Colonel Jim Stone, Noted Canadian War Hero Dies in Victoria,

Led Canadians in Historic Battle of Kapyong in Korean War

Victoria – The officer who led the Canadian Army into the Korean War in 1950 “stubbornly” went to his grave on Thursday, November 24 after a long life of soldiering that made his name famous in the annals of Canada’s military history.

Col James Riley Stone, affectionately known as “Big Jim” to the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry that he took to Korea 55 years ago this month, died in Victoria at age 97.

For several years he had lived at the Lodge at Broadmead, an upscale retirement community. His family had been at his side since last Sunday when he went into decline and was expected to pass at any minute.

Those who served with him would have known that the tough old soldier would hang on for as long as possible, despite the great weight of his years and the stress and strain of the two wars he fought in as a battalion commander.

In Korea, Big Jim Stone led his Patricias in the much heralded “Battle of Kapyong” in which his battalion of little more than 700 men fought off a vast advance by more than 5,000 enemy troops. Despite being surrounded the Patricias held and thwarted the attack in their segment of the front line.

The enemy had tried to reach the vital crossroads at the small city of Kapyong, just 10 kilometres from the battle site and from there would have open highways to the capital of Seoul. Using his uncanny skill of strategically siting his men on favourable high ground and ranging in artillery on enemy advance routes, Stone was able to wage the battle with the loss of just 10 men killed in action, compared to more than 500 enemy killed and more than 1,000 enemy wounded.

For that action the Patricia’s were awarded the US Presidential Citation by President Harry S. Truman.

Jim Stone, who was called “Big Jim” by his men with the greatest respect, was born on February 8, 1908. He was a soldier of a grand style seldom seen, anywhere, in any nation, according to veterans who served with him.

Jim Stone joined the Canadian Army as a recruit private in 1939 at the advanced age of 31 – very old for a soldier in those days.

He enlisted as a recruit in the Edmonton Regiment, later to be renamed the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and popularly known as “The Loyal Eddies.”

He had a certain knack for soldiering, was strong and strong willed. Application of these natural qualities and much hard work and dedication saw him climb through every non-commissioned rank in the Canadian Army and become the Loyal Eddie’s Regimental Sergeant Major.

Jim Stone was stuck in England with his Regiment until 1943 but then the Loyal Eddy’s drew what they all thought was a lucky straw. They were selected as one of the Canadian infantry battalions to serve in the Sicily Invasion in July 1943.

Tens of thousands of other Canadians languished in England for another year until the Normandy landings in June 1944. It was not long until some of Jim’s comrades wished they were back in “Blighty,” too.

Sicily was followed by the campaign in Italy. There the Loyal Edmonton Regiment together with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada were soon in furious battle with units from Germany’s 1st Parachute Regiment at the resort town of Ortona in December. The fighting was terrible, close in, house to house.

By then Jim Stone had received a commission and rapidly had been promoted to major and company commander. At one point in the Battle of Ortona, Major Stone was advancing with a small formation and they were stopped cold by a German anti-tank gun emplacement.

Jim Stone threw a smoke grenade, rushed forward, dropped a fragmentation grenade over the armour shield of the enemy cannon and silenced it. For that singular feat of bravery he was awarded the Military Cross.

The Battle of Ortona began on December 22 and continued over Christmas Day. It did not end until December 27, 1943 when the enemy withdrew. The Loyal Eddies lost 63 men killed in action and the Seaforths had 41 men killed in action.

The Loyal Eddies went on to fight in Germany, too, and by war’s end Jim Stone was a lieutenant colonel commanding the Regiment. He brought it home to Edmonton.

In addition to the Military Cross, he had been awarded two Distinguished Service Orders.

He was commanding officer of the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a militia unit when he lived in Salmon Arm, BC, following the war. He also was engaged in a business there but in July 1950 he was summoned back into service to command the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

He was a tough commander and he made his unit tough, too. He screened out those he deemed not fit for battle and put the others through rigorous training, not only in Canada but in Korea, too.

