Lt-Col. F.P. Barclay

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Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Barclay
4th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment
1st Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment

It was absolutely wonderful and a thrilling feeling to experience the spirit of the chaps who are with you—it is intangible—but its the most exhilarating, potent influence. It revives you, you can never feel tired, you never feel depressed when you have a spirit round you like the spirit we enjoyed. And the whole thing was treated as a jolly-well, worthwhile job that has to be done.

(Barclay, interview, 21 May 1984) https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80007993

Born in Cromer, Norfolk, England on 8 March 1909, Francis Peter Barclay was commissioned with the Norfolk Regiment in 1929 after attending Twyford School and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Of his decision to join the army, he explained decades later, “I thought it was a wonderful life … and I never regret it from that day to this.” After service in India, he was posted with the 2nd Battalion to Gibraltar just before the outbreak of the war. He served as company commander when the battalions went to France in September 1939. He received the Military Cross for leading a three-man patrol into enemy lines on the night on 3/4 January 1940.

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Lt-Col. D.A.D. Eykyn

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Lieutenant-Colonel D.A.D. Eykyn
11th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers

Lt-Col. Eykyn has shown outstanding leadership and enthusiasm as a commanding officer. It has been largely due to his leadership that his bn has been uniformly successful in their actions against the enemy; in fact he has never suffered a reverse.

(D.S.O. citation, 10 Feb 1945)

Born in British India on 11 August 1906, Duncan Arthur Davidson Eykyn was an officer in the Royal Scots since 1926. His father, Captain Gilbert Davidson Pitt Eykyn (1881—1915) had been commissioned a second lieutenant in 1899, served in the Boer War, and after a time with the Indian Army, joined the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) in 1905. He was killed in action at Second Ypres on 24 April 1915, while attached to the 4th Battalion, Alexandra Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment. A staff sergeant remarked, “Our gallant little adjutant was one of the first to fall. When the order was given to charge, the Germans ran away like cowards, and refused to face our boys’ cold steel.” The younger Eykyn followed his late father’s military career in the Royal Scots. He served as battalion adjutant and rose to captain by 1937.

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Lt-Col. A. Nowaczyński

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Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksander Nowaczyński
8th Rifle Battalion (Poland)

On the top of Hill 262 stands Lieut. Col Nowaczynski, the battalion commander, with the commander of the Canadian tanks, staring in silence at the battlefield. Over the khaki uniforms, at the emerald-blue lance pennons of the dead soldiers of the 8th Battalion, the disfigured faces, jutting jaws and teeth in deathly smiles, human parts — torsos, legs, bloodied stretchers, pieces of an anti-tank gun, and nearby a barrel of a broken mortar in the convulsive grip of a dead gunner. In the middle of a few blackened, smoking Shermans, on their turrets hangs a leaning torso, half scorched hands lying listlessly.

(Quoted in Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed, 484)

Born on 24 November 1900 in Urzędów, Aleksander Nowaczyński was active in the nationalist secret Polish Military Organization and witnessed the emergence of an independent Poland in November 1918 at the end of the First World War. He joined the newly created Polish Army and participated in the Polish–Ukrainian War then the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a lieutenant in 1923 and by September 1939 was a major. He organized evacuation to Romania during the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland.

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Lt-Col. S. Koszutski

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Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislaw Koszutski
2nd Armoured Regiment (Poland)

Under hellish fire from cannons and mortars, the 3rd Armoured Squadron supports and covers the first two … The guns were hot to the extreme for all the shots they fired and the crews were all but deaf from the explosions and choking on the smoke. However, it saved the lives of dozens of its colleagues who managed to jump out from the burning tanks. It can be proud of how it performed its task.

(Quoted in Zbigniew Mieczkowski, Horizons, 89)

Born on 15 August 1903 in Kielce region of Poland, Stanislaw Paweł Koszutski was a veteran of the Polish Legion, the Third Silesian uprising, and the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Polish Army in 1923 and rose through the ranks of the artillery branch. He was captured by the Soviets during the invasion of September 1939 but escaped to join the Polish forces in France and then England.

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Lt-Col. A. Stefanowicz

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Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksander Stefanowicz
1st Armoured Regiment (Poland)

Gentlemen. Everything is lost. I do not believe the Canadians will manage to help us. We have only 110 men left, with 50 rounds per gun and 5 rounds per tank … Fight to the end! To surrender to the SS is senseless, you know it well. Gentlemen! Good luck – tonight, we will die for Poland and civilization. We will fight to the last platoon, to the last tank, then to the last man.

