Second World War

Lt-Col. P. Grenier

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Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Grenier
Fusiliers Mont-Royal
Grenier

The weak link in this Bde is the Fus M.R. I do not believe that Grenier has the military knowledge and professional ability to produce a good and well-trained Bn. He has commanded the Bn for over 5 years and is nearly 50 years old. He should really be replaced by a better and younger man.

(Gen. Montgomery, “Notes on Inf. Bdes of Canadian Corps,” Jan 1942)

Born on 23 January 1893 in Montreal, Paul Grenier was grandson of a former mayor of the city and commanding officer of Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal since March 1938. He had joined the 150th Battalion as a lieutenant and served in France with the 42nd Battalion then the 22nd Battalion until severely wounded at Passchendaele. A militia officer with the Fusiliers Mont-Royal since 1919, he steadily rose through the ranks by seniority and led the battalion to Iceland in June 1940.

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Lt-Col. V. Stott

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Lieutenant-Colonel Vern Stott
South Saskatchewan Regiment
Stott

The excellent fighting qualities of the South Saskatchewan Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Stott’s command have repeatedly demonstrated the influence of this officer’s high sense of duty and superb leadership in battle.

(D.S.O. citation, 13 Mar 1945)

Born on 27 May 1912 in Vancouver, Vernon Stott worked as sales representative for the Barber-Ellis paper company in British Columbia and Alberta. He volunteered with the Calgary Highlanders in 1940 and within three years rose to second-in-command. Although Brigadier W.J. Megill expressed little confidence in Lieutenant-Colonel Don MacLauchlan, he was impressed with Stott’s potential as a leader. During the battalion’s first action in Normandy, Stott relieved a “highly nervous” MacLauchlan until he was wounded himself by mortar shelling on 25 July.

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Maj. G.B. Buchanan

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Major Buck Buchanan
South Saskatchewan Regiment
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They were very convinced Nazis and felt that Hitler could do no wrong and that the disasters which had hit the German army were the result of politics. They thought the Jews and communists were responsible for everything.

(quoted in Leader-Post, 18 Nov 1944, 1)

Born on 13 March 1910 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, George Bruce Buchanan was postal clerk when enlisted as a private in the South Saskatchewan Regiment on mobilization in September 1939. He received a commission the summer before the SSR went overseas in December 1940. He served as captain adjutant under Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Merritt during the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942 and, as he described, “I was one of the few men who made it back to England that day.”

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Brig. F.A. Clift

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Brigadier Fred Clift
South Saskatchewan Regiment
6th Infantry Brigade
Clift

It is believed that his wounds are not grave, but deep regret was expressed by every soldier who knew him, because Clift is not merely a master of organization but also a great fair-minded fellow who is a born leader.

(J.M.A. Cook, Star-Phoenix, 14 Oct 1944, 5)

Born on 17 May 1908 in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Frederick Alexander Clift was a school teacher and commissioned officer with the Saskatoon Light Infantry since 1936. After a year overseas, he returned to Canada be a machine gun instructor. He rejoined the SLI as second-in-command but was then appointed commanding officer of the South Saskatchewan Regiment in October 1942. “Col. Clift proved to be no exception to the list of outstanding C.O.s the regiment had been favoured with,” the regimental history declared. “He firmly believed that a battalion was only as good as its officers and for this reason the officers trained even harder than the men.”

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Lt-Col. H.T. Kempton

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Lieutenant-Colonel H.T. Kempton
South Saskatchewan Regiment
Kempton

So again passed another of the original officers of the regiment into higher army service. He, like Lt.-Col. Wright, seemed to be a very part of the flesh and blood of the unit. He was keenly disappointed on not going into “action” with the men with whom he had trained from the beginning.

(Maj. G.B. Buchanan, The March of the Prairie Men, chap. 4)

Born on 1 January 1895 in Barking, Essex, England, Harold Thomas Kempton owned a bookstore in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with his brother since 1912. He served in the Royal Air Force during the First World War and joined the Weyburn Regiment afterward. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Kempton was a major in the amalgamated South Saskatchewan Regiment. He led the advance party overseas in August 1940 before the rest of the battalion followed in December.

