Lieutenant-Colonel M.P. Johnston
11th (Ontario) Tank Regiment

Well Murray, you know you have my heartfelt congratulations on your promotion, and we all feel that with you in Command, and Bob as 2 i/c, that you will make a team second to none. I again tell you how good I feel, when I see any of my old boys receiving promotions. I am sure it does me just as much good, as it does them.

(Col. Bob Smith to Johnston and Schell, 21 Jan 1943)

Born in Owen Sound, Ontario on 3 March 1908, Murray Pentland Johnston, was a reserve army officer with the Ontario Regiment since 1928 and an Oshawa menswear clothier. He was one of a dozen officers to attend tank tactics training in England in late 1940. Overseas he later served as squadron commander with the 9th Armoured Regiment (British Columbia Dragoon) before attached service with the British Army in North Africa. After transferring back to his own regiment, Johnston succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel G.Y. Masson of the Ontario Tanks in November 1942 with another original militia officer, Major Bob Schell, as his new second-in-command.

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