Lieutenant-Colonel Sherm Young
Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment

… Canadians fought like demons. Pte. Young said he had no idea he would come out alive, but he fought on until taken prisoner. His left hand was very badly wounded but the Germans took little care of that. He saw over twenty wounded Canadians, who were lying on the ground, killed by the Germans. After he was taken back from the firing line he was better treated, and the German doctors did everything possible for his hand. He is very enthusiastic about the ability of these doctors.

(Weekly British Whig, 9 Dec 1915, 3)

A farmer born in Athol, Ontario on 8 October 1894, Sherman Young enlisted with the Canadian Expedition Force as a private in September 1914. He fought with the 2nd Battalion at the Second Battle of Ypres, where he was gassed, shot in the hand, and captured. After six months interned as a prisoner of war, he was exchanged and repatriated in October 1915. Undeterred, Young re-enlisted as a lieutenant in the 155th Battalion, but his deformed hand precluded active service.

Young returned to farming after the war but continued militia service with the reorganized Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, formed in 1920. He became commanding officer in March 1939 and immediately began recruiting efforts from the rural districts on mobilization that September. “We have a regiment to be proud of and you will be hearing from us later,” Young told the press prior to sailing for England in December. “Each and every soldier is a responsible man and will give a good account of himself.”

Still troubled by the lingering effects of the gassing decades earlier, he had put off a throat operation to go overseas with his men. In February 1940, he underwent the operation and returned home as medically unfit for further service. Lieutenant-Colonel H.L.N. Salmon, a two-time Military Cross recipient and Permanent Force officer, took command of the Hasty Ps in England.

Young died on 6 June 1975 in Picton, Ontario.