Lieutenant-Colonel Gavan Power
Régiment de la Chaudière

Une maladie qui ne pardonne pas vient de briser mes rêves: combattre sur le champ de bataille avec vous jusqu’au bout; rentrer un jour au pays en triomphe avec vous. C’est avec cette ambition que j’ai travaillé avec ardeur … depuis les premiers jours de 1939. Avec orgueil j’ai vu grandir notre régiment et aujourd’hui il occupe dans l’Armée canadienne une place enviable.

(Quoted in Castonguay, Le Régiment de la Chaudière, 201)

Born on 20 March 1908 in Pacome, Quebec, Joseph Gavan Power was a Laval University-educated lawyer and nephew of Liberal MP and Air Minister Chubby Power. An original officer of les Régiment de la Chaudière, he served as second-in-command following mobilization in 1940. The battalion went overseas in July 1941, and Power succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel J.J. Chouinard in March 1942.

In early January 1943, he suffered a sudden heart attack and required lengthy hospitalization. He relinquished command to Major Paul Mathieu at the end of February. In a letter to the regiment, he explained that sickness had shattered his dream to fight on the battlefield to the end and called on the troops to crush the enemy when finally given the opportunity. Unfit for field service, Power remained overseas but he was assigned to head a reinforcement unit in England. He ended the war at the rank of colonel having been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Power resumed his law practice then served as solicitor in the department of veteran affairs from 1949 until his sudden death on 10 March 1952 at just 43 years old.