Major Tommy Powers
Royal Canadian Regiment

Lieutenant-Colonel Crowe and his party walked right into the enemy area. The Battalion Commander, a corporal and two privates were some distance ahead of the rest of the party when the Germans opened fire. Calling out “RCR,” Lieutenant-Colonel Crowe pressed on hoping to reach his troops. An enemy machine gun then opened fire and wounded him. He proceeded, however, to engage the enemy with a signaller’s rifle, but was killed by another enemy bullet.

 (Maj. T.M. Powers, “The RCR in Sicily,” 79)

Born in Saint John, New Brunswick on 28 October 1911, Thomas Millidge Powers graduated from RMC in 1933 and served in the RCMP marine section until September 1939, when he enlisted in the army. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the RCR, rising to the rank of major. Known in the battalion as “Pappy Powers,” he led the first company to land in Sicily on 10 July 1943.

Following the death of Major Billy Pope on 18 July, Powers became second-in-command. Having warned his subordinates against reckless heroism, Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Crowe warned, “Stay well back, I can’t afford to lose you too.” Only a week later, Powers became acting battalion commander when Crowe was also killed in action. In a letter to the colonel’s widow, Powers described his former commander as “both as brave as a lion and gracious as could be in his dealings with us.”

In the chaotic fighting for the rest of the month, Powers attempted to reorganize the battalion before it was ordered to withdraw from Nissoria to safer positions. On 12 August, Lieutenant-Colonel D.C. Spry arrived from England to assume command of the RCR. Captain Strome Galloway noted, “Pappy … made a fairly good speech of welcome to Dan Spry despite the fact that it comes as a blow to him. I noticed he had already taken down his acting rank, by whipping off his shoulder strap slip-ons.” Powers reverted to second-in-command but soon fell sick from malaria and was evacuated. He returned briefly in fall 1943 but would be replaced as 2iC by Major W.W. Mathers by early December.

After the war, Powers commanded the West Nova Scotia Regiment from 1947 to 1951. He was killed in a car accident in New Brunswick on 22 July 1955 and is buried in Halifax.

Read more of his account from 18 August 1943: “The RCR in Sicily,” Canadian Military History, vol. 12, no. 3 (2003): https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1414&context=cmh