Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

Lt-Col. H. Mackenzie

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mackenzie
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders
Mackenzie

Hugh Mackenzie had kept the battalion together during peacetime, during rough times, leading up to war. He was the fellow who mobilized us, and sure why not give him his due of taking the battalion over than then sending him back. He had earned that many times over, one more bod on a troop ship with three or four thousand.

(Norman Ross, interview, 20 July 1979)

Born on 23 June 1884 in Castleton, Scotland, Hugh Mackenzie moved to Winnipeg several years after serving in the Boer War. He enlisted as a private in the 43rd Battalion in December 1914 and was promoted to regimental quartermaster sergeant by the time the unit deployed to France in February 1916. He received a commission six months later and by 1917 became honorary captain and quartermaster for the battalion. He assumed command of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada in March 1938.

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Lt-Col. A.A. Kennedy

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Lieutenant-Colonel Bert Kennedy
Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders
Kennedy

One morning a strange Italian forced his way past the indignant guards at B.H.Q. and presented himself to the astounded adjutant. Filthy, thin as a refugee, and clade in disintegrating civilian clothes, Major Bert Kennedy had returned to the unit out of the limbo of the missing. Kennedy had a tale to tell.

(Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 196)

Born on 25 July 1905 in Owen Sound, Ontario on Albert Arnett Kennedy was a manufacturer and commanding officer of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters. He reverted in rank to go on active service in September 1939. Following instructional duties in Toronto, he went overseas as an instructor with a holding unit before transferring to the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment.

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