Lieutenant-Colonel J.L.R. Sutcliffe
Winnipeg Grenadiers

I spoke to Sutcliffe. He seemed tired, discouraged and distressed saying his men were exhausted, as indeed they and everyone else were … I told him he could have six hours rest and that his Battalion must be ready after that to take its place again in the line. It did so and put up a grand show in the final days.

(Brig. A Peffers quoted in Lindsay Oliver, The Battle for Hong Kong, 121)

Born on 29 August 1898 in Yorkshire, England, John Louis Robert Sutcliffe was a Manitoba civil servant and First World War veteran. He had enlisted with the 6th Battalion in September 1914 and went to France as a trooper with the Royal Canadian Dragoons in June 1915. He took an Imperial Army commission with Worcestershire Regiment in November 1916 and ended the war fighting in the Caucasus and the Near East. He rejoined the Canadian militia on his return home and was second-in-command of the 1st Battalion, Winnipeg Grenadiers on mobilization in September 1939.

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