When his Patricias landed at Pusan in December, 1950, the US Army gave Colonel Stone orders that instructed him to travel north of Seoul and place his Battalion under the command of the 29th British Independent Infantry Brigade, which was on the front line guarding the Imjin River.

Big Jim Stone refused, for the very best of reasons. His Battalion was only four months old and many of the men had barely completed eight weeks of personal training. They had virtually no large unit training and were not ready to enter action as a cohesive battalion.

He borrowed a light plane and flew to Suwon and confronted Lieutenant General Walton Walker, who commanded all United Nations troops in Korea. Stone refused to commit his troops until they had six more weeks of training at the company and battalion level.

The tough American General gave in. Stone took his men to Miryang, just north of Pusan and trained them very hard, as all of those surviving today will attest. They were attacking hills in Korea by mid-February, 1951.

After the PPCLI had participated in its first engagements on Hill 444, 419 and 352, Colonel Stone contracted smallpox and was hospitalized for several weeks.

He returned to the Battalion literally within hours of the enemy breaking through the line in a ferocious all out broad scale assault in late April.

His Battalion, along with the 3rd Battalion of The Royal Australian Regiment, was ordered to take up blocking positions in the Kapyong River Valley and hold the enemy back.

The Patricia’s held a vast area on four mountains on the west side of the valley while the Australians held similar positions to the East. On the night of April 23/24 the Patricia’s came under attack. As Jim Stone attested later “with units buckling all around them the Patricia’s did not give up an inch of ground!”

They stood fast and with masterful use of artillery, machinegun and mortar support, they held off five to ten times their own numbers. Because of their skilled use of ground their own casualties were kept to a minimum.

For several hours on the next day they were completely surrounded but the enemy effort had been blunted. The last major thrust of the Chinese forces had been turned back in their sector.

The enemy would never again attempt a broad scale assault and soon after entered into ceasefire negotiations – although they were to drag on for two full years.

A day after the April 23/24 Battle of Kapyong, LCol Stone was advised that his two-year old daughter Moira had undergone surgery for cancer and had lost an eye and was close to death. The General commanding the 24th US Army Division loaned Stone his light plane and shuttled him to Kimpo Field. He caught a flight to Tokyo where a Canadian Pacific Airlines plane purposefully had gone off schedule waiting for him to arrive.

He returned to action in Korea after spending a mandatory compassionate leave in Canada. During Colonel Stone’s absence from the front the Battalion was commanded by Major Pat Tighe, of Vancouver, the second in command.

For the action at Kapyong and his commendable service in Korea, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Stone was awarded his third Distinguished Service Order - a remarkable achievement.

After Korea Jim Stone was promoted to full Colonel and appointed Provost Marshal of the Canadian Army.

While serving in that position, he founded the Military Police Fund for Blind Children in 1957. It has since contributed tens of millions of dollars in support to blind children through the years, providing for medical needs, equipment, training, guide dogs and recreational activities. The fund helps support eight schools for blind children.

Col Jim Stone was 93 in 2001 when the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Kapyong was commemorated in Korea. He could not be present because of health reasons.

However, one veteran telephoned him from Korea a day in advance and asked if he would accept a telephone call during the ceremonies the next day. The ceremonies were to take place in the Canadian Memorial Gardens at the site of the Battle of Kapyong.

The Canadian Monument that commemorates all Canadians who served in Korea is located there, as is a monument to the PPCLI.

Jim Stone answered the telephone call with booming voice, “Stone here!” After he considered things, he said to go ahead and call the next day. He would be waiting.

There were 50 serving soldiers from the Regiment present at Kapyong who had just returned from service in Bosnia. There were also about 20 Kapyong veterans present who had served with Jim Stone during the battle.

One of them was Major Gordon Henderson, of Surrey, BC, who had been his battle adjutant at Kapyong. Another was Lieutenant Colonel John Bishop, of Victoria, who had been a corporal at Kapyong but who had risen in rank after the war and at one point in his career served as Canada’s Defence Attaché to Korea.

