News

Regimental Commanding Officers - #10

Lt. Col. Philip Lawrence Debney, MM, ED, CD

Today’s Loyal Edmonton Regiment traces its lineage back to the formation of the 101st Regiment in 1908.  Over time there have been many changes in name, organization and taskings.  One interesting thread in all this change is who commanded the regiment.  With this article we continue a series looking at those Commanding Officers.  

Philip Debney was the fifth soldier to command The Edmonton Regiment’s Non-Permanent Active Militia battalion after its formation in 1920.  During the First World War he had served as a bombardier in the Canadian Field Artillery and was awarded the Military Medal. Debney was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, Edmonton Regiment in December 1925 and by March of 1935 was promoted lieutenant colonel and served as the regiment’s Commanding Officer to March 1939. He subsequently went on to serve in the Canadian Engineers in the Second World War and ended his active service as the first commanding officer of the newly formed 8th Field Engineer Regiment from 1947 to 1951.  For more on this read the article in our latest newsletter at the link below.

Remember 21-4

This is the thirtieth in a series of quarterly newsletters originally recognizing 100th anniversary events of the First World War, with emphasis on Edmonton’s 49th Battalion, and 75th anniversary events of the Second World War, with emphasis on The Edmonton Regiment/The Loyal Edmonton Regiment.  These stories came to an end with our 2019-1 and 2020-3 editions respectively. However, there are still many stories to be told about our regiment, past and present, including our newest series of articles on our regimental commanding officers.  We will also be expanding our focus on the museum itself with articles related to more current events and with stories about some of the interesting artefacts and archival materials in our collection.

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