(University of Western Ontario, War, Memory and Popular Culture Archives, accessed via WartimeCanada.ca.)
The full note is transcribed.
First Canadian Army
A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM LT-GEN H.D.G. CRERAR, C.B., D.S.O., GOC-in-C, FIRST CDN ARMY
It is not possible for me to speak to each one of you, but by means of this personal message, I want all ranks of the Canadian Army to know what is in my mind, as the hour approaches when we go forward into battle.
I have complete confidence in our ability to meet the tests which lie ahead. We are excellently trained and equipped. The quality of both senior and junior leadership is of the highest. As Canadians, we inherit military characteristics which were feared
by the enemy in the last Great War. They will still be more feared before this war terminates.
The Canadian formations in the assault landing will have a vital part to play. The plans, the preparations, the methods and the technique, which will be employed, are based on knowledge and experience, bought and paid for by 2 Canadian Division at DIEPPE.
The contribution of that hazardous operation cannot be over-estimated. It will prove to have been the essential prelude to our forthcoming and final success. We enter into this decisive phase of the war with full faith in our cause, with calm confidence
in our abilities and with grim determination to finish quickly and unmistakably this job we came overseas to do.
As in 1918, the Canadians, in Italy and in North West Europe, will hit the enemy again and again, until at some not distant time, the converging Allied Armies link together and we will be rejoined, in Victory, with our comrades of 1 Canadian Corps.
[signature]
(H.D.G. Crerar) Lt-Gen
To be read to all troops.
