The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders
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Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders is a Primary Reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Forces.
[edit] History
The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders are descended from many Canadian militia units and two regular British Army regiments. They are also rooted in a community that began as a soldiers' settlement.
After the surrender at Yorktown, veterans of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and the 84th Highland Emigrant Regiment were given land on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River so they could defend Upper Canada from the new enemy to the south. In 1804, veterans of the Glengarry Fencibles, a Highland regiment that served in Europe with the British Army, settled just north of the American Revolutionary War veterans. The first militia unit west of Montreal was organized at Comwall in 1787 under the command of Major John Macdonnell, late of the KRRNY. During the War of 1812. the area militia and the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles helped the British Army fight off the Americans. Only breaks in unit continuity in the pre-Confederation period deny the Regiment the "Niagara" battle honour and the status of oldest anglophone militia regiment in Canada.
The population of Upper Canada grew after 1814, and Stormont and Dundas counties soon had two militia regiments each and Glengarry County had four. All units fought the rebels of 1837-1838, two in Lower Canada and three at the 1838 Battle of the Windmill, where 10 militiamen were killed and 13 wounded.
The 1855 Militia Act introduced voluntary service, and the United Counties raised four independent companies in 1862. After the 1866 Fenjan raid, which aroused great fear of invasion, these companies and four others amalgamated in 1868 to form the 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion of Infantry, which was called out against the Fenians in 1870. Nine Stormont and Glengarry men served in the Boer War.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the Regiment - in Highland dress since 1904 - guarded the St. Lawrence canals until December 1915, when the United Counties raised the 154th Battalion for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. (The 59th also contributed soldiers to the 2rid, 21st, 38th, 73rd and 253rd Battalions of the CEF.) The 154 th Battalion went overseas but was broken up to reinforce the "Iron Second," the 21st and 38th Battalions and the 4 th Canadian Mounted Rifles. Of the 154th Battalion soldiers, 143 were killed and 397 wounded; their efforts are commemorated in 24 decorations and six battle honours.
More than 100 members of the 59th Stormont and Glengarry Regiment were killed while serving with the CEF, including Claude Joseph Patrick Nunney, who won the Victoria Cross in 1918. Nunney joined the 59th in 1913 and enlisted in the 38th Battalion, which is perpetuated by the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, so the Cametons also claim him; however, his medals hang today in the Warrant Officers' and Sergeants' Mess of the SD&G.
The 59th became The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders in 1922. Despite the Great Depression, the unit thrived, moving into a new armoury in Cornwall in 1939.
When the Second World War began, the Regiment once again guarded the St. Lawrence canals. Mobilization came in June 1940, and the Regiment absorbed companies from the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment and the Brockville Rifles to form an overseas battalion that went to England in 1941 as part of the 9th (Highland) Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division. Today, the PWOR and the Brocks bear the SD&G badge as an honorary distinction with their battle honours.
The SD&G landed in Normandy on D-Day and was the first regiment to enter Caen, reaching the centre of the city at 1300 hours, 9 July 1944. Fifty-five days later, 112 SD&G had been killed in action and 312 more wounded in the Falaise Gap. The Regiment fought across France via Rouen, Eu, Le Hamel and Boulogne, moved into Holland and took part in the amphibious landing across the Savojaards Plaat, and advanced to Knokke by way of Breskens. It moved next to Nijmegen to relieve the airborne troops, and helped guard the bridge while the Rhine crossing was prepared. The Regiment then fought through the Hochwald and north to cross the Ems-River and take the city of Leer. At dawn on May 3, 1945, German marine-units launched an attack on two forward companies of the SD&G, occupying the village of Rorichum, near Oldersum - that was the final action during WWII, VE Day found the SD&G near Emden.
It was said of the Regiment that it "never failed to take an objective; never lost a yard of ground; never lost a man taken prisoner in offensive action." Altogether 3,342 officers and men served overseas with the SD&G, of whom 278 were killed and 781 wounded; 74 decorations and 25 battle honours were awarded. A total of 3,418 officers and men served in the 2nd Battalion (Reserve); of them, 1,882 went on active service and 27 were killed. A third battalion raised in July 1945 served in the occupation of Germany and was disbanded in May 1946.
