Lieutenant-Colonel John Mothersill
Essex Scottish Regiment

It must be extremely difficult to you all back home to imagine the terrific ordeal which the boys so courageously endured … In face of such a curtain of rifle, machine gun, mortar and artillery fire, the battalion never once faltered, the lads advanced unflinchingly and throughout the engagement were cheerful and solute.

(Quoted in Windsor Star, 7 Oct 1942, 3)

Born on 26 March 1897 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, John Henderson Mothersill was a First World War veteran and president of a Windsor insurance agency. Rejected for enlistment earlier, he joined a reinforcement draft in 1917 and served in France as a signaller with the field artillery. Postwar he gained a commission with the Essex Scottish Regiment and by mobilization in September 1939 was second-in-command.

Continue reading →