Cameronians from Canada

The CANLOAN Scheme – Canadian Officers on loan to the British Army

In 1943, an agreement was reached with the Canadian Government to allow and actively encourage trained Canadian junior officers to serve ‘on loan’ with British Army units. The Canadian volunteers would help fill the shortage of junior officers faced by the British Army, made all the more essential with the planned Allied invasion of Europe of 1944 on the horizon.

A total of 673 Canadian officers volunteered under the CANLOAN scheme, seeing them attached to regiments and units across all branches of the British Army.

Eleven Canadian officers had been attached to 9th Cameronians by the War’s end. The first to arrive were Captain George Baldwin and Lieutenant Lorne Paff, who joined the 9th while the Battalion were at Hove, in the weeks leading up to Normandy invasion.

Lt. Col. Richard Villiers wrote of the Canadian newcomers in a letter to his wife:

These two Canadian officers I was telling you about have just landed & are coming to us. They are being given disembarkation leave & their one idea is to see Scotland. They propose to spend a few days in Edinburgh. They know no one, so I suggested Melrose for a day.

They are Captain Baldwin, who seems to have done all sorts of interesting things including mining in Alaska, where he drives huskies and traps bears etc. The other is Lieut. Paff, a younger man, from Nova Scotia. They are both very nice, & have amusing expressions like all Canadians. When I asked Baldwin if he liked fishing he said he loved it, but if it’s a bore or difficult, they will be perfectly happy just going for a walk.

There may be another couple coming later – we are getting a lot of Canadian Officers, who have all volunteered to come to the British Army; they are getting leave, & know no one.

We have had an amusing evening planning out their leave for them, & arranging for people to show them round. We have someone to show them round Edinburgh.

Long Ago and Far Away: A travel diary, letters and Second World War letters of Dick and Nancy Villiers edited by their daughter, Linda Yeatman. Privately Published, 2005

The other officers expected by Colonel Villiers would arrive just before 9th Cameronians embarked for Normandy; they were Lieutenants George McDermott M.M. and Fernie Stewart.

Lieutenant George McDermott was already a battle-hardened veteran, having served as a Non-Commissioned Officer with Canadian forces during the famous Dieppe Raid of August 1942. For his actions, McDermott had been awarded the Military Medal. The citation for this award reads:

During the operation at Dieppe 19 Aug 42, L/Cpl McDermott, a regimental policeman, was attached to Bn HQ. He was one of the first to enter the Casino, where, single-handed he attacked and destroyed a German stronghold in the building at considerable personal risk. Subsequently, when it became necessary to withdraw from the Casino to the beaches, he displayed high qualities of leadership and skill in organization. Throughout the action Cpl McDermott displayed not only great courage and initiative, but also an excellent appreciation of the importance of military intelligence. He was most diligent in his efforts to obtain information about the enemy, and at the conclusion of the operation turned over to the Intelligence Officer of the 4 Canadian Infantry Brigade a diary and letters which he obtained during the raid. He also obtained German Training manuals, but lost them when he was blown out of one of the craft during the return journey. Further, during the operation he succeeded in taking several photographs.

McDermott, was from Hamilton, Ontario, sister-city of Hamilton in Lanarkshire, home of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) regimental depot.

In addition to their amusing phrases, interesting backgrounds and military experience, the Canadians also brought with them the game of softball, which would become a popular pastime for the officers when not engaged in training.

The Canadians proved popular with officers and men alike, and they also made a lasting impression on the locals where they were billeted. A letter printed in The Covenanter magazine of 2005 recounts the touching story of Mike Rainey, a young boy from Hove who befriended Lieutenant Paff:

In 1944 a ten year old boy in Hove on the south coast of England was delighted to find several of the houses in the road in which he lived with his parents were being occupied by Scottish soldiers. Being inquisitive he soon befriended one, who turned out not to be a Scot but a Canadian. The boy always regarded him as the first adult friend he had made for himself.

The Canadian was Lieutenant Lorne Paff, a tall, quiet, patient man who was in fact only twenty-six years old himself. Lorne Paff answered all the boy’s many questions and soon accepted invitations from the boy’s parents to come to their home for meals. The boy continued to pester Lorne Paff with all manner of questions about the soldiers and their equipment and on more than on occasion woke him from well-earned rest after night exercises.

After a while all the soldiers suddenly disappeared but the boy – and his parents, and everyone else – very soon found out where they gone. They had, of course, crossed the Channel to Normandy.

The four Canadian’s would go to Normandy with 9th Cameronians, and take part in the thickest fighting. Two of the Canadian’s were among the Battalion’s first casualties, during Operation Epsom.

Mike Rainey’s letter in The Covenanter continues:

Sadly, Lorne Paff was killed on Sunday 26 June only a few days after he had landed in France, and only one day after writing a letter to the boy’s parents that included the sentence, “I am quite confident that I shall be okay but you can never tell”.

The boy and his parents soon knew about Lorne Paff’s death because they were in contact with his parents in Stratford, Ontario. The boy cried; it was the first time in his life he had known someone who died.

The boys’ parents remained in regular contact with Herman and Laura Paff for many years until they all died. Then the boy, himself by now middle aged, traced Lorne Paff’s nieces by writing to the Stratford local newspaper and resumed the correspondence.

By now I am sure you will have realised that I, Mike Rainey, the writer of this article, was “the boy”.

In 2003, with my wife I went, belatedly, to Hottot-les-Bagues, a tiny hamlet between Caen and Bayeux and visited the grave of my long dead friend in the immaculately maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery.

Lieutenants Paff and McDermott were both killed on 26th June 1944 during the attack on le Haut du Bosq. Lieutenant Stewart was killed on 28th September 1944.

Lieutenant Alfred Kirby, from St Catherines, Ontario, joined 9th Cameronians on 28th June 1944, with a draft of reinforcements. Kirby would soon be among those wounded at Eterville on 11th July. He remained at duty and was again wounded on 9th February 1945. Kirby had been friends with Paff, McDermott and Stewart while the four were undergoing officer training in Canada. He was the only one of the four friends to survive the War.

Of the eleven Canadian officers who would ultimately serve with 9th Cameronians, three were killed in action and a further seven wounded. They were from Canada, but they fought, bled and died as Cameronians.

For more information on the CANLOAN scheme, please visit The Second World War Experience Centre.

The Canadian Virtual War Memorial holds online records of Canadians who died in service.:

• Lieutenant Lorne Paff (with photograph)
• Lieutenant George McDermott (with photograph)
• Lieutenant Fernie Stewart (with photograph)

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