Lieutenant-Colonel John Begg
14th (Calgary) Tank Regiment

It’s a personal war with this unit now. We were the first Alberta regiment and the first armored regiment to see action. Give us time to refit and we’re going back.

(Begg in Calgary Herald, 24 Aug 1942, 1)

Born in Lanarkshire, Scotland on 18 Mar 1899, John Begg had started in the Cyclists Corps in the First World War and commanded a tank regiment in the second. An accountant with the Canadian National Railway, he had been commissioned in the Calgary Regiment in 1922 and became a major in 1936 when it was redesignated a tank battalion. He served as second-in-command stationed with the “floating reserves” during the Dieppe Raid on 19 August 1942.

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