Lieutenant-Colonel Val Traversy
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)

There is no greater honour that could be bestowed on a soldier than to command a regiment, and there is no higher honour for a commanding officer than to command a unit of The Black Watch.

(Field Marshall Lord Wavell to Traversy, 31 Oct 1949)

Born in Montreal on 16 February 1916, Valmore Eric Traversy graduated from Lower Canada College and worked in advertising before enlisting with the Black Watch as a lieutenant. He served as adjutant and later command the unit’s support company in France. He was wounded on 25 July 1944 in the action that killed Lieutenant-Colonel S.S.T. Cantlie and decimated the battalion. Out of action for several months, he rejoined the Black Watch in February 1945 as a commanding commander and then acting second-in-command.

On 5 April 1945, Traversy temporarily took over when Major Eric Motzfeldt suffered serious wounds from bombardment of his headquarters. Although described “in complete command of the situation,” he was not selected as the permanent replacement. Brigadier J.M. Megill, who had clashed with a series of Black Watch commanders, recommended an outsider, Lieutenant-Colonel Syd Thomson, who had led the Seaforth Highlanders in Italy. After the regimental commandant, Colonel P.P. Hutchison, expressed disappointment, Traversy reassured him that the unit “couldn’t have asked for a better” leader and “Thomson is young, keen, and enthusiastic and has settled in very quickly.”

Traversy’s turn came just one month later when Thomson became acting commander of the 5th Brigade in the place of Megill. As the final wartime commanding officer, he witnessed the end of the war in Europe and led the Black Watch home in November 1945 for demobilization. He served as commandant of the regiment from 1947 to 1949.

He died in Montreal on 4 September 1979.