Lieutenant-Colonel Jake Vining
12th (Three Rivers) Tank Regiment

All of us wondered what was going to happen. After lengthy deliberation, the authorities called on J.G. Vining, the regiment’s previous command officer, who by then was retired. To our great delight he joined us in Westmount.

(Allard, Memoirs, 29-30)

Born in Guernsey, Channel Islands England on 24 September 1896, John Gore Vining had enlisted as a private from Three Rivers, Quebec in July 1916, was wounded in France, and was commissioned after the armistice. He remained in the militia after the war and retired as commanding officer of Régiment de Trois-Rivières in 1936. After his two successors were transferred as over-age, Vining agreed to come out of retirement in July 1940 to resume command of the regiment as it mobilized as apart of the armoured corps.

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