Guy Simonds

Lieutenant-General Guy Granville Simonds, was a senior Canadian Army officer who served with distinction during World War II. Acknowledged by many military historians and senior commanders, among them Sir Max Hastings and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, as one of the best Canadian generals of the war, Simonds, after serving the first few years of the Second World War mainly as a staff officer, commanded the 1st Canadian Infantry Division with distinction in Sicily and Italy from July 1943 until January 1944, and later II Canadian Corps during the Battle of Normandy from June−August 1944 and throughout the subsequent campaign in Western Europe from 1944, towards the end of which he temporarily commanded the First Canadian Army during the Battle of the Scheldt, until victory in Europe Day in May 1945. The historian J. L. Granatstein states the following about Simonds: "No Canadian commander rose higher and faster in the Second World War, and none did as well in action. Simonds owed his success wholly to his own abilities and efforts—and those of the men who served under him."

23 April 1903

Born on the same birth day (23 April): Alexander Ales • Arie den Hartog • Bas Haring • Chuck Harmon • Clifford Bricker • Duncan Renaldo • Issachar Berend Lehmann • James Anthony Froude • James Russo • John Peltz • Joseph Green (actor) • Michael Kadosh • Paul Belmondo • Pierre Labrie • Princess Charlotte Amalie Wilhelmine of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön • Shaun Spiers • Yelena Shushunova

Born in the same month (April 1903): Andrey Kolmogorov • Clare Turlay Newberry • Doc Edgerton • Eliot Ness • Gregor Piatigorsky • Henry Corbin • Jan Tinbergen • John Williams (actor) • Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay • Lionel Chevrier • Luis Saslavsky • M. Balasundaram • Mickey Cochrane • Misuzu Kaneko • Morgan Taylor • Paul Waner • Ruth Svedberg • Ward Bond