Brigadier John F. Bingham
Royal Canadian Dragoons
12th (Three Rivers) Tank Regiment
2nd Armoured Brigade

The Regiment’s new C.O. is, very temporarily, Lt. Col. J.F. Bingham. A member of the general staff, he has come to serve out his mandatory one month in action, in order to qualify for promotion to brigadier.

(Charles Prieur, War Chronicles, 204)

Born in Winnipeg on 6 August 1911, John Francis Bingham was a fencer in youth and son of the former commanding officer of the Fort Garry Horse. Commissioned in the Lord Strathcona’s Horse in 1933, Bingham rose quickly after the outbreak of the Second World War from captain to lieutenant colonel. In June 1942, he became commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Dragoons (Armoured Car Regiment), which arrived at Sicily in November 1943 and entered the Italian theatre in January.

In February 1944, Major K.D. Landell took over the RCD when Bingham transferred to the Three Rivers Tanks, replacing recently promoted Brigadier Leslie Booth. After just over one month, which the regiment largely spent resting and refueling, Bingham moved on with a promotion to be second-in-command of the 2nd Armoured Brigade, then in England preparing for invasion of France.

The brigade landed on D-Day under the command of Brigadier Bob Wyman. During the breakout from Normandy two months later, Wyman was wounded by sniper fire and Bingham took over the brigade on 9 August 1944. He remained in command until December when he was appointed to head the Royal Armoured Corps as part of the First Canadian Army headquarters. In July 1945, he returned to Canada as commandant of armoured corps training at Camp Borden and by 1946 was director of Royal Canadian Army Cadets.

Following a posting to Turkey as military attaché, he retired from the army in 1949. Bingham died in 1989.