Lieutenant-Colonel Denis Whitaker
Royal Hamilton Light Infantry

The ramp dropped. I led the thirty odd men of my platoon in a charge about twenty-five yards up the stony beach. We fanned out and flopped down just shorty of a huge wire obstacle. Bullets flew everywhere. Enemy mortar bombs started to crash down. Around me, men were being hit and bodies were piling up, one on top of the other. It was terrifying.

(Whitaker, Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph, 243)

Born on 27 February 1915 in Calgary, William Denis Whitaker was a sportsman, soldier, equestrian, businessman, and historian. After attending the University of Toronto and RMC, where he excelled in hockey and football, he played quarterback for the Hamilton Tigers in the Ontario Rugby Football Union in the 1937-39 seasons. Having joined the city’s militia regiment, he mobilized for active service with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and went overseas in 1940. He would be one of the only officers to land at Dieppe and escape the beach unwounded.

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