Lieutenant-Colonel J. Douglas Forin
Seaforth Highlanders of Canada

The Germans we are fighting are young, husky and well-trained, obstinate in defence but like all Germans, a frightened, screaming, panic-filled lot when routed from their holes and forced into the open …

News in the world is good. Italy has gone—irrevocably. How this breed fancied themselves world conquerors is beyond explanation.

(Forin letter to parents, in Vancouver Sun, 24 Aug 1943, 13)

Born in Nelson, British Columbia on 11 October 1900, John Douglas Forin was a Vancouver lawyer and graduate of Queen’s University and Columbia. A prewar member of the Seaforth Highlanders, he became second-in-command in England and took over temporarily in August 1942 after Lieutenant-Colonel J.M.S. Tait went home medically unfit. He passed command over to Lieutenant-Colonel Bert Hoffmeister in October and reverted to second-in-command.

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