54 Facts About Andrew McNaughton

Andrew McNaughton commanded major Canadian field units in the first half of the Second World War and served as the commander of the First Canadian Army until he was relieved in 1943.

Andrew McNaughton then served as Minister of National Defence until the end of the war.

Andrew McNaughton was born in Moosomin, District of Assiniboia, North-West Territories, on 25 February 1887.

Andrew McNaughton's upbringing on a farm instilled in him a life-long love of hard work and self-discipline.

Andrew McNaughton spent his free time riding horses across the vast expanses of the Prairies while engaging in hunting and fishing.

Andrew McNaughton credited his youth on a frontier farm on the Prairies with making him tough and hardy.

Andrew McNaughton's parents had both converted to the Church of England, voted Conservative and like many other Anglo-Canadians in the Victorian era strongly identified with the British Empire.

Andrew McNaughton always attended Anglican services, and though he was devoted to science, believing that the pure rationality of science was the best solution to the world's problems, he never seems to have any difficulty in reconciling his faith in the Anglican church with his faith in science.

Andrew McNaughton was a student at Bishop's College School in Lennoxville, Quebec, after winning a scholarship.

At Bishop's, Andrew McNaughton was both successful student and an athlete.

Andrew McNaughton then stayed on at McGill as an instructor as a professor of engineering until the outbreak of the Great War.

Andrew McNaughton took the 4th Battery of the Canadian Expeditionary Force overseas with the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914 and arrived in France in February 1915.

Andrew McNaughton did not demand the normal privileges of an officer, living alongside his men and eating the same food, and was noted for his care for his men.

Andrew McNaughton slept on the floor, consumed the same bully beef rations as the average soldier, saying he was a farm boy at heart and did not need a bed or better food while preferring to be addressed as Andy instead of by his rank.

Andrew McNaughton was very popular with the men who served under him, who regarded him as their friend who represented their interests instead of the high command.

Particularly after being promoted to Corps Counter Battery Staff Officer, Andrew McNaughton used his expertise in engineering to help make advances in the science of artillery particularly in pinpointing artillery targets, both stationary and moving.

The fact that Andrew McNaughton was only 30 at the time further marked him out as an outstanding gunner.

Andrew McNaughton repeatedly brought up teams, and controlled their withdrawal, under heavy shell fire.

In 1920 Andrew McNaughton joined the regular army and in 1922 was promoted to Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Chief of the General Staff in 1929.

In general, the Otter committee tended to create as many regiments as possible across the country, but Andrew McNaughton, who served on the Otter committee, ensured Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, which had been privately raised in 1914, was taken on by the "permanent force militia" as a regiment for western Canada.

Likewise, Andrew McNaughton ensured that the 22nd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was not disbanded, arguing that the 22nd Battalion, which came from Quebec and won more battle honours than any other Canadian battalion, should be kept on to show the army appreciated the sacrifices of French Canadians in the war.

Andrew McNaughton wrote that the best way of defeating the "Bolshevik peril" was "to have immediately available an efficient military body with which to overawe this unruly element, and secondly, by education, to convert them from their perverted ideals to a true conception of citizenship".

Andrew McNaughton was described as "a forceful dynamic thruster with a tornado-like intellect", whom the historian James Eayrs wrote "dominated his colleagues in the military establishment as a great oak dominates a scrub forest".

Andrew McNaughton remained active as a scientist throughout his military career, being regularly published in various scientific journals.

Andrew McNaughton was a friend of the Conservative leader Richard Bennett and in the 1930 election, secretly reviewed drafts of his campaign speeches and in 1935 when Bennett swung to the left with his "New Deal", Andrew McNaughton likewise secretly suggested improvements to his speeches.

Andrew McNaughton shared the long-standing hostility felt by most Canadians to a professional army and believed that a well-trained militia was all that was needed.

One consequence of this way of viewing war was that Andrew McNaughton cut the funding for the training of infantry and cavalry officers while ensuring the majority of the officer training went to those in artillery, engineer and signals branches.

Andrew McNaughton is a gunner in the Canadian Militia and, technically, he is a good one.

Andrew McNaughton insisted that officers seeking high command attend courses at the Imperial Defence College which provided much training for questions of grand strategy.

English described Andrew McNaughton as having neglected the study of war on the operational level, which did not interest him in the same way that grand strategy and science did.

Andrew McNaughton recognized this as a situation where the possibility of revolution didn't seem unrealistic.

Andrew McNaughton returned for a few years to civilian life and from 1935 to 1939 was head of the National Research Council of Canada.

