The First World War
Officers of The Royal Canadian Regiment

Major Arthur Henry Whittington Landon, O.B.E., M.C.

Soldiers of the First World War database entry - A.H.W. Landon

Capt. A.H.W. Landon, O.B.E., M.C. (1920)

Capt. A.H.W. Landon, O.B.E., M.C., Valcartier Camp, 1920

Capt. & Brevet Major A.H.W. Landon, O.B.E., M.C. (1933)

Capt. & Brevet Major A.H.W. Landon, O.B.E., M.C. (1933)

Service:

First World War Mentions in Despatches:

Biographical Notes by Son, 14 May 1999 (Source)

My father, Arthur Henry Whittington Landon (1889-1968) was actually born in Cyprus where his British army career officer father (Major General Sir Frederick William Bainbridge Landon, 1860-1937--son of the Reverend James Timothy Bainbridge Landon, Vicar of Ledsham, Yorks.) happened to be stationed at the time. By 1912, he had completed four years as an undergraduate history student at Worcester College, Oxford, but never completed his B.A. degree. By that time he had earned a commission as a second lieutenant in the local territorial battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was informed, however, that his eyesight was not quite good enough to qualify for a commission in the British army. Fortunately, the then Canadian minister in charge of the army, Sam Hughes, had been on his father's staff in the South African ("Boer") War, and he arranged for father to take a short course at the RMC, Kingston, in the summer 0f 1912, after which he was commissioned as a 2nd Lt in The Royal Canadian Regiment.

For most of WWI, father was on loan to the British army in France. He used to tell of how he probably saved the life of "the head of the family," the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of L.E.L's father, John Landon, who was then serving as an NCO in the British army (whom he just happened to meet up with), by finding him an office job back at headquarters just before his unit was sent off to the front on a suicidal mission. Back in Canada by the end of 1920 Father spent some time at the RCR regimental headquarters in London, Ont. One of his duties was as regimental Band Officer, and in that capacity he played a part, I forget the details, in the creation of that famous musical group known as "Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians." Father usually got moved about every two years in the interwar period. In the early 1930's he was in Calgary, Alberta, where he met and married my mother, Elizabeth Worthington Fair Landon (1904-80). My older brother, Guy was actually born in London, England, in 1933. I was born in St. John, NB. My younger brother, Christopher Bainbridge Fair Landon was born, 1940, in Halifax, NS, and my youngest brother, James Timothy Whittington Landon (an RMC Sandhurst graduate, formerly of the 10th/11th Hussars, and now a Brigadier in the Oman army and an equerry to Sultan Qabus) was born in Victoria, BC, in 1942.

Father was regarded as too much needed in Halifax to go and fill the position he was down for on paper with the Canadian Army in Europe at the start of WWII, and in 1941 was sent out to Victoria, where we later joined him, shortly before he was reassigned to Vancouver. By the end of the war, he was a brigadier and the number 2 person in Pacific Command under General Pearks (my godfather). His last major assignment was arranging and supervising the transporting of British former POW's of the Japanese across Canada from Vancouver to Halifax on their way home. He retired in the summer of 1946