Lieutenant-Colonel John Mothersill
Essex Scottish Regiment

It must be extremely difficult to you all back home to imagine the terrific ordeal which the boys so courageously endured … In face of such a curtain of rifle, machine gun, mortar and artillery fire, the battalion never once faltered, the lads advanced unflinchingly and throughout the engagement were cheerful and solute.

(Quoted in Windsor Star, 7 Oct 1942, 3)

Born on 26 March 1897 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, John Henderson Mothersill was a First World War veteran and president of a Windsor insurance agency. Rejected for enlistment earlier, he joined a reinforcement draft in 1917 and served in France as a signaller with the field artillery. Postwar he gained a commission with the Essex Scottish Regiment and by mobilization in September 1939 was second-in-command.

He and commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel A.S. Pearson preceded the regiment overseas in summer 1940. A year later, in July 1941, Mothersill returned to Canada for instructional duties and Major F.K. Jasperson became new second-in-command. Another year later, Jasperson led the Essex Scottish in the fateful Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942 which decimated the regiment, leading to the capture of hundreds, including the CO and Mothersill’s brother Arthur. Only fifty men returned from the raid.

Mothersill took command of the depleted regiment and worked to get it back up to full strength. “It is therefore our duty to carry on where these heroes left off,” he wrote in a letter to the people at home. “A difficult task to be sure, but one which we will tackle with pride and inspiration, because the thoughts of these gallant men of the regiment ever uppermost in our minds.” Having completed this task by May 1943, the over-age Mothersill relinquished command to Major B.J.S. Macdonald, who led the battalion back to France in July 1944.

Mothersill remained overseas for other duties until the end of the war when he resumed his insurance career. He died in Windsor on 12 December 1963.