Michael George Levy

Michael George Levy (1925 – 4 June 2007) was a British and Canadian military officer.

Levy was born in Bombay (now Mumbai, India) as the oldest of four siblings and raised in Shanghai, where he attended the Shanghai Public School for Boys. During the Second World War he was arrested by the Japanese and sent first to Pootung Internment Camp, and subsequently transferred to the Lunghua Civil Assembly Centre. He escaped from Lunghua with four other internees who made their way on foot and by junk to India.

His subsequent postings included Germany, Vietnam, and Cyprus, where he was deputy commander of the Canadian peacekeepers. From 1968-69 he attended and graduated from the United States Marine Corps Command And Staff College in Quantico, Virginia. He then served with the Canadian Defence Liaison Staff in Washington, DC, and with the Military Intelligence Directorate at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. He retired in 1974 at the rank of major. Author Hub Gray later discovered an incident recorded by communications officer Mel Canfield regarding Levy. Canfield wrote that Colonel James Riley Stone had remarked that he would "not award a medal to a Jew"; this antisemitic prejudice (although Levy did not identify as Jewish) resulted in the award instead going to Captain Wally Mills, who had relayed Levy's coordinates during the battle. As a result of Gray's advocacy, in 2004 Levy received a grant of arms; the motto on his coat of arms was "I have prevailed".