Lieutenant-Colonel H.R. Schell
11th (Ontario) Tank Regiment

This, the Tank Corps, are a unit that we expect will yet prove the deciding factor in the present conflict. The English have surpassed themselves in the molding of these tanks; they ate the work of many hands and many brains. We, the crews and operators, hope soon to have the opportunity of showing Germany how easily their once supposed invulnerable Panzer divisions can be routed and ruined. Most of use are very proud to have as our weapons the foremost allied tanks invented. They are the real thing and once in motion in actual battle, will prove a deadly stubborn foe.

(anonymous 11th Tank solider, Feb 1942)

Born in Oshawa, Ontario on 1 December 1912, Herbert Robson Schell was son of the city’s former mayor. He was one of a dozen officers to attend tank tactics training in England in late 1940. He served as second-in-command under Lieutenant-Colonel Murray Johnston during the long period of training in England from November 1942 until deployment with the 1st Army Tank Brigade after the invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

When Johnston was injured in a jeep accident in late September, Schell took temporary command of the Ontario Tanks. Although expected to be disabled for only a few weeks, Johnston was eventually evacuated, and Schell led the regiment until the end of the year.

In early January 1944, he was admitted to the medical field dressing station. Lieutenant-Colonel R.L. Purves, second-in-command of the 12th (Three Rivers) Regiments, arrived as his replacement. On returning to the Ontario Tanks later that month, Schell was to revert to major and become second-in-command to Purves. But within a few days he hospitalized again and left the regiment.

He transferred back to England in April 1944 but returned to the field after the invasion of Normandy in July. He was attached to the general staff of First Canadian Army headquarters in France for three months. After four years overseas, he returned home in October 1944. According to the Oshawa Times-Gazette, Schell “recalls nothing particularly significant about his overseas experiences describing his activities during 13 months in two theatres of war as merely ‘routine’ work.”

Schell died in Whitby, Ontario on 17 November 2007 at the age of 94.

Thank you to Rod Henderson, the regimental historian for the Ontario Regiment, for details about Schell’s wartime service.