A member of
the 7th Green Howards (the local
territorial battalion) John was one of four Filey casualties who belonged to
this particular unit; the other three were Sgt. Carlton Edwards, Pte. Joseph Jefferson and Pte. Eric Major.
The 7th Green Howards had fought at Dunkirk
and had been evacuated before spending the next twelve months in Britain. At this point they were re-assigned to fight
against Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The campaign
was to be an eventual hard won victory, but at the time of John’s death fierce
fighting was still on going to take the Allies first tentative steps back into Europe.
John however, died in Italy more than
nine months before any Allied Armed forces set foot onto Italian soil; as
puzzling as this may seem it can be given a simple explanation. During late May and June 1942 the Allies were
engaged in heavy and sustained fighting around the region of Tobruk and at this point their campaign was not going
well. Rommel’s
troops were attacking the region and overwhelming the Allied forces stationed
there, a force that at the time included the 7th Green Howards. After
several days of fighting it was estimated that nearly 28,000 Allied troops had
been captured and made prisoners of war, whilst the German Army continued its
advance unabated. The majority of these
captured troops were marched and eventually shipped to the nearest Axis
country, Italy, and it was
in one of these camps near the town of Caserta that John died in mid
December 1942.
It is unknown if he succumbed to
wounds received during the battle for Tobruk or
whether he died of one of the many diseases that travelled around the camps due
to their poor hygiene, but he was laid to rest in the camp’s cemetery on the
day of his death.