Andrew McNaughton commanded the newly raised 1st Canadian Infantry Division during the early part of the Second World War, and led the division overseas, first to the United Kingdom in December 1939 and later to France in June 1940, only to be withdrawn back to England in the final stages of the Battle of France.

Andrew McNaughton, who was known for his care for his men, ensuring that the Canadian soldiers sent to Britain had the best possible accommodations, was always very popular with the rank and file of the Canadian Army.

Ralston chose to make an issue of the fact that Andrew McNaughton had agreed to send the 1st Division to Norway without consulting Ottawa first, saying this was an illegal act.

Andrew McNaughton felt that he acted legally as he sought an opinion from the Deputy Judge Advocate, Price Montague about the legality of sending the 1st Division to Norway before agreeing first, exploded in rage about "politicians trying to run the war while 3,000 miles away".

Ernest Cote, one of the officers on Andrew McNaughton's staff was astonished to see Andrew McNaughton call up Ralston in Ottawa to make a complaint about the appearance of Canadian Army trucks on aesthetic grounds, saying he wanted Ralston to send over more aesthetically pleasing trucks as the current trucks were too ugly for his liking.

Tensions between Ralston and Andrew McNaughton were increased in December 1941 after the fall of Hong Kong and the loss of the entire C Force when Andrew McNaughton in an "off-the-record" interview with the media blamed Ralston, saying he was "completely unfitted for the job" and that C Force should never had been sent to Hong Kong.

Andrew McNaughton was unduly blamed for the disastrous Dieppe Raid in August 1942, which saw the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General John Hamilton Roberts, sustain heavy casualties, blame better deserved by the British who failed to provide needed, requested, and promised support.

Much of the criticism of Andrew McNaughton's leadership was over his decision on the night of 7 March 1943 to leave his command post to personally supervise the building of a bridge over the Thames, instead of sending out an engineer officer to build the bridge.

Andrew McNaughton was opposed at first to losing a division, saying he was opposed to sending the 1st Division to Sicily "merely to satisfy a desire for activity".

Andrew McNaughton was concerned about losing a division, but was promised that 1st Division would return to Britain to rejoin First Canadian Army when Husky was completed, and the possibility of finally getting the 1st Division into action, which had been assigned to Britain in late 1939, was too much to resist.

General Guy Simonds commanding the 1st Division supported Montgomery as he felt Andrew McNaughton would do more than "observe" his operations and it would be impossible for him to serve two commanders at once.

Andrew McNaughton complained furiously about his exclusion from Sicily, saying that as the senior Canadian general in Europe that he had the right to visit Canadian troops wherever they were in Europe.

In September 1943, Andrew McNaughton clashed with Mackenzie King, when the Prime Minister decided that the 1st Canadian Division would stay with the British Eighth Army as it crossed over to the Italian mainland, and that he would send the 5th Canadian Armored Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade and the headquarters for I Canadian Corps to Italy as well.

Andrew McNaughton wrote the "dispersion of the Army" by taking away 1st Corps from his command would be bad for morale, and in a memo to Ralston suggested "it would be wise to put someone in control who believed in it [dispersion]".

Andrew McNaughton believed that Ralston was responsible for Brooke's views, leading to the exchange of increasingly acrimonious telegrams between Ralston and Andrew McNaughton with the latter accusing the former of seeking to undermine his command.

Andrew McNaughton was sent as envoy for a conference with Stalin.

Andrew McNaughton had taken the loss of I Canadian Corps to the Eighth Army very badly, leading to strained relations with Ralston while the British and Montgomery in particular made it clear that they did not want the First Canadian Army going into Operation Overlord, the invasion of France, under McNaugton's command.

Andrew McNaughton tried to appeal to the "Zombies" to volunteer for Europe, but his speeches failed to move his audiences, who instead booed him.

Andrew McNaughton was pressured into calling for conscription despite King's wishes, a popular move for some Canadians but an equally unpopular one for many others.

In early 1945, Andrew McNaughton sought election to the House of Commons as a Liberal in a by-election in the Ontario riding of Grey North.

Andrew McNaughton always believed that it was the issue of his wife's Catholicism that caused his defeat in the Grey North riding, and that Mackenzie King had set up him for the defeat by having run for the House of Commons in a riding that was mostly rural and Protestant, instead of an urban riding where population was more diverse.

The journalist John Marshall described Grey North as "typically Old Ontario" area that was rural, ardently Protestant and very committed to upholding the British connection, which led him to wonder why Mackenzie King had chosen to have Andrew McNaughton run in Grey North at all.