Major Frank Darton
Royal Canadian Regiment

Frank is the best argument I know for those who doubt the quality of Canada’s peacetime soldiers as compared to the gallant amateurs they trained and led into battle.

(Rev. Rusty Wilkies quoted in G.W.S. Brodsky, God’s Dodger, 271)

Born in Kent, England on 29 November 1904, Frank Graham Chalklen Darton had been belonged to the RCR since 1922 and served as regimental sergeant-major on mobilization. Following instructional duties in Canada he received a commission and later a promotion to major overseas. He commanded the headquarters company and filled in as acting commanding officer of the regiment at times in the Italian theatre.

For his long and dedicated service in the RCR and in the fighting at the Gothic Line specifically, he was made a Member of the British Empire in the final year of the war:

The task of commanding Main Battalion Headquarters in action and organizing and co-ordinating the forward movement of supplies and ammunition to the Regiment has accordingly fallen to him.

Throughout these action, in spite of all difficulties of terrain and weather, these items have furnished the troops with precise regularity … For the past twenty-two years this officer has served continuously and faithfully in the Canadian Army, in all ranks from Private to Major. His devotion to duty and gallant conduct have at all times been above and beyond the normal call of duty, and merit the highest praise.

(M.B.E. citation, 25 Jan 1945)

At the end of the war of Europe, when Lieutenant-Colonel W.W. Reid volunteered for the Pacific theater in June 1945, command of the RCR, passed to Darton, who led the regiment home. Following demobilization in October, he remained part of the postwar army and headed cadet training in Windsor, Ontario.

Darton retired from the army in 1952 and died a decade later.