James Sutherland Brown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brigadier James "Buster" Sutherland Brown was a Canadian military officer best known for drafting a contingency war plan in 1921 to invade and occupy several American border cities. The style of the plan was Defence Scheme No. 1. What is much less well known are Sutherland Brown's substantial contributions in the area of planning and logistics during his service as a senior staff officer in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) on the Western Front during the First World War.

James was born on June 28, 1881 in Simcoe, Ontario, the eldest son among four children ^[1]. His father was a successful merchant in agricultural products who had close trading ties with the United States. James's father, Frank August Brown, was active in municipal politics and generally supported the reform policies of the Liberal Party. This is ironic given the reputation that his son later gained as a strong Tory supporter of Canada's role within the British Empire with a deep mistrust of the influence and intentions of the United States towards Canada.

In 1895 at the age of 14, Sutherland Brown joined the 39th Norfolk Rifles, a local militia regiment, as a boy bugler. When the Anglo-Boer War started in 1899 he was a corporal and wished to join the Canadian Contigent in South Africa, but was persuaded to complete his education as a teacher. He continued his service in the militia after he had begun his career as a teacher, and by February 1901 was gazetted a Lieutenant. As a result of further courses as well as training at Royal Military College in Kingston, Sutherland Brown qualified as a Permanent Force Officer. In June 1906 he was gazetted as a Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) in the Permanent Force.

When the British Empire declared war on the Central Powers on August 4, 1914, Sutherland Brown was a Captain in the RCR attending the Staff College in Camberley, England. On August 24 he was ordered back to Canada to assist in the massive logistical challenge of organizing, supplying and then transporting to England the 1st Canadian Division of the newly created CEF. On September 25 he was appointed to be Deputy Assistant and Quarter Master General of the Division. The First Contingent of the CEF, comprising over 31,500 men and officers along with guns, vehicles and over 7600 horses, embarked on September 26 for England in a convoy comprising 28 ocean liners that had been located and retained largely by Capt. Sutherland Brown.

Sutherland Brown served with distinction as a logistics staff officer in the CEF for the duration of the First World War, reaching the rank of Temporary Lieutenant Colonel in May 1916 in the Royal Canadian Regiment. His service continued during the Allied occupation of Germany after the Armistice was signed in November 1918. As a result of his service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, was mentioned in dispatches five times, and was made a Commander of St. Michael and St. George.

After the war Lt. Col. Sutherland Brown remained a professional officer in the greatly shrunken Canadian Army. In 1910 he was appointed Director of Miliary Operations and Intelligence in Ottawa. In this capacity he was responsible for developing a series of contingency war plans for a variety of possible scenarios. One of those scenarios was the possibility that hostilities might break out between the United States and the British Empire. It was as part of this work that Defence Scheme No. 1 was developed. The plan adopted the strategy that, even in a position of much smaller size versus an adversary, it was best to seize the initiative in order to buy time. A number of armed thrusts across the border to seize strategic cities, followed by a staged withdrawal were envisaged. In the Canadian context it was assumed that the British Empire would rally to the defense of its North American dominion, but that this mobilization would likely require some time to become effective. It then followed that the Canadian Army must do its best to buy time. ^[2] Defence Scheme No. 1 is actually very close to an earlier plan that Sutherland Brown developed as part of a planning exercise in 1913.

Defence Scheme No. 1 was abandonned in 1928 by Chief of the General Staff General Andrew McNaughton and most records of it were destroyed. When the existence of the plan was disclosed publically in the early 1960s, the plan and its author were the subject of considerable ridicule. It must be noted that it is the function of all military planners to consider all possible contingencies, and that the planning process itself serves a useful training function for those involved. Also, the plan was developed at a time when a group of officers, including Sutherland Brown, were lobbying the government for a much larger Permanent Force. The plan may have assumed much larger available forces. However the political realities in Canada in the early 1920s dashed any possibility of a Canadian army that would be sufficiently large and well equipped to have any realistic hope of succeeding in any surprise pre-emptive assault across the border, no matter how well planned and executed. Col. Sutherland Brown, as a strong supporter of both Canada and British Empire as somebody who mistrusted the intentions of the United States, evidently took the plan quite seriously, to the point where he and several his subordinates risked a diplomatic incident by carrying out reconnaissance trips across the border into New York State wearing civilian clothing. Interestingly, two years after the Canadian plan was rejected, the United States developed War Plan Red, which described an invasion of Canada.

In July 1928 Sutherland Brown was made a Temporary Brigadier on the General List. At the start of the next year he took up his final position, that of District Officer Commanding, Military District No. 11. This large district covered the province of British Columbia, including the Pacific coastal defense system, and the Yukon Territory.

Sutherland Brown retired in Victoria in June 1933 following years of escalating tensions with the national military command in Ottawa, most notably with his WW1 colleague General McNaughton^[3]. A formal written offer to serve his country after the outbreak of the Second World War was declined.

In his retirement, Buster Sutherland Brown enjoyed warm relations with the local military establishment and with other veterans of the CEF and, especially, veterans of the RCR. In 1936 he was appointed Senior Aide-de-Camp to the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and served in that position for three successive representatives of the King in BC.

Brig. Sutherland Brown died peacefully in Victoria on April 14, 1951 and was buried there with full military honors.

[edit] References

^ Atholl Sutherland Brown, Buster: A Canadian Patriot and Imperialist, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2004.
^ Interestingly, there are similarities between this strategy and the strategy that the Boer Republics adopted in their struggle against the British Empire in South Africa. In the case of the Anglo-Boer War, however, no European power chose to intervene in support of the Boers, and they were ultimately overwhelmed by the much larger Empire forces once these were greatly reinforced and brought to bear competently on the Boers. Defeat eventually occurred in 1902 despite the initially successful Boer thrusts into British territory at Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith in the fall of 1899.
^ McNaughton, although widely respected for his intelligence and engineering expertise, had difficult relations with both his subordinates and superiors. Tensions with his British Army superiors and, ultimately, with Canadian Minister of Defence James Ralston, led to his resignation as commander of the Canadian Army overseas in 1943. McNaughton's career quickly recovered, however, when Ralston lost a cabinet battle with Prime Minister Mackenzie King over the issue of conscription. After pro-conscription Ralston resigned in November 1944 he was replaced as Minister of Defence by Gen. McNaughton, whose support for purely volunteer armed forces aligned with the Prime Minister's views.