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Lt-Col. C.C.I. Merritt

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Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Merritt
South Saskatchewan Regiment
Merritt

My war lasted six hours. There are plenty of Canadians my age who went all the way from the landings in Sicily to the very end … It was an enforced idleness. It cannot be escalated into virtue.

(Quoted in Ottawa Citizen, 3 Sept 1966, 66)

Born on 8 November 1908 in Vancouver, British Columbia Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt was an RMC graduate, football player, and barrister. Since 1929, he was a commissioned officer in the Seaforth Highlanders, the regiment his father had belonged to before being killed at Second Ypres in April 1915. Merritt went overseas as a major, attended staff college, and served on the general staff of the 3rd Division. In March 1942, he was appointed new commanding officer of the South Saskatchewan Regiment, which would land at Dieppe over four months later.

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Brig. S. Lett

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Brigadier Sherwood Lett
South Saskatchewan Regiment
4th Infantry Brigade
Lett

And this is the man I first saw one rainy day in the First World War, welcoming us to a rat-infested land of death and destruction. Sherwood Lett, an ordinary Canadian officer in 1915, has come a long way … Surely, here is one Canadian who has had, and is still having a full life. As a politician, he might well have been a Prime Minister of Canada.

(Jim Greenblatt, Star-Phoenix, 10 Aug 1963, 15)

Born on 1 August 1895 in Iroquois, Ontario, Sherwood Lett was a University of British Columbia graduate, a decorated First World War veteran, a Rhodes Scholar a t Oxford, and a lawyer in Vancouver. He had served as a captain with the 46th (Saskatchewan) Battalion in France and earned the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry under heavy fire. Commanding officer of the Irish Fusiliers from 1932 to 1937, Lett volunteered again and went overseas as brigade major with the 2nd Canadian Division.

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Lt-Col. J.E. Wright

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Lieutenant-Colonel J.E. Wright
South Saskatchewan Regiment
WrightJE

Lt.-Col. Wright had been the admired leader and valued friend of every last man in the unit. He knew them all by name and background, and his sense of impartial discipline was greatly respected. One unknown soldier made the fitting remark “When God made a man, he made Lt.-Col. Wright.”

(Maj. G.B. Buchanan, The March of the Prairie Men, chap. 3)

Born on 30 December 1898 in Carnduff, Saskatchewan, James Ewart Wright was a dentist and First World War veteran. He had enlisted with the 78th Battalion in November 1915, served in France in 1916 until transferred to England in 1917, and ended the war as a cadet training with the Royal Air Force. He attended Regina College after demobilization then graduated from the University of Toronto with a dentistry degree. He opened a practice in Estevan where he also became commanding officer of the Saskatchewan Border Regiment.

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Lt-Col. R.L. Rutherford

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Lieutenant-Colonel Dick Rutherford
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders
RutherfordRL

Dickie Rutherford, commanding “A” Company came back and he was wounded and he was laughing … He said he and the sergeant-major had had a little bet as to who was going to be back in England in a hospital first. And here he was walking back with his fingers shot off!

(Norman Ross interview, 16 Aug 1979)

Born in Shrewsberry, England in March 1916, Richard Lewis Rutherford a graduate of the University of Manitoba and commissioned with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders since 1936. He served as aide-to-camp for Major-General Victor Odlum of 2nd Canadian Division in 1940 before returning to Canada for staff officer work with the Pacific Command. He rejoined the Camerons and served as a company commander during the Normandy campaign.

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Lt-Col. E.P. Thompson

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Lieutenant-Colonel Tommy Thompson
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders
ThompsonEP

A quick learner, quick at grasping new ideas. Very industrious and preserving; a hard quiet worker. Polite, conscientious in fulfilling obligations, helpful and considerate of other general liked. Has a well balanced and equable temperament. Has a very good knowledge of all arms and gets well in the tactical picture and makes sound appreciations and decisions.

(Final Report on Capt. Thompson, 19 Dec 1942)

Born in Winnipeg on 8 January 1921, Ernest Payson (Tommy) Thompson was a medical student at the University of Manitoba when he enlisted with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, having been a cadet of the unit as a teenager. Although regarded as too young to go overseas, the young lieutenant nevertheless joined the battalion before it embarked and arrived in England before to his twentieth birthday.

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