Lieutenant-Colonel J.E.V. Murrell
Lake Superior Regiment

They immediately came under a great deal of fire. Snipers were everywhere. Control was lost and the coy was pinned down … At that time the C.O., Lt-Col. J.E.V. Murrell, arrived on the scene … The C.O., on hearing some of the wounded in the wheatfield, yelled “Follow me” to a group of men across the road and dashed, disregarding the sniper fire, into the field and with the help of other men who followed him in, evacuated the wounded to a safer spot.

(War diary, 9 August 1944)

Born in Southend-On-Sea, England on 24 September 1904, James Edward Victor Murrell was a constructor contractor and adjutant in the Lake Superior Regiment, which he had joined in 1923. When the unit mobilized in 1940, he was acting second-in-command and after it converted to motorized infantry he led the battalion overseas in August 1942. When Lieutenant-Colonel H. Cook returned home due to ill health, command instead went to Lieutenant-Colonel W.T. Ibbott of the Westminster Regiment. Murrell remained second-in-command as more original officers were transferred.

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