Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Labatt
Royal Hamilton Light Infantry

I hope you all came through safely. We will have to celebrate Dieppe every year at the mess after this … Little did I dream when I wrote the history of the Regt. that the biggest story was still to be told. I know from a very undistinguished experience in 1916 what a grim business “shows” infinitely smaller that your can be, and this makes one realize what a test you have come through … I wish I could be with you.

(E.D.H. Boyd to Labatt, 20 Aug 1942)

Born on 25 January 1903 in Wentworth, Ontario, Robert Ridley Labatt was the son of First World War battalion commander and pension commissioner Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Hodgetts Labatt (1864-1919). He attended RMC and took a commission with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (RHLI) in 1923. A stockbroker in civilian life, he also served as battalion adjutant from 1932 to 1936. Labatt succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel H.G. Wright in command of the RHLI in April 1940. The regiment departed for England that summer and Labatt would lead regiment ashore at Dieppe two years later on 19 August 1942.

As the raiding force came under heavy enemy fire, Labatt radioed Brigadier Sherwood Lett, who attempted to land, “For Christ’s sakes don’t. It’s bloody hopeless!” Severely wounded when a mortar struck his landing craft, Lett handed command of the 4th Brigade to Labatt. In the face of overwhelming German firepower, he attempted to organize an evacuation, but his own boat was sunk. With no alternative, Labatt surrendered.

After over two and a half years as a prisoner of war, he along with fellow captured colonels Doug Catto of the Royal Regiment of Canada and Fred Jasperson of the Essex Scottish were liberated by the US 3rd Army in May 1945.

When it was proposed that German veterans also attend the 25th anniversary of the raid in 1967, Labatt remarked it would be asking for trouble. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind having a chat with some of the Germans who were there. They treated us very well after the show was over,” he added. “But many of the people who will attend the ceremonies will not be those who were at Dieppe.”

Labatt died on 23 December 1977 in Hamilton, Ontario.