8 Trivia Questions – By E 3103 Victoria Edwards (RMC ’03)
Answers can be found at the end of We Get e-mails
QUESTION #1
Who am I?
- My mother was a countess from a Belgian family that traced its
lineage back to Napoleon’s general Jean-Baptiste Dumonceau. My
paternal grandmother was descended from some of the very first Quebec settlers.
- My father, a lieutenant general in the Canadian army, was the son of
one-time private secretary to J.A. Macdonald and a lifelong public
servant who was credited with setting up the Department of External
Affairs and choosing Canada’s heraldic motto “a mari usque ad mare”
(from sea to sea).
- My great-grandfather, after whom I was named, was one of the Fathers of Confederation.
- I entered the class of 40 at Royal Military College. After
graduating, I joined the Voltigeurs of Quebec and then the Royal 22e –
a French Canadian regiment.
- As a Lieutenant on May 19th 1944 on the Italian front, I objected
when a German officer took me prisoner: “I come from a military
family and cannot accept the dishonour of being made a prisoner, So
long as I have reason to believe we will all be repatriated, I will
not try to escape; but as soon as I come to realize that we won’t be,
then it will be my duty to escape.” Eleven days later, I escaped on
my way to a Prisoner of War camp. I fought behind enemy lines for the
next two months before rejoining his own Canadian regiment. I was
twice mentioned in despatches in World War II,
- I was awarded the Military Cross during the Korean War and promoted
to major.
- In peacetime, I pursued university studies part-time and held a series of staff and regimental posts until the late 1950s. In 1959, I publicized my opposition to NATO defensive strategy of limited nuclear war in an article for the Canadian Army Journal, and, a few months later, I submitted my resignation from the military.
- After resigning from the army, I took on political work with the socialist CCF. I worked an assistant to the federal leaders of the CCF and the NDP, Hazen Argue and Tommy Douglas, and served as president of the Social Democratic Party (CCF) in Quebec. As a graduate student, at the University of Ottawa and then the University of Toronto, I ran several times as an NDP candidate but later lost faith in the conventional parliamentary parties.
- From 1967-1987, I taught in Ryerson’s Department of Economics and published widely. My first book was The Elephant and the Mouse (McClelland & Stewart, 1971).
- I was a founding member of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER), and was a candidate and shadow finance committee chairman in the short-lived National Party during the early 1990s.
- After my retirement in 1987, I continued to write. Although my last textbook, All You Must Know About Economics, appeared in 1996, I later wrote my war memoirs.
- Ryerson established an award and a scholarship for academic
excellence in my honour.a) 2796 William Harold (Henry) Pope (RMC 1940)
b) 2795 John H Poag (RMC 1940)
c) 2820 J.W. Williams (RMC 1940)
QUESTION #2
Who am I?
- I was born in New Hamburg and graduated from Royal Military College with honours in 1938. I entered law school that same year.
- In 1939, I joined the Navy and was overseas by June 1940 on loan to the Royal Navy where, as a Lieutenant-Commander, I led one of two flotillas of motor torpedo boats crewed by Royal Canadian Navy ratings, patrolling the English Channel and the North Sea. I was awarded the D.S.O. and remained active with the peacetime Navy, attaining the rank of Captain. In 1942, I married my English war bride, Winifred.
- I graduated from Osgoode Hall in 1945 and practiced law briefly in Kitchener before being appointed a magistrate in 1950.
- I served as a judge of the Ontario Provincial Court (Criminal, Juvenile and Family Divisions) until 1991. I was concurrently a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo, Galt, Preston and Hespeler Police Commissions and of the Waterloo Regional Police Service Board for forty-two years.
- My volunteer work included serving as a Member and Chairman of the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation; as President of the Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ Association and the Association of Municipal Police Governing Authorities; he was also the Honourary President of the Big Brothers Association of Kitchener-Waterloo, the K-W Naval Veterans’ Association and the Galt Naval Veterans’ Association.
