Lieutenant-Colonel Butch Merner
8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Hussars)

At this time of the year two things are inevitable, the after-festivities hangover and the CO’s more or less heartening message. Of the two my words are probably the more cheerful, as the hangover one can’t avoid, but this message need not be read. For those of you who have got this far it is obvious that you have nothing else to do so you might as well continue to the bitter end.

(Recce Zeitung, 1 Jan 1946, 2)

Born in Toronto in 1918, John Ford Merner was an original squadron commander in the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment and second-in-command during the Northwest Europe campaign. He served as acting commanding officer during absences of Lieutenant-Colonel B.M Alway and took over shortly before VE-Day. Before repatriation in late April 1945, Alway assured the unit his successor was “an experienced soldier who had been with the Regiment since its inception.”

Merner passed command of the 8th over to Major Dennis Bult-Francis in June 1945 when he was appointed to command 2nd/7th Reconnaissance Regiment in the occupation army. After ten months guard duty in Germany, the regiment was scheduled to be disbanded and the troops prepared for repatriation. In his final message printed in the unit newspaper, Recce Zeitung, Merner wrote:

This is the second and last letter I shall write in the somewhat short history of this regiment. The usual custom is to produce a hearty mutual-admiration effort which fools no-one and irritates the non-regimental readers … I shall then, except for a natural bias, try to avoid this in a short summary of my impressions of the Regiment and its activities in Germany.

Merner remained in the postwar army and took up postings at army headquarters in Ottawa. He briefly served as commanding officer of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse in May 1951 before a two-year tenure in command of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. By the 1960s, he was attached to NORAD. After retiring from the army, he joined the civil service and by the mid-1970s became the prohibited publications officer for Canada customs.

Justifying the banning of a 1977 Penthouse issue, Merner explained “What we try to do is represent public opinion and public opinion is anti-oral sex.” The puritanical remark prompted journalist Allan Fotheringham to quip, “Do the Customs guardians of our morals know that the Governor General’s award for fiction in Canada this year [1976] was awarded to a book that details a woman’s sexual encounter with a bear?”

Five years later, during an obscenity trial involving Penthouse, Merner now determined such pictures were acceptable for import, “if they appear to be simulated by professional models.” Vowing that he “hates to open dirty books before morning coffee,” Merner claimed to reject 90 to 95 percent of imported magazines every month.

Merner died in Ottawa on 23 June 1985.