Major-General Bert Hoffmeister
Seaforth Highlanders of Canada
2nd Infantry Brigade
5th Armoured Division

I’ll never forget one of my most embarrassing moments, having given my usual spiel, and having told them how important it was to keep right up close to the shell bursts, that the first shell bursts were all forward and there was absolutely no danger. In keeping up, you got to the German positions before they got their heads up, it reduced casualties and so on … when one round landed behind us. We were all flat on the ground, of course … but every soldier in that company looked around at me as if to say, “OK wise guy, what have you got to say about this?”

(Hoffmeister quoted in Delaney, The Soldiers’ General, 124)

Widely regarded as Canada’s most successful and respected general in the Second World War, Bertram Meryl Hoffmeister commanded a battalion, a brigade, and a division from the landings at Sicily, through the Italian campaign until the final battles in Northwest Europe. Born in Vancouver on 15 May 1907, he was a lumber sales manager and member of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada since 1927. He mobilized as a captain in September 1939 and three years later assumed command of the regiment he would lead into battle.

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