solid competent individuals" while the "performance of the brigades during and right after the landing was marvelous". During the Battle of Caen, which followed the D-Day landings, Lieutenant-General John Crocker, the GOC of 1st British Corps reported to General Sir Miles Dempsey, the GOC of the 2nd British Army, on 5 July 1944 that Keller was not a leader as he drank constantly on the job and spent too much time with his mistress in London instead of leading his division. Crocker also reported that the real leaders of the 3rd Division were Côté and Mingay, observing the three brigadiers commanding the three brigades that made up the 3rd Division preferred to deal with Côté and Mingay instead of Keller as the general feeling in the division was that Keller was "yellow". The Canadian historian Douglas Delaney wrote that Crocker's statement about the 3rd Division suffering from "despondency" was overstated, being the result of talking with the staff and the brigadiers of the division who wanted to see Keller sacked. Keller finally collapsed under the stress, suffering a nervous break-down, and was relieved of command on 8 August 1944. Côté served with the 3rd Division during the Battle of Caen and in the Battle of the Scheldt. For courage under fire, Côté was mentioned in dispatches. Another of Côté's friends, General Jean Victor Allard, described Côté as having worked "brilliantly" as quartermaster, commenting that Côté was one of the relatively few French-Canadians to reach a position of authority in an Army dominated overwhelmingly by English-Canadians. In December 1944, he returned to Canada to be promoted colonel and given an array of senior jobs in the Department of National Defense in Ottawa as the vice-adjutant general of medical and dental corps. Côté' owned his appointment due to the Conscription crisis of 1944 that saw Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King sack Colonel Ralston as Defense Minister in November 1944 and appoint Ralston's long-standing foe, General McNaughton, as the new Defense minister. McNaughton and Ralston had been feuding ever since 1929 when Ralston had first served as Defense Minister. McNaughton did not trust the officials who had served under Ralston and wanted to bring in men he knew and trusted, which led for him to bring Côté to Ottawa. During this time, Côté met Lieutenant Madeleine Frémont and married her on 16 June 1945 in Ottawa. Fremont was the daughter of the