Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry: an odd sort of name. A military force that describes itself using the words “Princess,” “Patricia,” and “Light” doesn’t sound as if it’s serious about its work. But from its inception, PPCLI staked out a reputation as being tenacious and rock-solid reliable.
The “Light” part of the name implies they were fast moving and mobile, relying on stealth and fitness; light as in “travel light.” They are often regarded as elite units. Commandos, mountain troops, marines, and anti-guerrilla forces are regarded as “light.” Historically, they were snipers and skirmishers. Medium and heavy infantry usually dates to a pre-gunpowder era and refers to the use body armour, javelins, and pikes. Most infantry in modern armies, whatever their names, are light infantry.
But who is Patricia, and what was she doing in Korea?
The PPCLI is one of the most decorated forces in Canadian history. It was created when the First World War broke out in the very twilight of the Victorian age. Canada’s entire regular army was only 3,000-men strong. It was a time when private individuals — rich private individuals — could actually create their own military units, and, not unlike medieval times, put them at the service of the nation. These philanthropists would often provide the rifles, the clothing, and the upkeep. Sometimes they designed their own uniforms, and on occasion even thought, well, it’s mine. Why don’t I command it?
Montreal businessman and Boer War veteran Alexander Hamilton Gault had a brainstorm. He would personally come up with $100,000 (about $2 million in today’s funds) to raise a battalion to go and fight the Germans as part of Canada’s contribution to beating the Kaiser. Ottawa snapped up the offer, and in eight days over 1,000 men were enlisted, little dreaming what a bloodbath they were heading into. Lieutenant Colonel Francis D. Farquhar of the Coldstream Guards was selected to command the new force. His boss happened to be the Governor General, the Duke of Connaught, who just happened to have a lovely daughter, Patricia, who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and an accomplished artist who lived on until 1974. Farquhar’s flash of insight was to ask the Duke if he could name the regiment after Patricia.
Gault liked the words “light infantry” because it had an “irregular” sort of commando feel to it. And so, “Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry” it became. And still is.
The Patricias were in the trenches of Flanders by January 6, 1915. Two days later, two lance corporals, Norman Fry and Henry Bellinger, were dead — the first Canadians killed in the War to End All Wars. They would be joined by thousands more. By the time the shooting stopped, three Patricias had won the Victoria Cross, two posthumously. Almost 1,300 men had been killed.
The Patricias’ “colours” suggest they were sent to Siberia. It is listed on their official list of where they saw action. But actually, they never got into Siberia. In 1918, Canada sent a small contingent of about 1,000 men in an outfit called the 260th Battalion to Vladivostok as part of a half-hearted foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War. The men of the 260th never fired a shot in anger and in a few weeks were brought home. Fast forward eighty years. In 1997, in a quirky and uniquely Canadian system that insures the deeds of disbanded combat units are remembered, the PPCLI agreed to safeguard and in effect adopt the 260th’s “heritage” and now carries that long defunct battalion’s Siberian battle honour, even though no Patricia ever set foot in the place.
In the Second World War, the PPCLI fought in Sicily for the first Canadian assault on the Nazis since the debacle at Dieppe. Then they moved on to the Italian mainland and a grueling string of battles against crack German troops in wretched weather and treacherous terrain. Then they headed over to Holland for the Liberation and by the time of Germany’s surrender the battalion had acquired eighteen battle honours. They were headed for the Pacific to take on Japan when Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. They had a magnificent war record and a reputation as tough, imaginative troops.
But these existing Patricias were, by and large, not the Patricias that would go to Korea. The Korean force would come from those three new battalions the army would create from nothing. The first to go to war, the men fated to become the Patricias of Kapyong, formed the 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, or 2 PPCLI as its termed in military shorthand. These new Patricias were joining a family with a fine and noble lineage. It was a distinction that probably meant little to these recruits who were mostly young, mostly restless, on the prowl for excitement, and who were sneeringly dismissed by the brass in Ottawa as untrustworthy adventurers whose favorite marching song contained the line they shouted with pride: “We’re untrained bums, we’re from the slums.”
In command of the three battalions of the Korean Special Force was John Rockingham, a Second World War veteran brought out of retirement for this special mission. He looked, sounded, and acted exactly like what everyone imagined a magnetic commander would be like. He was a Gibraltar of a figure who literally towered over everyone around him. Rockingham was a dashing, charismatic leader right out of a recruiting poster, who led from the front. He joined the militia as a private and ended his career as a general, commanding the 9th Canadian Infantry brigade in Europe. He led his men through some of the bloodiest fighting in the war, eastward across France and Holland, and on into Germany. In one action, his driver and signaller beside him were shot by a sniper and Rockingham’s own nose was clipped by a bullet. He grabbed a submachine gun, stalked the sniper, shot him, and then resumed the war. He was slated to command a brigade of Canadian troops to fight the Japanese, when Hiroshima happened and the Pacific War ended.
Rockingham’s soldiers felt he was one of them and would follow wherever he led. He was a restless warrior and had no interest in being in the military at all unless there was fighting to be done. Rockingham was an improviser with the ability to rivet his attention on the crisis at hand
and not be distracted by peripheral matters; an ideal commander to take charge in Korea.
Brigadier General John “Rocky” Rockingham, a much-decorated Second World War hero, was plucked from his tedious job as union negotiator for a B.C. bus company to command the special Canadian force being created to fight in Korea. It was an inspired choice. Rockingham was a fighting general who had no interest in a life in the army unless there was fighting to be done.
PPCLI Museum and Archives.
In August 1950, he had an unbearably boring desk job with a British Columbia bus company. He was in charge of tedious union contract negotiations. To this real-life action figure used to making instant life and death decisions involving of thousands of men, his biggest issue now was over the issue of lunch breaks. The give and take and compromise so much at the heart of negotiating was not to his nature. He was a commander. Then, happily, in the midst of deadlocked contract talks, his phone rang. It was Ottawa on the line. It was a life-changing call for Rockingham. They were offering him command of the Korean special force and he could pick his own staff. Rockingham checked with his wife and the next day accepted. Two days later he was in Ottawa starting to organize his Korean army. He was only thirty-nine. He was rightly perceived as a seasoned combat leader who was coming not from the military culture but from civilian life. He would protect Canadian interests while serving under a foreign (American) command and would stick up for his men. In particular, he would work well with the Americans on a personal level and there could be no doubting his professional credentials, although once he got to Korea Rockingham would often clash with his U.S. officers over their emphasis on body counts as a measure of progress, a questionable yardstick which would afflict the U.S. military fifteen years later in Vietnam. Rockingham was a charismatic bulldog of a man. He was an inspired choice, and was selected personally by the minister of defence, Brooke Claxton.
One of Rockingham’s choices was Lieutenant-Colonel “Big