Brigadier J.V. Allard
Royal 22nd Regiment
6th Infantry Brigade

Durant plus de 20 ans donc, Bernatchez et moi avions fait ce que nous avions pu. Je ne peux taire, cependant, que des centaines de nos compagnons de langue française, à tous les niveaux et dans toutes les situations, s’étaient aussi battus, en ordre dispersé. Plusieurs avaient abandonné; d’autres avaient choisi la voie périlleuse, à bien des égards, mais plus facile—surtout dans la marine et l’aviation—de l’anglicisation. La grande majorité des francophones qui avaient servi avaient pu constater que ces forces n’étaient pas les leurs.

(Allard, Mémoires, 407)

Born on 12 June 1913 in Sainte-Monique-de-Nicolet, Québec, Jean Victor Allard had been commissioned with the Régiment de Trois-Rivières since 1933. Following an exchange with the 4th London Yeomanry in 1941, he returned to Canada to be an instructor at the officer staff college in Kingston, Ontario. Insulted to passed over for promotion in the now anglicized Three Rivers Regiment, he transferred from the armoured corps to the infantry as second-in-command of the Régiment de la Chaudière.

Shortly after this transfer in August 1943, Allard was surprised to learn he was set to become second-in-command of the 22nd Royal Regiment then fighting in Sicily. “Although the appointment was good news, I knew what it would mean,” he thought. “Instead of having time to become familiar with a unit which was involved in final preparations before going into action I was to be plunged into the thick of the fighting as a member of one of the country’s most respected regiments.” While veteran officers greeted the new arrival with skepticism, Allard slowly integrated into the regiment.

With only a few months’ experience in the field, he succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Bernatchez in December 1943. For his heroism at Arielli River that month, he earned the Distinguished Service Order. The citation read in part: “That his unit was successful in the operation was due solely to the example of gallantry, drive and skill set by Lt-Col. Allard as his unit was tired and understrength having been badly cut up in a previous operation.”

Allard remained in command of the 22nd Regiment through the rest of the Italian campaign and into Northwest Europe. By the end of March 1945, he had been promoted to brigadier of 6th Infantry Brigade. “Nonetheless, it took me a long time to tell these men all that was in my heart as I left them,” he later wrote. “I remembered all those I had known intimately who, under my orders, had faced enemy fire and died.” Command of the regiment passed to Major G.A. Turcot.

After the war Allard held several important posts with the army including command of the 25th Infantry Brigade at the end of the Korea War and was commander of the Canadian Mobile Command in 1965. He became the first French Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, serving from 1966 to 1969. For his support of the armed forces unification, he had demanded a report on francophone representation in the military and strongly advocated for bilingualism.

He retired in 1969 as a full general and published a memoir of his long military career in 1985. He was colonel of the Royal 22nd Regiment from 1985 to 1988.

Allard died in Trois-Rivières on 23 April 1996.