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.”