Lieutenant-Colonel  Gus Taschereau
Régiment de la Chaudière

Gus was a rugged Quebecois, excellent in both English and French and very proud of his French heritage. I remember he was carrying four mills grenades in his battledress pockets and had two pistols!

(George Kitching, Mud and Green Fields, 95)

Born on 1 September 1907 in Quebec City, Gustave-Olivier Taschereau was Permanent Force officer with the Royal Canadian Regiment. He served as a company commander during the short-lived second British Expeditionary Force in June 1940 just before the fall of France. Fellow RCR officer George Kitching recalled on seeing French troops waiting to surrender, “Gus Taschereau was absolutely made with rage and if he had had a machine-gun I think he would have turned it loose on them. I can remember his anger. He was descended from these people and had been proud of it, but from now one he swore he would never speak to a French bastard again!”

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