Lieutenant-Colonel C. McKerron
Saskatoon Light Infantry

From the very beginning, McKerron adhered to a policy that earned him a great deal of resentment. He boasted of the efficiency of the Battalion. To maintain that efficiency he refused to allow any of his officers to be seconded for staff work. He commanded the Battalion for nearly two years. We were almost under peace time conditions throughout that time. That meant the almost complete stagnation of promotion in the Battalion.

(Maj. H.C. Mitchell, Wartime Exploits, 37)

Born on 3 October 1897 in Aberdeen, Scotland, Charles McKerron was a First World War veteran and trained machine gun officer in the prewar Saskatoon Light Infantry. In England, he succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel A.E. Potts on his promotion to brigadier in July 1940. According to the recollections of then Lieutenant H.C. Mitchell, the new CO immediately faced opposition from the battalion company commanders: “McKerron had an inferiority complex to begin with. He had only one recourse. That was the bottle. As time went on it was his only solace. Because of that he was continually getting into further predicaments.”

From a desire to sustain unit efficiency after the SLI had been named machine gun battalion for the 1st Division, McKerron denied subordinates opportunities for advancement. Mitchell wrote: “Ambitions in the Battalion were thwarted. Ambitions to do other kinds of work were blocked. And the Battalion actually suffered from the lack of fellow officers on Brigade, Division and Corps staffs. In my opinion it was the second major error that McKerron committed.”

Undermined by second-in-command Major E.J. Scott-Dudley and lacking the full loyalty of his company commanders, McKerron lasted until 27 September 1941. He was sent back to Canada and replaced by Scott-Dudley, who led the unit to Sicily and Italy two years later.

He died on 12 November 1979 in Indian Head, Saskatchewan.