Female commanders

Thank you greatly for the excellent and detailed look at Princess Patricia by Patricia Treble (“Canada’s princess,” Royals, April 2019). For 60 years, the princess was the namesake for one of Canada’s great infantry regiments, and was its first colonel-in-chief. But thankfully, the storyline does not end there. Two other fine and powerful women have carried this role since, both equally adept at the job. Lady Patricia helped ensure that she would be followed by her niece, then Patricia Knatchbull, who—a er her father, Louis Mountbatten, was killed by the IRA in 1979—became the 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma. This colonel-in-chief was also known as Lady Patricia to the regiment, and served very actively for 33 years, visiting the soldiers of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry across Canada and in the U.K., Cyprus

and the former Yugoslavia. When the second Lady Patricia became unable to continue her duties, she helped arrange with her cousin HRH Queen Elizabeth, and at the request of the PPCLI, that for the first time in Canadian history a Canadian woman be appointed colonel-in-chief of a Canadian regular regiment. Former governor general Adrienne Clarkson eagerly accepted and became the third colonel-in-chief in 2007; she has already served beyond her first decade with devotion and energy. She had gotten to know the regiment when she was commanderin-chief, and her husband was the son of a Patricia officer. Thus, the pattern of devotion and high quality of service established by the original Patricia did not die with her, but has been carried forward these 105 years of the regiment’s service to Canada by two other outstanding women. Vince Kennedy, brigadier-general (retired), Colonel of the Regiment, PPCLI, Brockville, Ont.