1st Division

Maj-Gen. C. Vokes

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Major-General Chris Vokes
Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
2nd Infantry Brigade
1st Canadian Division
VokesC

My idea of command was everybody should know what I looked like, to start with. I thought then, and came to conclude I was I was absolutely right, it is essential for soldiers to know the face and the appearance of their commanding officer. So that they would know what I looked like, I ordered a parade of all hands … By that time, the soldiers would have seen what I looked like, and heard me, and they would be able thereafter not only to identify me but to identify with me.

(Vokes, My Story, 68)

In his public persona and performance, Christopher Vokes encouraged a notorious reputation as a forceful, profane, womanizing, hard-drinking ruthless soldier. Born in Armagh, Ireland on 13 April 1904, Vokes graduated RMC in 1925 before being commissioned with the Royal Canadian Engineers. He attended McGill University and the staff college at Camberley, England. Following mobilization in 1939, he became general staff officer with 1st Canadian Infantry Division and later assumed temporary command of the PPCLI in October 1941.

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Maj-Gen. H.L.N. Salmon

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Major-General H.L.N. Salmon
Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
7th Infantry Brigade
1st Canadian Division
Salmon

He was an outsider; Lt. Col. Harry Salmon, a Permanent Force soldier who might have been insulted by the order to take over a militia battalion. Certainly the regiment was grossly insulted by the appointment. Nevertheless, this man possessed the catalyst which was needed to transform the magnificent promise of the Regiment into reality. He knew the way, and he was ruthless.

(Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 74)

Born in Winnipeg on 9 February 1894, Harry Leonard Nowell Salmon fought in the trenches at the Somme and Courcelette, earning the Military Cross. He had enlisted with the 68th Battalion from Regina as a lieutenant in November 1915 and joined the 28th Battalion as a reinforcement officer in France in July 1916. Following a gunshot wound in September, he returned to the field just before Passchendaele.

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