Guy Simonds

Lieutenant-General Guy Granville Simonds CC, CB, CBE, DSO, CD (April 23, 1903–May 15, 1974) was a senior officer of the Canadian Army who commanded the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and II Canadian Corps during World War II. He served as acting commander of the First Canadian Army, leading the Allied forces to victory in the Battle of the Scheldt in late 1944. In 1951 he was appointed Chief of the General Staff, the most senior member of the Canadian Army.

Family Background

Guy was born in Ixworth, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England on April 24, 1903.

Simonds came from a military family: his great-grandfather had been in the army of the Honourable East India Company, his grandfather had been a major-general in the British Indian Army and his father an officer in the British Army's Royal Regiment of Artillery. The Simonds family was related to Ivor Maxse and Lord Milner. On his maternal side, his grandfather William Easton was a wealthy Virginian horse breeder, who had moved to England, renting Ixworth Abbey. Eleanor "Nellie" Easton, his mother, was one of five daughters, four of whom married army officers.