Lieutenant-Colonel M.F. Peiler
22nd Armoured Regiment (Canadian Grenadier Guards)

In the days of the last war, we just didn’t know the amount of instruction necessary. The present method is way ahead of anything we ever knew. In those days it was just a case of getting into the air and finding the rest out for yourself.

(Toronto Star, 17 Nov 1940, 11)

Born in Montreal on 4 January 1897, Maurice Fisher Peiler was an engineer and First World War veteran. He joined the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps at McGill University in 1915. He took a commission with the Victoria Rifles and served as a signalling instructor in Canada until being seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in 1917. He was shot down by the Red Baron’s squadron over enemy line in May 1918 and taken prisoner. After the war he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but soon transferred to the Canadian Grenadier Guards.

He took command in July 1939 and mobilized for active service with the regiment in June 1940. When the Grenadiers converted to the 22nd Armoured Regiment, at the end of February 1942, he and several officers went to the United Kingdom for training. Major H.C. Griffith assumed temporary command in his absence.

Prime Minister Churchill once asked Peiler when the rest of his unit would be coming overseas, to which the colonel replied, “I think, sir, you probably know more about that than I do.” The Grenadiers left for England in September 1943. Peiler resumed command but was replaced a year later by Lieutenant-Colonel W.W. Halpenny. He took charge of a training unit and returned to Canada in September 1945. He was made Member of the Order of the British Empire.

In later life, he worked as a magistrate in British Columbia where he died on 26 April 1972.