Lieutenant-Colonel Bert Kennedy
Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

One morning a strange Italian forced his way past the indignant guards at B.H.Q. and presented himself to the astounded adjutant. Filthy, thin as a refugee, and clade in disintegrating civilian clothes, Major Bert Kennedy had returned to the unit out of the limbo of the missing. Kennedy had a tale to tell.

(Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 196)

Born on 25 July 1905 in Owen Sound, Ontario on Albert Arnett Kennedy was a manufacturer and commanding officer of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters. He reverted in rank to go on active service in September 1939. Following instructional duties in Toronto, he went overseas as an instructor with a holding unit before transferring to the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment.

Kennedy served during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and took temporarily command after Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Sutcliffe was killed and Major Lord Tweedsmuir was wounded a few days later. With a recovered Tweedsmuir back in command by early October, Kennedy went out on reconnaissance near Campobasso. After failing to report in, his family learned that he had been classified as missing in action.

He and two riflemen had stumbled across a German platoon, which took the trio prisoner. A few days later Kennedy managed to roll off a moving transport truck during a rainstorm. Guards fired but Kennedy got away. As Italy had surrendered to the Allies on 8 September, a farmer gave him shelter and hid him from German patrols. Kennedy travelled with groups of other escaped prisoners until he reached Allied lines on 6 November, three weeks after going missing.

As Tweedmuir had been evacuated sick a few days before, the regiment welcomed Kennedy back not only as a daring escapee but also as the new commanding officer. He remained in command for the next five months through the Battles of Moro River and Ortona, earning the D.S.O. for exemplary leadership. He was invalided to England in April 1944 after stepping on a mine and command of the Hasty Ps passed to Major D.C. Cameron.

Once recovered, Kennedy took over the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders after Lieutenant-Colonel E.P. Thompson had been killed in action in Holland on 26 February 1945. Likely suffering from battle exhaustion, Kennedy was given rest leave following a confidential report in April. After the end of the war, when called on to recount his brief period as a prisoner-of-war as well as other exploits, Kennedy remarked, “While there were a great many difficult times, I would not for anything in the world have missed the experiences I have had.”

Returning home as a war hero, Kennedy resumed command of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters and was acclaimed chairman of the Owen Sound Public Utilities Commission. He was Commissioner of Ontario Hydro from 1955 to 1973.

He died on 26 December 1981 in Collingwood, Ontario.