Winnipeg Grenadiers

Lt-Col. J.A. Wilson

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. Wilson
Winnipeg Grenadiers

The dead silence of that island in the half-light and the absolute lack of any sign of life as the men went ashore made everyone think the Japs had pulled inland and were waiting to trap us on the beach.

(Quoted in Times Colonist, 27 Jan 1944, 8)

Born in 1896, raised in Calgary, and educated in Scotland, James Anderson-Wilson was a First World War veteran of the Royal Air Force and a manager for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Winnipeg. A prewar militia officer with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, he served as second-in-command overseas until being recalled to Canada in April 1942. He took command of the reformed and rebuilt 1st Battalion, Winnipeg Grenadiers, which had been destroyed at the Battle of Hong Kong five months before.

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Lt-Col. J.L.R. Sutcliffe

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Lieutenant-Colonel J.L.R. Sutcliffe
Winnipeg Grenadiers

I spoke to Sutcliffe. He seemed tired, discouraged and distressed saying his men were exhausted, as indeed they and everyone else were … I told him he could have six hours rest and that his Battalion must be ready after that to take its place again in the line. It did so and put up a grand show in the final days.

(Brig. A Peffers quoted in Lindsay Oliver, The Battle for Hong Kong, 121)

Born on 29 August 1898 in Yorkshire, England, John Louis Robert Sutcliffe was a Manitoba civil servant and First World War veteran. He had enlisted with the 6th Battalion in September 1914 and went to France as a trooper with the Royal Canadian Dragoons in June 1915. He took an Imperial Army commission with Worcestershire Regiment in November 1916 and ended the war fighting in the Caucasus and the Near East. He rejoined the Canadian militia on his return home and was second-in-command of the 1st Battalion, Winnipeg Grenadiers on mobilization in September 1939.

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