Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Crowe
Royal Canadian Regiment

That evening, when our battalion rested, the CO, Ralph Crowe, another would-be Cavalier, with tears in his eyes reminded his senior subordinates that Billy’s [Major Pope] death should never have been; that it was an object lesson for all of us. We were not to expose ourselves needlessly. The Second-in-Command had no business stalking enemy armour and we, the company commanders, had even less business putting ourselves in positions of great danger when our men were supposed to be properly led by the sound application of our tactical training and by accepted techniques of command and control. He was so very right.

(Strome Galloway, The General Who Never Was, 142)

Born on 2 October 1911 in Guelph, Ontario, Ralph Marston Crowe was an instructor at the Royal Military College, having also graduated there in 1933. He was commissioned in the RCR and served two years with the Indian Army on the Northwest frontier in 1936-37. He left the staff of RMC to go overseas in December 1939. Following a posting to the 1st Canadian Division headquarters, in February 1940, he transferred to the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment as a major.

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