Lieutenant-Colonel J.R. Calkin
North Shore Regiment

During the attack north of Cambrai on the night of 8th October, 1918, he was in charge of a platoon detailed to secure bridgehead at Morenchies … He led his company across He led his company across under very heavy machine-gun fire, and, working to the right, captured the enemy posts which were holding Morenchies bridgehead. He did excellent work.

(M.C. citation, 17 Dec 1918)

Born on 6 January 1895 in Sackville, New Brunswick, James Ryan Calkin was town manager of Woodstock and long-time militia officer. He had enlisted with the 140th Battalion as a private and earned a field commission with the 26th Battalion in February 1917. He was three-times wounded in action and earned the Military Cross for leading an assault near Cambrai in October 1918. Following the First World War, he joined the Carleton and York Regiment and transferred to the North Shore Regiment to be second-in-command in 1940.

Calkin succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. Leger in April 1941 and led the battalion overseas in July. On his inspection tour of the Canadian brigades in January 1942, General Bernard Montgomery found Calkin a “good man” though he possessed limited training abilities. “With these boys, I would go to the end of the world, come hell or high water!” he declared but soon thereafter had to relinquish command. In September 1942, Calkin was deemed overage and replaced by Major D.B. Buell. He was promoted to colonel and assigned to a reinforcement unit in England.

After the war, Calkin returned to Woodstock He died in New Brunswick on 10 July 1959.