War. Read (and see) my full illustrated account of this fascinating case and the eventual unexpected conclusion in Canadian Military History. 

Read more about Canadian officers’ scandalous conduct in my book.

Pre-order Through Their Eyes: A Graphic History of Hill 70 and Canada’s First World War