Others present included Private Bernie Cote of Windsor, Ontario, who served in D Company on Hill 677 at Kapyong; Corporal Smiley Douglas of Calgary, who lost a hand at Kapyong and was awarded a Military Medal for bravery in the field; Corporal Don Hibbs of Elliot Lake, Ontario and many other outstanding gentlemen.

When they dialed Jim Stone in Canada the Canadian Defence Attaché’s assistant tried to stop the call from being made “because there was a ceremony taking place.” He was told that the veterans were calling the man who had made the ceremony possible!

Jim Stone spoke cordially and enthusiastically with every one of the Kapyong veterans. He recited along with one of them the PPCLI verse composed by men from his Battalion that boasted of their exploits.

Towards the end of the call he was weeping. He told Gordon Henderson, “I wish that I had come over now!”

When he switched off the hand phone Henderson said, “You know, I think we have added five years to Jim’s life!”

Well, they very nearly did. Big Jim Stone lived for four years and seven months beyond that telephone call.

In 2003, when the Monument to Canadian Fallen was dedicated in Ottawa, Colonel Stone accepted the position of Parade Grand Marshal, although he had to watch the two-hour ceremony on television from his quarters in Victoria.

Major General Herb Pitts, of Victoria, who was a platoon commander with 1st and 3rd PPCLI in Korea and is a member of the board of the Lodge at Broadmead, handled arrangements with Stone. Pitts was awarded a Military Cross for his service in Korea.

When he asked Jim Stone if he would accept the appointment of Parade Grand Marshal, Stone gallantly said, “It would be an honour.”

“No sir, it is us who will be honoured,” Pitts told him with greatest sincerity. General Pitts marched in the Veterans parade in Ottawa, intermingled with more than 100 other PPCLI veterans.

In honour of Colonel Stone, Sergeant Roy Rushton, 85, from Tanner Hill, near Pictou, Nova Scotia, carried the Stone’s commanding officer pennant – a khaki triangle with the red “2 PPCLI” emblazoned on it.

Rushton, a twice wounded World War II veteran of the First Canadian Parachute Battalion who had fought in Normandy, had served with Jim Stone’s Battalion in Korea and twice led platoons in attacks when their officers were wounded or injured.

Roy Rushton led the parade of 1,000 Korean War Veterans as Big Jim Stone’s surrogate and took the salute from then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Rushton marched boldly, swiftly and with great pride.

On learning of Colonel Stone’s death, Rushton sent the following message to General Pitts, hoping it would be passed on to the Stone family:

“With a lump in my throat and moist eyes, I have just heard the sad news of Colonel (Big Jim) Stone's passing.

“I was a self-taught haircutter, not a barber and could do a fair job in cutting hair. The word got to Colonel Stone going over to Korea aboard the troopship Joe P. Martinez and he sent word to me to cut his and the ship Captain's hair.

“When I finished cutting Colonel Stone's hair, he asked me to trim his moustache. While I was trimming, I pinched his lip. Because he didn’t flinch or say anything, I didn’t notice what I had done until I saw blood trickling down his lip. I apologized and he just shrugged it off.

“That little incident was the beginning of the high respect I had for this outstanding soldier. 

“It is impossible to explain the feeling of pride and emotion I felt as I carried his pennant past the saluting base and the large crowd gathered in Ottawa that day.”

Jim Stone was not much on medals and was quite stringent in approving bravery awards for his men. He himself, despite his bias against them, was awarded quite a few.

He held the Order of Canada, three Distinguished Service Orders, the Military Cross, the Italy Star, France Germany Star, the Korean War Medal and various other service medals from World War Two and the Korean War.

At his request, there will be no funeral service. However, he likely knew that his comrades would remember him in a tribute service.  Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, The Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Canadian Military Police will hold a memorial service in his honour and memory at the Jefferson Armouries in Edmonton on Sunday, December 11 at 1 pm. Messages or cards of condolence can be sent to the Stone family c/o PPCLI RHQ, PO Box 10500 Station Forces Edmonton AB T5J 4J5. 

The Stone family encourages donations to the Military Police Fund for Blind Children in Colonel Stone’s memory.