Charcoal drawing (sketch) of Brigadier Sydney Wilfred Thomson in service dress with General Staff tabs circa 1940s by Jack Harmon. Brigadier Syd Thomson, who died aged 94, led the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada both in capturing the Adriatic port of Ortona and in inventing town-clearing tactics which were adopted by the British Army. He took over command of the Seaforths on December 10 1943 when, together with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, they set about evicting battle-hardened German paratroops from Ortona. Thomson was awarded the DSO for his gallantry. The son of a Scottish mayor of the town of Salmon Arm, British Columbia, who had a General Motors dealership, Sydney Wilford Thomson was born on November 14 1914. He left school to work for his father and local farmers, and joined the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a rural militia regiment, as a boy signaller. By the time war broke out he had been commissioned; and, after further training, he was sent to Britain as a reinforcement officer for the Canadian Seaforths. His next three years were spent mainly in Sussex and Kent before he led a company in Operation Husky, the assault on Sicily, in July 1943. There was little opposition from the bewildered Italian defenders. But two days later the Seaforths met a roadblock inland, where a burst of fire wounded Thomson in the right leg. By early October he was back commanding a company again, and was awarded a Military Cross for his skill and personal gallantry in driving the enemy from Hill 1007, near Foiana di Val Fortore south of Campobasso. Following the crossing of the Moro River, the heavy fighting at San Leonardo and the capture of Ortona, the Canadians were involved in some of the heaviest fighting as they helped smash through the defensive lines Gothic and Hitler. When the Seaforths captured the eastern end of the heavily defended Covignano ridge and the town of Le Grazie, the Germans were forced to withdraw from Rimini. Thomson ended the war with Canadian II Corps in Northwest Europe, and earned a mention in despatches commanding the Black Watch in the final stages of its advance to the Weser River in eastern Germany. After the war, Thomson kept in close touch with reserve forces in British Columbia, while taking a variety of jobs. He started a tourist resort with Colonel Jim Stone, a former trapper who had commanded the Edmonton regiment. He tried running a mine on Vancouver Island and took a share in a bowling alley. When the Korean War broke out in 1950 the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry needed a commanding officer for its 2nd battalion. Thomson and Stone tossed for it. Stone won, and Thomson became part of the United Nations observer unit in Kashmir instead. He eventually joined Hiram Walker and Sons, the Canadian distillers, and for several years was head of its European sales in London. As a member of the Vintners Company, he was one of the few Canadians to be made a Freeman of the City. Syd Thomson, who died on November 8, 2008, married Catriona Bromley-Martin, from Streat Place, Sussex. She died in 2000.