Designated the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders (Machine Gun) in 1954 and Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders in 1959, the Regiment remains an infantry unit in the Highland tradition.
In 1968, to mark the regiment's centenary, the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders received the Freedom of the City of Cornwall.
Reference source: Across the Start Line.. 33 Canadian Brigade Group
The SDG Crest:
Superimposed upon a background of thistle, leaves and flowers the letters SDG; below, a raven on a rock superimposed on a maple leaf. A half scroll to the left of the maple leaf is inscribed DILEAS; another to the right inscribed GU BAS; above, a semi-annulus inscribed GLENGARRY FENCIBLES and surmounted by the Crown. The whole superimposed upon a St. Andrew’s cross,
The Motto:
Dileas Gu Bas (Faithful unto death)
Battle Honors of the SDG: (25)
First world war
Hill 70 YPRES, 1917 AMIENS Arras, 1918 Hindenburgh line PURSUITE TO MONS
Second World War
NORMANDY LANDING CAEN The Orne (Buron) Bourguebus Ridge Faubourg de Vaucelles FALAISE The Laison Chambois BOULOGE, 1944 THE SCHELDT Savojaards Plaat BRESKENS POCKET THE RHINELAND Wall Flats THE HOCHWALD THE RHINE Zutphen LEER Northwest Europe, 1944-45
Authorized Quick March:
Bonnie Dundee
Regimental Camp Song of the First Battalion:
GLENGARRY, were the old S D & G
Regimental Headquarters:
Cornwall Armories; 505 Fourth Street East. Cornwall, Ontario K6H 2J7
Victoria Cross Winner:
Sergeant Claude Joseph Patrick Nunney, VC, DCM, MM
Tartan:
Macdonell of Glengarry
Monuments, Plaques, Badges, Honour Rolls:
- Glengarry Fencibles
- Provincial Plaque at Cornwall Armoury
- 154th Battalion
- Plaque and Honour Roll at Cornwall Armory
- Monument in Alexandria, Glengarry County
- 1st Battalion
- Plaque and Honour Roll at Cornwall Armory
- Honour Roll at Brockville Armory
- Plaque and Honour Roll at Royal Canadian Legion Number 9, Kingston
- Badge at Memorial Center, Peterborough
- Badge on D-Day tank "Bold" at Courseulles, France
- Plaque and Badge on Chateau de Paix de Coeur and
- Monument at "Rue des Glengarrians", Les Buissons
- Memorial Tablet at Abbaye d’Ardenne
- Monument, Badge and Plaque at Avenue President, Coty and Rue d’Authie, Caen
- Mannequin at Bayeux Memorial Museum of The Battle of Normandy
- Monument at "Place du Glens" at Urville
- Plaque at Le Mairie
- Plaque in the Hotel de Ville, Rouen
- Plaque and Badge in the Citadel, Boulonge
- Badge on Belgian Resistance Monument, Knokke/Heist, Belgium
- Plaque at Town Hall, Breskens, Netherlands
- Plaque at Town Hall, Hoofdplaat
The 59th Bn Colours are laid up in the Officers Mess and the 154th Colours are laid up in the Trinity Anglican Church, Second St, Cornwall, Ont.
Origin and Lineage:
- 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion of Infantry - 3 July 1868
- 59th Stormont and Glengarry Regiment - 8 May 1900
- Stormont Dundas & Glengarry Highlanders - 15 February 1922
- Stormont Dundas & Glengarry Highlanders (MG) - 1 September 1954
- Stormont Dundas & Glengarry Highlanders - 1 August 1959
Perpetuation:
- 154th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force
[edit] Order of precedence
| Preceded by: The Brockville Rifles |
The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders | Succeeded by: Les Fusiliers du St-Laurent |
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