Brigadier Victor Whitehead
Royal Montreal Regiment
5th Infantry Brigade

… one of the guests was Brigadier Victor Whitehead, my former commander at 5th Brigade. He was a bitter man. Having trained the brigade for two years, he had been replaced, as being too old, by a former signals corps officer, Brigadier Bill Megill, who at that time did not have a clue about infantry and who later proved to be one of the Army’s most controversial brigade commanders.

(Jeffrey Williams, Far From Home, 219)

Born on 8 October 1895 in Montreal, George Victor Whitehead was a First World War veteran, insurance executive, and long serving militia officer. He attended Bishop’s College before being commissioned a lieutenant in the 148th Battalion in December 1915. He embarked for England in October 1916 and joined the 14th Battalion in France in April 1917. He was invalided from a shell wound at Passchendaele, rejoined the 14th in May 1918, and ended the war at the rank of captain.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, Colonel Whitehead had risen in the militia to command the 12th Brigade, Military District No. 4. In July 1940, he was appointed commanding officer of the Royal Montreal Regiment, which he had command from 1932 to 1937, and proceeded overseas. In April 1941, Whitehead was promoted to brigadier and succeeded General P.E. Leclerc of 5th Infantry Brigade.

Almost year later, General Bernard Montgomery made an inspection of the Canadian units and their commanding officers. He found Whitehead possessed a “good brain” but lacked training ability. He continued to lead the 5th Brigade for nearly two more years but by January 1945, he was replaced for medical unfitness. His successor, Brigadier W.J. Megill, would lead the brigade during the Normandy campaign until the end of the war in Europe.

Whitehead returned to Canada in March 1944. He became honorary lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Montreal Regiment in 1952. He died in Montreal on 31 December 1977.

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