Lieutenant-Colonel R.T. Chisholm

&
Lieutenant-Colonel E.H. Small
Cape Breton Highlanders

A veteran of the First World War who had been commissioned from the ranks, he was well-liked by all, but, at the same time, many of the soldiers had come to realize that they needed a CO who would provide increased discipline and rigorous training.

(Alex Morrison, A Breed of Manly Men, 77)

Born in Sydney, Nova Scotia on 29 October 1891, Roderick Theodore Chisholm was a customs officer, First World War veteran, and commanding officer of the Cape Breton Highlanders since 1937. In November 1940, just prior to mobilization for active service, he handed over command to fellow veteran Edgar Harold Small. Born in Halifax on 16 June 1893, Small had enlisted in the 17th Battalion as a private in September 1915, served with the 85th Battalion in France as a sergeant, and earned a commission in September 1917. He was invalided a year later from a gunshot wound.

Chisholm and Small represented the old guard of the regiment, which had embraced the motto Breed of Manly Men” in the trenches of the last war. A year after Small took command of the Highlanders in Nova Scotia, the unit went overseas in November 1941. By February 1942, however, like his predecessor, Small needed to step aside for new leadership.

He returned home to be succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. McIntosh of the Royal Highlanders of Canada before Lieutenant-Colonel J.B. Weir, another Black Watch officer, arrived in April 1942. Some of the original Nova Scotia soldiers grumbled about the arrival of many outsider officers, drawing from the Montreal-based Highlander regiment but others recognized the necessity for “new blood.”

Chisholm died in Halifax on 15 June 1947 Halifax while Small had passed away by 1974.