Earle Birney (b at Calgary 13 May 1904; d at Toronto, Ont 3 Sept 1995).,Throughout his career he was an experimental poet, publishing over 20 books of verse that vary as widely in form and voice as they do in subject. received his public schooling in the mountain village of Banff and his secondary schooling in the Kootenay town of Creston, B.C. During the war he exchanged his Assistant Professorship for uniform and served over three years as a Selection of Personnel Officer. He became Senior "SPO" at the Selection and Appraisal Centre in England and later, until invalided home, was in charge of Personnel Selection for the Canadian Army in the North-West Theatre. On his return to civil life, Major Birney joined the staff of the International Service of the Candadian Broadcasting Corporation as supervisor of Canada's short-wave service to Central Europe.

Birney's World War II experiences inspired the creation of the title character of his comic military novel, Turvey (1949), a saga of one hapless soldier's struggle to get to 'the sharp end' of the fighting in Holland and Germany during 1944-45.