Lt-Col. M.L. de Rome

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Lieutenant-Colonel M.L. de Rome
Régiment de Maisonneuve
DeRome

Lieutenant Colonel de Rome has, during the last 8 months, trained and commanded with outstanding success the Special Force Detachment attached to H.Q., Canadian Army. His quick grasp of the unusual problems involved, his application, enthusiasm and drive, have been an inspiration to all ranks, British and Canadian, in his Detachment.”

(O.B.E. citation, 19 Apr 1945)

Born in Ottawa on 8 January 1911, Maurice Louis de Rome belonged to the Cadet Officer Training Corps at the University of Montreal and joined the Régiment de Maisonneuve in 1935. He joined the Royal 22nd Regiment on mobilization in September 1939. Then in July 1942, he succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel J.R. Roche in command of the Maisonneuve regiment. His tenure would be brief and returned to Quebec in November 1942. However, he would soon be assigned to more secretive and sensitive duties.

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Lt-Col. J.R. Roche

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Lieutenant-Colonel J.R. Roche
Régiment de Maisonneuve
Roche

To my personal knowledge he is a very intelligent, active and efficient officer. I would say that he probably had a good military knowledge on paper … I feel that after a short time he could be relied on to efficiently carry out orders given to him by a higher Commander, and to show good leadership in in his work. He is, of course, completely bi-lingual.

(Maj-Gen. Odlum to McNaughton, 5 Sept 1941)

Born in Ottawa on 18 June 1907, John Redmond Roche was a Montreal lawyer and superintendent of the Quebec provincial police. A graduate of the University of Montreal, he had headed the Cadet Officer Training Corps since 1938 and previously belonged to the Regiment de Chareauguay. He went overseas with the 1st Division general staff as deputy-assistant adjutant general in December 1939. He was briefly posted to France in May 1940 but returned to England “before things became hot.”

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Lt-Col. P. Brosseau

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Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Brosseau
Régiment de Maisonneuve
Brosseau

It was recruited to full strength under its gallant leader, Col. Robert Bourassa, himself a veteran of the last war, and who unfortunately, after proceeding to England with his units, has now been invalided back and lies here paralyzed. He led the van of Canada in recruiting and the sympathy of all Canadians must go out to him now, to console him in his suffering.

(J. A. Matthewson, provincial treasurer, 25 Nov 1941)

Born in Laprairie, Quebec on 25 March 1893, Robert Bourassa was a lawyer, former crown prosecutor, and commanding officer of the Régiment de Maisonneuve since 1936. He had belonged to the Cadet Officer Training Corps at Laval University and enlisted in the 1st Canadian Tank Battalion in April 1918 shortly after passing the Quebec Bar. Facing defence budget cuts in the interwar years, Bourassa advocated for a new regimental armoury in Maisonneuve, which had yet to be built by the declaration of war in September 1939. “What we want is a suitable place that the men can easily reach,” he stated exactly a year earlier, “not a tombstone to a regiment that will necessarily disappear if it is located in the far east end of the city.”

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Lt-Col. R. Bourassa

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Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bourassa
Régiment de Maisonneuve
Bourassa

It was recruited to full strength under its gallant leader, Col. Robert Bourassa, himself a veteran of the last war, and who unfortunately, after proceeding to England with his units, has now been invalided back and lies here paralyzed. He led the van of Canada in recruiting and the sympathy of all Canadians must go out to him now, to console him in his suffering.

(J. A. Matthewson, provincial treasurer, 25 Nov 1941)

Born in Laprairie, Quebec on 25 March 1893, Robert Bourassa was a lawyer, former crown prosecutor, and commanding officer of the Régiment de Maisonneuve since 1936. He had belonged to the Cadet Officer Training Corps at Laval University and enlisted in the 1st Canadian Tank Battalion in April 1918 shortly after passing the Quebec Bar. Facing defence budget cuts in the interwar years, Bourassa advocated for a new regimental armoury in Maisonneuve, which had yet to be built by the declaration of war in September 1939. “What we want is a suitable place that the men can easily reach,” he stated exactly a year earlier, “not a tombstone to a regiment that will necessarily disappear if it is located in the far east end of the city.”

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Lt-Col. V.E. Traversy

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Lieutenant-Colonel Val Traversy
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
Val Traversy

There is no greater honour that could be bestowed on a soldier than to command a regiment, and there is no higher honour for a commanding officer than to command a unit of The Black Watch.

(Field Marshall Lord Wavell to Traversy, 31 Oct 1949)

Born in Montreal on 16 February 1916, Valmore Eric Traversy graduated from Lower Canada College and worked in advertising before enlisting with the Black Watch as a lieutenant. He served as adjutant and later command the unit’s support company in France. He was wounded on 25 July 1944 in the action that killed Lieutenant-Colonel S.S.T. Cantlie and decimated the battalion. Out of action for several months, he rejoined the Black Watch in February 1945 as a commanding commander and then acting second-in-command.

