Lieutenant-Colonel H.P. Bell-Irving
Seaforth Highlanders of Canada
Loyal Edmonton Regiment

In the attack of the Seaforths of Canada on Agira, July 28, 1943, Major Bell-Irving, officer commanding “A” company was ordered to gain and hold the sharp ridge on the right which was held by the enemy in strength …The courage and determination with which this offer pressed forward completely disregarding his own safety was an inspiration and contributed to the success of the battalion attack.

(D.S.O. citation, Vancouver Sun, 15 Oct 1943, 16)

Born in Vancouver on 21 January 1913, Henry Pybus “Budge” Bell-Irving came from a prominent military family and was son of a Royal Canadian Navy commander. Having joined the Seaforth Highlanders in the early 1930s, he left the University of British Columbia to go overseas with the regiment in December 1939. With an award of the Distinguished Service Order for heroism in Sicily, Bell-Irving became second-in-command after the promotion of Major J.D. Forin to take over the battalion.

Shortly thereafter in November 1943, Bell-Irving was recalled to England to attend a senior officers’ training course. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel, he returned to Italy in June 1944 to take command of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment after the wounding of the new CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Rowan Coleman. In a letter home, he described the first breaches of Gothic Line: “It was quite a thrill, at 2 o’clock in the morning, to stand in a Hun fort on the dominating feature and see the faint moonlit outline of the sea beyond. They last gasp of the last great line in Italy.”

In October 1944, Bell-Irving handed command over to Major Jim Stone and transferred back to the Seaforths to replace Lieutenant-Colonel S.W. Thompson, who was due for rest leave. Aside from an absence in January, he commanded the battalion in Italy until the entire I Canadian Corps redeployed to Northwest Europe in March 1945. He earned a D.S.O. Bar in the Liberation of the Netherlands and described the scene when he entered the capital:

The universal happiness amounted to an ecstasy which I have never seen even approached in any crowd before. Before this, few of our men could have given a clear reason why they came … But here in Amsterdam, in one day, all that was changed … Every life lost, every long day away from home, had been spent in a good and necessary endeavour.

On 15 May 1945, he was promoted to brigadier of the 10th Infantry Brigade.

Bell-Irving was Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia from 1978 to 1983, and the next year received the Order of Canada.

He died in Vancouver on 21 September 2002.