Wilton Yates

2nd Infantry Battalion

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2nd (Central Ontario) Battalion
1st Canadian Division

2nd BN 1 A

David Watson was the first 2nd Battalion CO, from September 1914 to August 1915, when he was promoted to command the 5th Infantry Brigade.

2nd Swift

Albert E. Swift commanded the 2nd Battalion until November 1916, about when he learned that his wife had been killed by runaway horses in Quebec. Swift was appointed to command the 14th Infantry Brigade.

2nd Yates

Wilton Yates briefly command the 2nd Battalion until December 1916. While on a training course, Yates suffered severe head injuries when he was in an accident with an overturned bus.

2nd Clark

Robert Percy Clark transferred to the 2nd from command of the 14th Battalion. He relinquished command in May 1917.

2nd McLaughlin

Lorne McLaughlin commanded the 2nd Battalion from May 1917 until 30 August 1918, when he suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. He resumed command from October until the end of the war.

2nd Vanderwater

Roscoe Vanderwater temporary took over the 2nd when McLaughlin was wounded for the month of September 1918.

Lt. Col. Yates

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Lieutenant Colonel Wilton Yates
2nd (Iron Second) Battalion
Yates

When he was badly wounded in World War I, he was the first to have successful plastic surgery on his face. It was very noticeable of course when he returned to Swift Current. At one time, as he himself relates, he was consigned to an insane asylum “but never reached it owing to my own machinations.” When wounded he was put in the morgue as dead; was saved by a nurse’s aide and given six months to live.

(Jim Greenblat, Those Were the Days in Swift Current, 1971, 32)

A native of England, Wilton Milwarde Yates was born on 17 October 1879. After being wounded in the Boer War, he immigrated to Canada and became a rancher at Swift Current. He enlisted in Lieutenant Colonel Harry Cowan’s 32nd Battalion in December 1914 and was attached to the 2nd Battalion once overseas.

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