(Quoted in Roman Jarymowycz, Tank Tactics, 201)

Born on 20 December 1900 in Polewicze, Russian Empire, Aleksander Stefanowicz was a long-serving officer in the Polish Army. He joined in 1919 and fought with a cavalry regiment during the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1922, and after completing training courses on tank warfare, he became an instructor in the 1930s. After the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in September 1939, he went to France where he became adjutant to General Stanisław Maczek of 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade.

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21st Army Group

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More Second World War Battalion Commanders

For the past two years on this site I have profiled and caricatured nearly every Canadian infantry and armoured battalion commanding officer in the Second World War. In Normandy and North West Europe, First Canadian Army, however, was not exclusively composed of Canadian units – it included I British Corps and a Polish armoured division, and, at various times, other attached Allied troops. First Canadian Army along with British Second Army made up Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, meaning their are hundreds of Allied battalion commanders for me to still research, profile, and sketch.

I have created a useful index of the divisions, brigades, and battalions of 21st Army Group as a separate page, which can be found here. Lists of commanding officers for each battalion are pieced together from unit war diaries, regimental histories and many other sources. My project will now put names and faces to the lieutenant-colonels who led these British and Polish battalions during the eleven months from the landings at Normandy through to the invasion of Germany and the end of the war in Europe.

Formation badge of 21st Army Group, 1943–1945

Lt-Col. P.C.R. Black

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Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Black
12th Manitoba Dragoons

 As a result of your training, teamwork, loyalty and fine qualities as soldiers, you have established the Regiment. We cannot look into the future of the months to come, nor will I try to predict what it holds for us. Wherever we may be, whatever the task, whatever the conditions, I know you will live up to the highest expectations.

(The Staghound, 8 Dec 1945)

Born in Ottawa on 26 August 1915, Patrick Cameron Rooke Black graduated from Queen’s University and joined the permanent force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1943, he transferred from the Royal Canadian Dragoons to the 18th Armoured Car Regiment (12th Manitoba Dragoons) under command of former RCD officer, Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. Roberts. As part of II Canadian Corps, the Dragoons deployed to Normandy in July 1944 with Black as second-in-command.

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Lt-Col. L.J. St. Laurent

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Lieutenant-Colonel L.J. St. Laurent
Régiment de Hull

We are endeavouring to “sell Canada,” to instill and awaken patriotism and a sense of duty to our native land … We haven’t even a national flag to wave proudly in front of the men. The cowardly sins of omission are bearing fruit. We have not developed a true and strong sense of nationhood. Physically we are a mighty nation, nationally we are children.

(St. Laurent to Brig. Macklin, May 1944)

Born in Ottawa on 25 July 1903, Lucien Joseph St. Laurent was a graduate of the University of Ottawa and worked as a clerk for the city’s electric company. Commissioned with le Régiment de Hull in 1926, he was promoted to captain in 1933 and served as battalion adjutant. He went overseas as a staff officer with 1st Division headquarters in December 1939. He returned home two years later at the rank of major.

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Lt-Col. M.C. Grison

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Lieutenant-Colonel M.C. Grison
Régiment de Hull

It is important that Canadians should have an appreciation of the physical magnitude of their country, It is more important, too, if we are to overcome tendencies to sectionalism, that Canadians as individuals and groups should get to know and understand one another.

(Victoria Daily Times, 7 Apr 1943)

Born in Ottawa on 11 September 1899, Marcel Charles Grison was a graduate of the University of Ottawa and owner of a moving and storage company. Commissioned with le Régiment de Hull since 1923, he had been appointed commanding officer in July 1939. The battalion mobilized in 1941 but was assigned to home defence duty.

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Lt-Col. C.M. MacMillan

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Lieutenant-Colonel C.M. MacMillan
Canadian Fusiliers (City of London)

A smart clean-cut off[ice]r, who doe not look his age of 40 years, alert, of good personality, fairly aggressive, is intelligent, capable, responsible and conscientious.

Reports are scanty in this officer’s file but those available show his work to be satisfactory; a good CO, has commanded his bn successfully under difficult circumstances.

(Officer Survey and Classification Board, 15 Dec 1944)

Born in Scotland on 9 May 1904, Charles Malcolm MacMillan was a militia officer with the Canadian Fusiliers since 1927. He was promoted to major in 1940 and became second-in-command in February 1942. Before the battalion landed on the island of Kiska, believed to be occupied by Japanese forces, MacMillan remarked, “Some of the boys were pretty tense and we all figured we were in for a full-scale scrap. But every man from the commanding officer down to the privates was ready to go.”

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