Morris (Two Gun) Cohen, soldier

A troublemaker from the getgo, Morris (Two Gun) Cohen was born in 1887 into a poor Orthodox Jewish family in Poland. Growing up in London’s East End, Cohen skipped school every chance he got, preferring to spend his time at the boxing ring or picking pockets. It caught up to him, and eventually he was arrested.

His parents, ashamed of his antics, sent the 16-year-old to live with family in Whitewood, Sask., hoping it would straighten him out. It had the opposite effect; Cohen learned to handle horses, shoot guns and play cards.

By 1912, he had built a small real estate and gambling empire for himself in Edmonton. He continued to have brushes with the law.

Things took a dramatic turn when Cohen, having built connections with Chinese railroad workers, met Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. The two became close, and Cohen joined the Chinese National League. When the war broke out, he served as sergeant of the Canadian Railway Troops. Because of his relationship with the Chinese, Cohen spent much of the war looking out for members of the Chinese Labour Corps. He was wounded twice, but lost his stripes after going AWOL.

After the war, Cohen served as Yat-sen’s bodyguard in China, where he earned his nickname for carrying two weapons simultaneously. When Yat-sen died in 1925, Cohen was promoted to general and granted pension. Following the Japanese invasion of China, he was captured in Hong Kong while trying to rescue Yatsen’s wife. He spent nearly two years in a concentration camp until he was released in 1943 and sent back to Canada.