Lieutenant-Colonel Jake Vining
12th (Three Rivers) Tank Regiment

All of us wondered what was going to happen. After lengthy deliberation, the authorities called on J.G. Vining, the regiment’s previous command officer, who by then was retired. To our great delight he joined us in Westmount.

(Allard, Memoirs, 29-30)

Born in Guernsey, Channel Islands England on 24 September 1896, John Gore Vining had enlisted as a private from Three Rivers, Quebec in July 1916, was wounded in France, and was commissioned after the armistice. He remained in the militia after the war and retired as commanding officer of Régiment de Trois-Rivières in 1936. After his two successors were transferred as over-age, Vining agreed to come out of retirement in July 1940 to resume command of the regiment as it mobilized as apart of the armoured corps.

Although Major Jean Allard welcomed the return of Vining as a respected CO, he noted that the local francophone identity of the regiment had become a minority with increasing English-speaking recruits. With less than a third of the unit French-speakers, the unit soon became anglicized as the 12th Tank (The Rivers) Regiment. Vining left for England in April 1941 to be followed by the rest of the regiment in June.

General Bernard Montgomery had been unimpressed with Vining during an inspection tour of the armoured corps in May 1942. One of his troopers, a Spanish Civil War veteran, later described him as “a Colonel Blimp of the old school.” He held an unusually long tenure of command but he would not lead the regiment in battle. By April 1943, he had been replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Booth of the 1st Hussars who had recently served with the British First Army in North Africa. Insulted at being passed over, Allard left the armoured corps and would eventually command the Royal 22nd Regiment in Italy.

Deemed too old for active service, Vining commanded Canadian Armoured Corps Reinforcement Unit overseas. In later years he would be named Honorary Colonel Le Regiment de Trois Rivieres until 1968.

He died in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec on 3 November 1981.