Lieutenant-Colonel Harry F. Cotton
Winnipeg Light Infantry

The Jap is not the great fighting machine we have been led to believe. He’ll battle like a madman if he outnumbers us, but this stuff about the little brown men throwing themselves on our bayonet points is just so much eye-wash.

(quoted in Vancouver Sun, 22 Nov 1944, 3)

Born in Vancouver in 1910, Henry Ferguson Cotton was a graduate of RMC and a Permanent Force officer since 1931. He served on exchange with the British Army in 1934 and was stationed in Winnipeg with the PPCLI at the start of the Second World War. He served as brigade major of the 7th Infantry Brigade in 1940 and overseas with the PPCLI until he was recalled in April 1942 to take command of the newly mobilized Winnipeg Light Infantry.

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