Lieutenant-Colonel S.J. Cox
10th Armoured (Fort Garry Horse) Regiment

Everybody seemed to be in uniform. Women were much in evidence in all kinds of work and very enthusiastic about it. Traveling around, I found no names or directions, not even on stations. One has to follow a map; it’s very difficult at night in blackouts.

(Cox quoted in Winnipeg Tribune, 29 Oct 1942, 9)

Born in Kildare, Ireland on 5 July 1885, Samuel Joseph Cox had served three years with the South Irish Horse and belonged to the Fort Garry Horse since 1913 shortly after immigrating to Canada. A Winnipeg accountant, he volunteered as a lieutenant in August 1916 and served two years in France with the FGH. He became commanding officer in November 1936, when the unit was amalgamated with the Manitoba Horse.

“If it had not happened now, it would have come later on,” Cox announced with the mobilization orders in September 1939. The FGH was redesigned the 10th Armoured Regiment in the Canadian Armoured Corps in February 1941. In October, Cox transferred to corps headquarters as liaison officer and relinquished command of the FGH to Major R.E.A. Morton of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse. He called leaving the regiment he had served for almost thirty years, “the hardest job I have ever had to do.”

The FGA embarked for England the next month. Cox would eventually also go overseas in March 1942 to take charge of an armoured reinforcement unit. He returned home six months later.

Cox died in 1979 and is buried in Winnipeg.