The Canadian Army Journal

108
About the Author ...
David R O'Keefe is a Gemini nominated historian with a dozen television documentaries to his
credit including Black Watch: Massacre at Verrieres Ridge. Research on all aspects of the Black
Watch started 15 years ago when O’Keefe was an officer in the Regiment and an undergraduate in
history at McGill and Concordia Universities. After leaving the Army to continue his academic
career, O’Keefe was brought on board as the signals intelligence specialist by the Directorate of
History and Heritage during the writing of the official history of the Royal Canadian Navy in the
Second World War. In 2003, he returned to the Black Watch in the position of Regimental Historian
and has held teaching positions at John Abbott College in Montreal as well as the University of
Ottawa.
Endnotes
1. Black Watch Archives (BWA), Black Watch War Diary, September 1944.
2. Ibid; J.A.B. Nixon, Personal interview, July 2007.
3. Ammunition for the 25-pounder and 5.5-inch field guns were limited to 25 and 10 rounds per gun respectively, while 4.2inch
mortar ammunition was limited to 30 rounds per mortar. Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Records Group 24, Vol
13,751, War Diary 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, September 1944; David J. Bercuson, Maple Leaf Against the Axis:
Canada’s Second World War (Toronto: Stoddart Publications, 1995).
4. BWA, Black Watch War Diary, September 1944.
5. Ibid.
6. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 15,885, War Diary 18th Canadian Field Ambulance, September 1944.
7. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 13,751, War Diary 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, September 1944.
8. BWA, Black Watch War Diary, September 1944.
9. Ibid.
10. J.A.B. Nixon, Personal interview, 2007.
11. J.A.B. Nixon, Notes on a personal interview, February 2004.
12. J.A.B. Nixon, Personal interview, August 2007; BWA, letter from Capt John Kemp to Ruth (last name unknown), the
fiancée of Sgt Barnard “Barney” Benson, 25 November 1944: “During the last five years I saw a good deal of Barney at
Aldershot Nova Scotia, in England and France; he was a course, always a very popular and prominent figure, but it was
when we reached France that he really came into his own. He was completely fearless and was an inspiration to every
man in the battalion; time and again I have seen him expose himself in order to draw fire from a machine gun that we had
been unable to locate and there was no job too difficult or dangerous for Barney to have a try at it. When I heard of his
death my first thought was of sorrow at the loss of a friend, and then the more I thought about him the more I realized what
his loss meant to the battalion; there are many of us who will never forget `Benson and his Scouts.`”
13. Directorate of History and Heritage (DHH) account by Major Pinkham, OC C Company, of the company attack at
Coppenaxfort, given to Capt Engler at Bourbourgville, 17 September 1944; LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 13,751, War Diary
2nd Canadian Infantry Division, September 1944.
14. BWA, letter from Lt. Col. Frank Mitchell to the Commandant, 22 September 1944; LAC, Records Group 24, Vol
14,109, War Diary 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade, September 1944.
15. BWA, Black Watch War Diary, September 1944; LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 14,109, War Diary 5th Canadian Infantry
Brigade, September 1944.
16. General Von Kluge was the brother of Field Marshal Von Kluge who committed suicide during the final days in
Normandy after the German collapse in the Falaise Pocket. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 13,751, War Diary 2nd Canadian
Infantry Division, September 1944.
17. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 13,751, War Diary 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, September 1944.
18. Ibid.
19. BWA, memoirs of Private W.T. Booth.
20. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 14,109, War Diary 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade, September 1944.
21. Warren Trudeau, Personal interview, March 2004; J.A.B. Nixon, Personal interview, August 2007.
22. N.E.G.H. Buch, Personal interview, January 1993.
23. Ibid.
24. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 14,109, War Diary 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade, September 1944.
25. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 9,879, Battle Experience Questionnaires, Capt (P) Yuile, 1st Battalion, Royal Highland
Regiment of Canada, 12 October 1944; according to the War Diary of the 18th Canadian Field Ambulance, 20 wounded
were admitted for treatment on the 11th , but there is no indication of killed, missing or prisoners of war. LAC, Records
Group 24, Vol 15,885, War Diary 18th Canadian Field Ambulance, September 1944.
26. LAC, Records Group 24, Vol 18,826, Statistic and Explanations, 11 December 1956; the Black Watch suffered 307
casualties, 118 fatal and the rest wounded, missing or prisoners of war (POW) during Operation Spring. Just over ten
days later on 5 August 1944, two more companies were wiped out attempting to capture May-sur-Orne. See David
O’Keefe, “Pushing Their Necks Out: Ultra, the Black Watch and Command Relations, Normandy, August 5th 1944,”
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008