Lieutenant-Colonel E.L. Caldwell
Royal Canadian Dragoons

I’m afraid we follow a rather colorless routine here … to disseminate and inculcate sound administrative principles as laid down in official manuals and regulations, thereby ensuring uniformity of method in their application throughout the Canadian army … and for that matter throughout the Commonwealth forces.

(Victoria Daily Times, 25 Oct 1941, 9)

Born on 30 June 1886 in Massachusetts, Eugene Lloyd Caldwell was a long-time Royal Canadian Dragoon, and commanding officer of the regiment since 1936. He joined the Canadian militia in 1905, was commissioned with the Corps of Guides in 1908, joined the RCD in 1911 and embarked for France in 1915. He served throughout the First World War, earning a promotion to captain and a mention in despatches. He graduated from the staff college at Camberley in 1919.

In the postwar Permanent Force, Caldwell was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1932, commanding “A” Squadron, RCD. He took command of the regiment in November 1936. By 1940, the regiment had exchanged its horses for armoured cars. Caldwell commanded the redesignated 1st Canadian Armoured Car Regiment (RCD) from September 1940 until May 1941. When the unit left to join the Armoured Corps, he stayed on as camp commandant at St. John’s, Quebec. There he also headed the army school of administration, which he admitted taught officers principles which “it is hard to find any glamour.”

Lieutenant James Alan Roberts, who would go on to command 8th Infantry Brigade in Northwest Europe, described meeting Caldwell on transfer to the RCD: “He was already pushing retirement age and, besides, he was a very kind but a very quiet and studious officer with little drive and dynamism in his personality.”

His son, Captain Kenneth Clyde Caldwell, took a commission with the 4th Hussars, British Army after graduating from RMC in 1939. He was wounded in Greece in summer 1941 and killed in Egypt on 27 November 1941.

Caldwell retired to Nova Scotia where he died in 1978.