Warrior Chiefs: Perspectives on Senior Canadian Military Leaders

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. He is the author of Who Killed Canadian History? and co-author
of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Infl

The book was produced as the result of a major initiative on Officer
Professional Development undertaken by the Canadian Forces in the
post-Somalia period. With the Canadian military and its leadership left
reeling in the worst crisis in modern times, some wise heads decided
that one way to look forward was to study the past for examples. With 17
essays by scholars, one journalist, and several senior and junior
officers, the book naturally is uneven. Roman Jarymowycz’s chapter on
General Guy Simonds, for example, seems very rash in judgment,
especially when compared to the careful examinations of Simonds’s
World War II contemporaries by Dean Oliver and Bill Rawling. Their
examinations of Generals Harry Crerar and A.G.L. McNaughton, though
brief, add something to the existing literature. So too do the chapters
on Admirals L.W. Murray and Harold Grant, respectively commanders who
led the navy through the Battle of the Atlantic and into the postwar
years. There is also much that is new here in the papers on Air Marshals
Wilf Curtis and Roy Slemon, on “Mad Jimmy” Dextraze in the Congo,
and on General Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda.

Warrior Chiefs adds much to what we know of the personalities and
careers of Canadian senior officers. That the Department of National
Defence had to initiate such a study, while wholly commendable, says
much about the weak condition of Canadian military history. That the
book is as good as it is offers hope for the future of the discipline.