Lieutenant-Colonel Ronnie Waterman
West Nova Scotia Regiment

A professional soldier of the Canadian permanent force, tough, colourful, jealous for the honour of his Regiment in battle or out of it, not always loved but always acknowledged a first-rate leader of men, he was destined to see the West Novas through some of their toughest battles and greatest glories and to make the Regiment famous throughout the Canadian Army.

(Raddall, West Novas: A History, 169)

Born in London, England on 25 November 1904, Roland Stephen Edward Waterman was a non-commissioned officer with twelve years in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. Nicknamed “Ronnie the Rat,” according to C. Sydney Frost of the PPCLI, “Everyone was scared of him, not only because of his abrupt and intimidating manner but because he knew his stuff and was a highly professional soldier.” Commissioned in September 1939, Waterman was reassigned from the PPCLI to the West Nova Scotia Regiment in June 1943, shortly before the invasion of Sicily.

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