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Lt-Col. U.J. Motzfeldt

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Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Motzfeldt
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
Motzfeldt

It was a Scot—and a vain one—who said there were only two classes of people in the world: those who were Scots and those who would like to be Scots. That explains why Napier Moore, editor of The Financial Post, searching through “Clans and Tartans of Scotland” … was unable to find any reference to the Clan MacMotzfeldt. But there is such a tartan. It is of recent creation and the story of its coming into being is very interesting.

(Reprinted in Windsor Star, 3 Nov 1949, 4)

Born in Denmark on 8 June 1908, Ulric Johan (Eric) Motzfeldt graduated from the University of Copenhagen and in 1929 immigrated to Canada where he worked as an insurance broker in Montreal. He joined the Black Watch as a lieutenant on the declaration of war and rose to company commander by the time the regiment deployed to Normandy in July 1944. As a member of the Royal Highlanders, he jokingly called himself MacMotzfeldt and others knew the six-foot-two officer as “the Great Dane.”

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Lt-Col. B.R. Ritchie

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Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Ritchie
Royal Hamilton Light Infantry
South Saskatchewan Regiment
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
Ritchie

When the battalion went into action after D-Day, they guys had had three or four years’ training. But after the first big slap in the ass at St. Andre, we were never able to get organized with trained troops. Even when we got replacements, the battalion had been knocked down with such strength that they weren’t a fighting entity any more.

(Ritchie quoted in Denis Whitaker, Tug of War, 172)

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1912, Bruce Rowlett Ritchie graduated from RMC and McGill University, and work for Sun Life Insurance in Montreal. He originally served as signals officer with the Black Watch but after the Normandy campaign began, he found himself moved around to several units before finally returning to the Royal Highlanders. While attached to the Algonquin Regiment as second-in-command, Ritchie rejoined his old regiment at the request of Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Mitchell who had taken command after the death of Lieutenant-Colonel S.S.T. Cantlie on 25 July 1944.

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Lt-Col. F.M. Mitchell

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Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Mitchell
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
Mitchell

I greatly regret that I found it necessary to take the actions I did on September 22, 1944 but I’m afraid that when I arrive at a calculated decision, it is providential that it be carried out. I assure you that I have made no mistake other than possible the method of handing, and I tried to be loyal to both the Regiment and higher authority.

(Mitchell to Col. Hutchinson, 25 Oct 1944)

Born in Montreal in June 1908, Francis Murray Mitchell graduated from RMC and McGill University, where he excelled in sports. Having belonged to the Black Watch since 1930, he went overseas with the regiment as a captain in 1940 and by 1943 had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel while seconded for special duty with First Canadian Army. He reverted to major to serve as second-in-command when the Black Watch landed in France under Lieutenant-Colonel S.S.T. Cantlie.

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Lt-Col. G.P. Henderson

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Lieutenant-Colonel G.P. Henderson
Algonquin Regiment
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
Henderson

When war broke out medical officers turned him down because he was missing a toe, resulting from exposure in the north country … son of a British Consul in Italy, where he was partially educated, and speaks fluently English, French, and Italian.

(Quoted in Jarymowycz, The History of the Black Watch, Vol. 2, 56)

Gavin Paterson Henderson was born on 2 June 1904 in Livorno, Italy, where his Scottish family had operated a shipping business for three generations. Educated in Italy, Edinburgh and Switzerland, he moved to Canada as a young man, married in Montreal in 1930, and joined The Black Watch. Following overseas duties in the infantry and an anti-tank unit in 1941, he returned to be a senior instructor at RMC.

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Lt-Col. S.S.T. Cantlie

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Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Cantlie
Royal Highlanders of Canada (The Black Watch)
CantlieSST

You allowed the CO and the Adjutant to both be captured once and I got shot in the stomach as well—as the general said, “you must take better care of the CO even though you might not like him because he is the fellow who has to run the show.”

(Quoted in Jarymowycz, The History of the Black Watch, Vol. 2, 55)

Born in Winnipeg on 5 October 1907, Stuart Stephen Tuffnel Cantlie was a Montreal salesman, RMC graduate, and militia captain in the Royal Highlanders of Canada, which his uncle Lieutenant-Colonel G.S. Cantlie had commanded in the First World War. He went overseas as adjutant but returned in January 1942 for instructional work at RMC and general staff duties. Seven months later he returned to the United Kingdom, where he was attached to 3rd Division headquarters. In April 1943, he succeeded his cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel S.D. Cantlie in command of the Black Watch.

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