Brigadier “Shorty” Colquhoun
Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry

He was rather always upset about it, but he was the first Canadian taken prisoner in the First World War (laughs) … it was the first fighting patrol and Shorty was 6’7 and he was taken prisoner. That was the extent of Shorty’s first war … he was a regimental soldier, never went to staff college and when I joined … Shorty’s great pronouncement was that no Patricia will go to staff until he’s been shot at in anger. Well, that’s a pretty narrow philosophy, isn’t it?

(C.B. Ware, interview, 10 July 1979)

Born on 9 August 1888 in Hamilton, Ontario, William Gourlay Colquhoun was a First World War veteran and commanding officer of the PPCLI since February 1937. Although awarded a Military Cross for heroism at St. Eloi as a lieutenant with the PPCLI in February 1915, he spent almost the entire war as a prisoner in Germany. After repeated escape attempts, he was repatriated in October 1918. Nicknamed “Shorty,” Colquhoun in fact stood six-foot-seven.

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