Lieutenant-Colonel J.G. Robertson
Regina Rifle Regiment

Canada can be assured that the English people and also the American forces have a high realization of the support by Canada to the war cause. Best of all, I may add, is the thorough respect for the Canadian fighters wherever they are found.

(Quoted in Regina Leader-Post, 9 Aug 1944, 3)

Born on 1 September 1890 in Churchville, Nova Scotia, John Gordon Robertson moved to Saskatchewan after graduating from McGill University with an agricultural degree and specialty in animal husbandry in 1912. He enlisted with the 195th Battalion in December 1915 and joined the 44th Battalion as a reinforcement officer in France a year later. He suffered a serious shell wound in March 1917 at Vimy Ridge, which left him hospitalized for a year. On return home, in 1919, he was appointed provincial livestock commissioner for Saskatchewan.

Although commanding officer of the Regina Rifle Regiment since December 1936, his Second World War contribution would be his agricultural rather than military expertise. He relinquished command to Major H.J. Quinn when the battalion mobilized for active service in May 1940. In November 1942, Robertson resigned his position as provincial livestock commissioner to become the overseas agricultural commissioner for Canada in London. He coordinated with the British ministries of agriculture, food and supply to ensure Canadian imports and local production could meet the demand and feed the population.  

He returned to Canada in summer 1944 to report on agricultural progress and to consult in Ottawa before going back overseas, He described the war conditions in London, and related a close call with a V-2 rocket strike near his office:

The robot bomb is hard on the nerves. It approaches with a roar like a high-powered airplane. There are a few seconds silence as it goes into a glide, followed by a deafening explosion. One of the bad aspects is the necessarily frequent wailing of the air raid sirens. But is Hitler thinks he is breaking down British morale he is mistaken. Britishers are angry and more determined than ever to beat the Nazis.

(Star-Phoenix, 31 Jul 1944, 5)

Following various postwar duties related to food production with the United Nations and the Commonwealth, in 1948, Robertson was appointed agriculture counsellor to the High Commission for Canada in the UK. He retired in 1955 to his old home in Churchville, Nova Scotia, where he died on 13 November 1978.