POW

Brig. W.W. Southam

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Brigadier Bill Southam
48th Highlanders of Canada
6th Infantry Brigade
Southam

His voice was exceedingly cheerful throughout … There wasn’t a quiver in it and occasionally he would make some wisecrack. He was the same old boy through it all. We kept in contact with the brigadier all the time and between 1 and 2 o’clock he sent a message saying he could see some troops surrounded and out of ammunition down the beach and they were surrendering.

(Quoted in The Province, 24 Aug 1942, 22)

Born in Toronto on 11 September 1901, William Wallace Southam was a graduate of RMC and grandson of prominent Canadian newspaper publisher William Southam. He joined the family business as vice-president and managing director. Having belonged to the 48th Highlanders since 1922, he became second-in-command of the 1st Battalion on mobilization in September 1939. He participated in the aborted Second British Expeditionary Force to France, which ended in the battalion making a desperate escape by train in June 1940.

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The Prisoner

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Lieutenant Colonel J.F.H. Ussher
4th Canadian Mounted Rifles
Ussher

In view of the foregoing the people who are providing the taxes for this well-deserved bonus to the soldiers should insist that all strings to the payment should be removed. Don’t let some Government appointee be the sole judge– the soldier’s record of service must decide!

(Ussher to Globe and Mail, 18 Aug 1944, 16)

During the battle of Mont Sorrel on 2 June 1916, John Frederick Holmes Ussher became trapped in a collapsed tunnel during heavy German shelling. He was wounded and captured. He spent the next two and a half years a prisoner of war. Born in Toronto on 27 October 1872, Ussher was a stock broker and Boer War veteran. A nine year member of the Queen’s Own Rifles and ten year member of the 9th Mississauga Horse, he enlisted as major of ‘C’ Squadron in the 4th CMR. Continue reading →

The Birthday Boy

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Brigadier General Victor Williams
8th Infantry BrigadeWilliams

 The whole front was a tangled mass of ruins. Only a few isolated posts were alive. General Mercer was dead. And General Williams, leg broken and spine twisted, yet fighting gamely against odds, with only a wooden wiring-stake for a weapon was being clubbed into submission by the butt-end of a Mauser in the hands of a German infantryman.

(Toronto Globe, 2 Jun 1928, 17)

Victor Arthur Seymour Williams was the most senior Canadian officer taken prisoner during the First World War. He was captured at the battle of Mont Sorrel on 2 June 1916, incidentally his forty-ninth birthday.

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