Researching Harry Crerar

A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada, in Kingston, Ontario, Crerar was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Non-Permanent Active Militia in 1909, serving with the 4th Battery, Canadian Field Artillery, which was based in Hamilton, Ontario. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the artillery in the First World War, during which he was mentioned in despatches and made a member of the Distinguished Service Order. Crerar remained in the Army after the war. He attended the Staff College, Camberley, from 1923 to 1924, and the Imperial Defence College in 1931. He was appointed Director of Military Operations & Military Intelligence in 1935 and Commandant of the Royal Military College of Canada in 1939.

During the Second World War he became General Officer Commanding the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, which was then stationed in England, in 1941. He was promoted to lieutenant-general and assumed command of I Canadian Corps, fighting briefly in the Italian Campaign. In March 1944 he assumed command of the First Canadian Army. Although it was designated as the Canadian First Army, it contained a significant amount of British and Polish troops, including the British I Corps and the Polish 1st Armoured Division. The First Canadian Army fought in the Normandy Campaign, participating in Operation Totalize, Operation Tractable and the Battle of the Falaise Pocket. It was then tasked with clearing the Channel Coast. Crerar was promoted to full general on 16 November 1944, becoming the first Canadian officer to hold that rank in the field. Operation Veritable, the battle for the Rhineland in 1945 during which the First Canadian Army controlled nine British divisions, was his greatest battle. The Army became more Canadian with Operation Goldflake, the redeployment of the I Canadian Corps from Italy, and played a key role in the liberation of the western Netherlands in April 1945.