Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Meldram
Royal Winnipeg Rifles

His friends will remember that Jack left a very lucrative job in New York—an executive position that carried real money—to return to Canada and offer his services … As second-in-command of the Winnipeg Rifles his talents have full scope and it is not hard to predict a brilliant future.

(Times Colonist, 19 Oct 1942, 15)

Born on 24 July 1900 in Victoria, British Columbia, John McIntosh Meldram worked as advertising manager for the National Cabon Company in New York City. First commissioned in the Vancouver Regiment in 1927, he returned to Canada in 1940 to join the Queen’s York Rangers (1st American Regiment) in Toronto. By 1942, he had been appointed second-in-command of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles under Lieutenant-Colonel W.J. Moogk, who he succeeded in command in November.

Eighteen months later, the RWR prepared for the invasion of Europe. In the months leading up to D-Day, Meldram described the training:

We did all kinds of fake landings in Sussex, working with a force from the Royal Navy … We had exercises, lectures, model and sand table schemes, wave-top photographs taken by reconnaissance planes. We had a 1/100th scale map of Dieppe–and we didn’t look forward to any took cheerfully to trying Dieppe again.

The battalion went ashore at Juno Beach under Meldram’s command on 6 June 1944. “Winnipeg and Manitoba can’t be sufficiently proud of the performance of the regiment,” he later stated. “Their conduct during operations proves the type of men they were. Many were from Winnipeg. Unfortunately very few are left.” After almost continuous fighting during the breakout from Normandy, the colonel celebrated in mid-August:

Out of the line at rest at last! Really out, after fifty four days and I’ve worn pajamas for two nights running and have been in bed ALL night long! Its marvelous. The men are like kids out of school and the officers much the same.

Some time after returning to the line, Meldram became a battle casualty during the Battle of the Scheldt and was evacuated in October 1944. Command passed to Major L.R. Fulton while Meldram took up training duties in England. He retired from the army in April 1946 and died in Toronto on 2 June 1957.