- In 1991, the headquarters of the Waterloo Regional Police, was named after me – for which I was greatly honoured. I have been described as wise, fun, sportsmanlike, fair, supportive and, as one colleague said, “the clearest person with words I have ever known.”
a) 2373 Captain Bob L.F.G. Borden (RMC 1934)
b) 2377 Captain G.R. Corkett (RMC 1934)
c) 2381 Captain Alec W.A. Deroche (RMC 1934)
d) 2404 Captain Desmond E.D.B. Magee (RMC 1934)
e) 2397 Captain James R. H. Kirkpatrick (RMC 1934)
QUESTION #3
Trivia
A) Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean gave a speech on the occasion of the reopening of the Royal Military College Saint- Jean on Saturday, May 24, 2008. On November 13, 1952, which Governor General opened the Royal Military College Saint-Jean?
a) Vincent Massey
b) Georges Vanier
c) Roland Michener
c) Harold AlexanderB) Which former commandant, who was at the reopening of the Royal Military College Saint-Jean, wrote a play Chambre 204 (Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu: Editions Mille Roches, 1982) inspired by his time at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean.
a) 3759 Colonel Charles-Eugène Savard, OMM, CD, ADC (CMR 1957)
b) 5359 Colonel J. Yvon Durocher, CD, ADC (CMR/RMC 1962)
c) 4377 Lt-Gen. (ret’d) Richard J. Evraire, CD (CMR/RMC 1959)C) Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is a garrison town with a long military
tradition stretching back to the construction of the original Fort
Saint-Jean in 1666-1667. A series of military posts were built along
the Richelieu, which gave the Haut-Richelieu Region its name:a) “Valley of the Forts”.
b) “Old Fort community”
c) “Portage du Fort “
d) “Sécurité du Fort”
e) “Fort Severight”
QUESTION #4
Who Am I?
- I attended the Royal Military College in Kingston
- I served as an officer in Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians).
- I was totally blinded during WW II
- I was unable to get any eastern Canadian publishers interested in my memoir about my struggle to adjust to my disability
- Retired Alberta rancher Gray Campbell published Blind Date (Gray’s Publishing, 1962; 1963) with a forward by Major-General the Honourable George Pearkes, VC and the introduction by Lord Fraser of Lonsdale.
- I won a CBC-TV show called Live A Borrowed Life, forerunner to Front Page Challenge.
- Blind Date was the first book from Gray’s Publishing and led to the growth of the British Columbia’s main commercial publishing house during the 1960s.
- I published Nowhere Else to Go: “The Man Behind the Scenes” (Gray’s Publishing, 1964), a biography of Jerry Gosley of the Smile Show.
- I also wrote Night Drop at Ede (1982), the story of Len Mulholland who was a hero in World War II as a Dutch resistance fighter in the service of the British.
a) 2717 Captain (Ret’d) John J.B. Windsor (RMC 1939) Deceased 3/6/1998
b) 2684 Captain (Ret’d) Gerald G.P. Harrison (RMC 1939) Deceased 3/10/1994
c) 2677 LCol (Ret’d) Hugh EA Devitt (RMC 1939) Deceased 8/16/2006
d) 2678 LCol (Ret’d) Yves JV Dupuis (RMC 1939) 12/18/2007
QUESTION #5
Trivia
A) Piezoelectrics is the term used to describe materiels, e.g. crystals and certain ceramics, which tend to change their dimensions when an electrical current is applied through them. Over the years many new piezoelectric materials and new applications for those materials have been explored and developed. Which was the first practical application for piezoelectric devices?
a) sonar
b) ceramic phonograph cartridges
c) ultrasonic time-domain reflectometers
d) piezoceramic filters, used in radios
e) piezoelectric igniter, used in gas grillB) The brothers Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie demonstrated the direct piezoelectric effect in 1880. Which of the following crystals, did the Curie’s find generated the most piezoelectric potential?
a) crystals of tourmaline
b) quartz and Rochelle salt (sodium potassium tartrate tetrahydrate)
c) topaz,
d) cane sugar
QUESTION #6
Who am I?
- I was born on May 6th, 1893, in Toronto, Ontario.
- I studied at Ridley College, a private school in St. Catharines, Ontario from 1903-1908.
- In 1997, while I was at Ridley, the Cadet Corps was formed and uniforms were sent from the Department of Militia.
- For grades 10 and 11, I went to Europe and spent two years at Haileybury College in Hertford, England. While I was there, I joined the Cadet Corps and studied French and German.
- During the summer of 1910, I won many awards for swimming.
- I returned to Ridley, in January 1911, to prepare for my entrance exam into the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario.
- When war was declared between England and Germany, I was on a canoe trip with a friend. When I returned, I received two telegrams, one of which wanted me to join the imperial army and the other one asked me if I would go to the Queen’s Own Rifles of Toronto (My father’s regiment), which I was entered for commission.
- On August 22, 1914, I went to Valcartier, as a lieutenant in the third Battalion. My father said “You have taken the only way; follow it, and remember that you are an instrument in the hand of God to do his will.” On September 25th, I embarked with his battalion on the Tunisian, reaching Plymouth on the 1st of October. On February 16, 1915, I went to the trenches in Armentiéres, France. I fought in the battle of St. Julien where I was appointed Machine Gun Officer in 1915, and also the Captain of Company.
