Major Bill Ferguson
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

Hugh Young, the brigadier, had assured me that I’d have Ferguson for three months, at least three months in action, guaranteed … This guy, Hugh Young, had salted away as brigade major my 2 i/c. Three months in action? To hell with it, two days in action!

(Ross interview, 20 July 1979)

Born on 19 April 1916 in Mortlach, Saskatchewan, Clarence William Ferguson was an insurance agent in Winnipeg, commissioned as a lieutenant with mobilization in September 1939. He went overseas in March 1940 to attend the war staff college at Camberley, England. Now a captain, he returned to Canada for further staff training at the Royal Military College in summer 1942. While back home he married the daughter of former Cameron commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mackenzie. Ferguson reverted from the rank of major to go back overseas in December 1943.

Friends since their time in Winnipeg, Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Ross appointed Ferguson his second-in-command before Normandy. He led an advance party to France two weeks after D-Day before the rest of the Camerons arrived in early July. Concerned that his new second would be “whipped off to a staff job,” Ross received assurances from Brigadier Hugh Young of 6th Infantry Brigade that he would have Ferguson for at least three months in action. When Ross visited brigade headquarters on 22 July, he found Ferguson acting brigade major, replacing Major Jim Carnegie who had been killed earlier that day. Ross realized “that son-of-a-bitch” Young had pinched his second-in-command after all.

On his way back from brigade headquarters, Ross was seriously wounded by shell fire. Command passed to senior company commander Major Jock Runcie, who was wounded on 7 August. As an emergency replacement, Young sent Ferguson forward to rejoin the Camerons the next day. He was in command for only two hours before he was killed.

Temporary command of the depleted battalion, amounting to no more than 150 men, then fell to Major E.P. Thompson. By 12 August, acting Lieutenant-Colonel A.S. Gregory, former second-in-command of the Regina Rifles took over until he too was wounded at the end of the month.