- On June 13th, 1916, Captain Marani was severely injured in battle and gave control to me. After a long day of work, while they were resting, a shell entered the doorway of the dugout, and exploded, instantly killing me. Others were also mortally wounded or severely injured. The family believes that if I had lived a little longer, I would have received a distinguished service order and would have been raised to the rank of major.
a) 790 A.G. Lawson (RMC 1911)
b) 791 A.B. Van Straubenzee (RMC 1911)
c) 797 W.J.S. Hendrie (RMC 1911)
d) 805 C.W.G. Gibson (RMC 1911)
e) 810 J.F.J. Blanchard (RMC 1911)
f) 817 J. O’Reilly (RMC 1911)
QUESTION #7
Who am I?
- I was the son of a Colonel and related to one of the Fathers of Confederation.
- When I started at RMC, the college was still small and the original class of eighteen cadets were beginning the second half of its four year course.
- Seven British Officers, a Canadian serving in the British Army, and five Canadians formed the instructional staff, when I arrived. RMC offered courses in fortification, military engineering, artillery, military law, administration, surveying, geometry, physics, chemistry and geology.
- I was not among the top four graduates who were offered commissions in the British army, consequently, like most other graduates from RMC at the time, a civil career awaited me. I worked for 2 years with the Canadian Pacific Railway in Ontario.
- Thirty years after the Crimean war, the sudden threat of another war between Russia and Britain, meant that I gazetted Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in January, 1886.
- I studied at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, England
- In 1887, I volunteered for service in India. I spent most of thenext 20 years on engineering assignments (military and civilian) in the Punjab and the Northwest Frontier.
- I saw active service in Burma (medal with clasps) and received thanks of the Government of India for service in connection with the defense of Attock, Punjaub.
- In 1891-2, I was executive engineer in charge of special defense division at Rangoon, Lower Burma.
- In 1885 I joined the expedition for the relief of Chittral as assistant field engineer (medal with clasp). I was promoted and stationed in India.
- In 1918, following service in the First World War, I retired from the army.
a) 25 MGen. (ret’d) Sir William Throsby Bridges (RMC 1879)
b) 51 Col. (ret’d) George Mowat Duff (RMC 1882)
c) 52 Capt. (ret’d) William Grant Stairs (RMC 1882)
d) 45 LCol. (ret’d) Edward Thornton Taylor (RMC 1878)
QUESTION #8
Who am I?
- After graduating from the Royal Military College, I served in both World Wars.
- I fought on the Western Front with the Royal Canadian Engineers from 1916 to 1918.
- Between the wars, I attended the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, England, and the Staff College at Quetta, British India, and was an instructor at Royal Military College in Kingston. In 1939, as a Lt-Col, I attended the Imperial Defence College, London, England.
- During World War II, I commanded the 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade,the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, the 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division (Jan-March 1944), and the I Canadian Corps (Mar-Nov 1944). The Canadian forces were particularly successful in the Italian Campaign.
- I served as Deputy Minister of Veterans’ Affairs
- I served as a President of the United Nations Association of Canada (UNAC) during the 1950s.
- I played a critical role in the Middle East peace process from 1954 to 1959. I served as a Special Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine (1954-56) with the Department of External Affairs and was thus nearby when the Suez Crisis of 1956 occurred.
- I led the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) from November 1956 to December 1959.
- I was instrumental in developing UN peacekeeping as Chief of Staff in 1954, United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which was designed to maintain the General Armistice Agreements until permanent peace could be formulated.
- I was Canada’s principal disarmament negotiator from 1960-68.
- In 1967 I was made a Companion of the Order of Canada as for my services to Canada at home and abroad. I was described as a Former Chief of General Staff and Canadian adviser on disarmament in Geneva.
- I he held the chair of Strategic Studies at the Norman Paterson School for International Affairs, Carleton University in 1969-75.
- I wrote “Between Arab and Israeli” (1962); “General Mud: memoirs of two World Wars” (1970) and Defense in the Nuclear Age (1976)
- I was the 1981 recipient of the Pearson Medal of Peace.
a) 1032 LGen (Ret’d) (Tommy) E.L.M. Burns (RMC 1914)
b) 1029 BGen (Ret’d) George GP Morrison (RMC 1913)
c) 1119 B-Gen (Ret’d) John JH Price (RMC 1915)
d) 1131 BGen (Ret’d) Stanley PAS Todd (RMC 1915)
e) 727 BGen (Ret’d) D.A. White (RMC 1909)